Christina Aguilera covers the latest issue Cosmopolitan because she’s promoting her new tour, the Liberation Tour. I can go months without hearing about Aguilera or even really thinking about her – I do admire the way she’s managed to go low-key, especially in the past five years or so. I once thought she was just a messy drunk who didn’t have much of a career left. But she’s refocused, reorganized, and she seems a bit calmer and more sober now. She’s even experimenting with a more natural look, and she literally looks a decade younger. She chats about makeovers (and makeunders) and a lot more to Cosmo. Some highlights:
On going totally natural on the cover of her new album Liberation: “I still love getting glammed up, but I want to show imperfections on this go-round. It’s scary, but I’m up for the challenge. You can’t tell me something I haven’t already heard about myself anyway.”
On her upcoming tour, The Liberation Tour: “With this record, I’m stripping back a lot and just trying to find myself again—just the true love and the art in the process, and not just going for some formulaic sort of force-fed direction that we can get caught up in. So I want to flip it on its ear and I want to do something completely unexpected from a pop-formatted show—a fresh perspective that I’ve never done this of a tour before—super creative, super interesting.”
On the flack she received for her Stripped makeover: “It’s hard to hear yourself being called names. I remember being hurt by these commercials on MTV, pitting Britney as the good girl and me as the bad girl. It’s like, if I’m going to be demure and innocent, that’s okay. But if I’m going to just be myself, I’m trouble.”
On women owning their bodies and being themselves: “I love the female body, and I think it’s something to be proud of, not something that men should dictate ownership of. ‘Dirrty’ was extremely controversial at the time, but it would be nothing now. I hope I paved the way and helped set the ground rules that women can be any version of themselves they wanna be…and proud of it.”
On avoiding pairing up with another celebrity: “I’ve had opportunities, but it isn’t my style to date another person in the business. There’s gotta be something wrong with you if you want to be in this business. I mean, hi! I definitely have my issues. I think that I can only handle one [celebrity] in the relationship, and I need to be it.”
I wonder about the “I’ve had opportunities to be with a celebrity” thing. I mean, I’m sure there were actors and artists who were interested in her, but was it really some conscious choice she made years ago to not date celebrities? Or is it more like the best celebrity dudes were like “eh, maybe not”? I’m just saying – I wouldn’t want to date most celebrity men either, but if Clive Owen was like “let’s give this a go,” I would give up literally everything. As for what she says about Stripped and her Dirrty Girl persona… she’s sort of right, but I also think that it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if she didn’t have that Britney-esque image BEFORE that.
Cover courtesy of Kai Z. Feng for Cosmopolitan, additional photo courtesy of WENN.
She’s very unlikable
She was known for being extremely rude at her peak,I guess she has had some humble pie since.
She was probably forced by managers to have the Britneyesque look early in the carreer because they were both singing the same kind of music and Britney was more famous then. I don’t believe the whole Stripped persona was Xtina, I think she wanted to distance herself from the good girl crafted persona and went with the very opposite.
Still baffles me how Xtina, being so talented, isn’t as big as she could be.
Char I agree with you. She’s one of the best vocalists. Remember her singing “It’s A Man’s World” during the James Brown Tribute.
She has a strong voice but I don’t particularly enjoy her style of singing, there’s no subtlety to it.
She and Britney were both in the Micky Mouse Club together so they were always going to be compared to each other as well to the “safe for family”, pure-as-day image all Disney performers have to transition from.
I’m a fan of hers, but I’m not surprised she isn’t bigger. She picks bad singles, makes awful music videos and has terrible style. It’s a shame because she is talented. Take the Lotus album for example….that had some great potential singles, but she screwed it up by releasing Your Body and Just a Fool – two mediocre songs. Plus she looked awful during that era.
LOVE your body and thought she looked so hot in that film clip. It was a big eff you to society – she was a bit heavier but she didn’t shy away from showing her body and she looked fantastic
“I’m sure there were actors and artists who were interested in her, but was it really some conscious choice she made years ago to not date celebrities? Or is it more like the best celebrity dudes were like “eh, maybe not”?”
So she can’t make a decision herself not to date celebrity men? Why is it so unbelievable that someone who grew up in the industry might not want to date someone else in it?
I’ve always had a soft spot for Xtina (and Brit and Jessica, all the pop-starlets from that era).
I want her to be successful, but I haven’t been into her music for a long time. She always seemed to be chasing trends music-wise and never really developed her own style musically. She also never really played to her strengths when releasing singles (ballads… “Beautiful” is an amazing song).
I like ‘Liberation’ a lot more than her last two albums. This is my third favorite Xtina album- Stripped is of course #1 and Back to Basics is #2.
I was in the room when she preformed Lady Marmalade at the 2001 MTV Movie Awards. It was startling how hard she blew the rest of the ladies out of the water. The room literally shook when she did her solo.
I just wish she would release more music… it’s always years between her albums. I feel like she really lost focus on the music.
Yeah, that’s always been annoying. She claims that the wait won’t be as long this time for the next album though. I heard it may be another Spanish one.
where is clive owen by the way? the music video for her first single off this album was embarrassing for her IMO. she was trying way too hard to hit you over the head with overt pornography-nothing suggested and seemingly just to get a response as opposed to an artist expressing herself. it looked desperate IMO.
i’m not a wendy williams fan, but she described it as, ‘this is how you try to compete in a Rhianna world’
She looks like an older version of both Dakota and Elle Fanning in this photo shoot.
It’s too bad her single with Demi did nothing… It was a good song and very appropriate for these times.
Her voice is amazing. She’s a true talent.