Sara Cwynar for W MagazineThe quintessential strong female pop star, it’s hard to imagine anyone bossing around Christina Aguilera. But in a new interview with W magazine, she recalls a time early in her career when she was at the mercy of executives who controlled her image.
In a video for W, Christina looks back at some of her iconic video looks. While commenting on the clip for her first hit, “Genie in a Bottle,” she recalled that in those days, her record company decided how she would present herself visually.
“I remember just being in these fittings where I would be watched by certain members of the label and it was very, like, ‘Well, that’s approved, that’s not approved…,'” she says. “So it was super-confining and super-restricting and it made me feel like, y’know, a weird Barbie of sorts. But…at least it was successful enough to get my foot in the door.”
It’s no wonder that on her second album, Stripped, Christina transformed herself into the rebellious “Xtina,” sporting chaps, long dyed hair extensions and piercings. That rebellious spirit continues today, with her empowering new duet with Demi Lovato, “Fall In Line.”
The song — a message to girls to follow their dreams and not let men keep them down — is intro’d on the album by Christina’s three-year-old daughter, Summer, and her friends, who say, “When I grow up, I want to be a screenwriter.… I want to be a superhero.… I want to be a boss.… I want to be the boss.… I wanna be president.”
“You hear ‘Fall in Line’ and maybe think it was inspired by this time,” Christina tells W, referring to the #MeToo movement and Donald Trump‘s presidency. “And it’s not. It was created years ago. It’s something I’ve always felt very strongly.”
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