Christina Aguilera Got Candid About the Industry’s Expectation to Stay a ‘Skinny Teenager’

This month marks twenty-five years since Christina Aguilera first made her music debut—and she got candid with Glamour about all the trauma she’s incurred from the entertainment industry.

The pop icon pulled no punches when asked about her abusive childhood: “It gave me a real purpose of, I’m going to fight my way through these feelings. I’m going to fight my way past someone that has wronged me.”; growing up fast: “I’ve seen so much so young.”; and being forced into a bubblegum pop paradigm: “Creatively, it was one-dimensional.” The conversation will quickly remind you of how young stars in the early aughts suffered near-constant national scrutiny due largely in part to toxic tabloid culture. Their bodies, as millennials well recall (and are probably still working through their own body image issues as a result), were particularly picked apart.

In the interview, Aguilera recalled the time period, noting that as her body changed throughout her years in the glaring spotlight, her self-esteem remained dependent on how thin she was.

“When you’re a teenager, you have a very different body than when you’re in your 20s,” Aguilera said. “I started to fill out, and then that was unacceptable because it was like, ‘Oh, she’s getting thicker.’ Then I had industry people: ‘They liked your body and how you were as a skinny teenager.’” Though the admission is hardly surprising by industry standards, it’s never not disheartening to learn—once again—that the most commercially successful, exponentially talented artists are usually the most marred by the sexist, ageist, and infantilizing criticism of out-of-touch studio suits.

Fortunately, Aguilera says she has a newfound comfort in growing older, and all of that Ozempic speculation doesn’t seem to bother her all that much.

“I have a maturity now where I just don’t give a fuck about your opinion. I’m not going to take it on,” she said. “Other people’s opinions of me are not my business.”

“I know where I’ve been. I know what I’ve loved. I know what I haven’t loved,” Aguilera added. “And now more than ever, I just feel more wide-awake and more aware and more understanding. I’m not here to be a programmed robot. I’m here as a human being first before being a celebrity.”

Well, then. Good on her!