Famous Faces
Who’s that girl?
She speaks in a slip of a whisper, sings with a roar of the soul. She relishes pain so that she can turn it on its head. When you think she’s all over blonde, she’ll show you dark. Christina Aguilera has made an art of transformation. But what is she really like? Chrissy Iley investigates.
PEOPLE often comment about Christina, ‘such a little girl, such a big voice’. So I was expecting small, although maybe not quite this small and practically like an ironing board in profile. Under five feet in heels, a stripy T-shirt, hair in an anonymous bandana, skin an even, dark caramel.
We’re sitting in the twilight buzz of a Beverly Hills hotel, her enormous bodyguard Verne on the one side as we take up a whole block of seats. Her little brother has his arms around her neck and, at first, it’s like I’m invading the Aguilera entourage and very much like she’d rather be doing something else.
Not that long ago, she was ridiculed for bad hair extensions and dodgy dress sense. Now she’s moved through the embarrassment with incredible ease and turned it all around — just as she turned the bad memories of her violent childhood into the amazing hit album
Stripped.
The oldest of five, Christina grew up with mother Shelley and step-father Jim and her motto in life seems to be ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ The voice was always there. How to command it and express herself through it is something more recent and it has taken her to a place that’s beyond diva.
She’s had the third biggest selling album in the UK behind Dido and Justin Timberlake, modelling deals with Versace and she was voted Glamour magazine’s Woman of the Year 2004. She was also applauded for
Carwash, her hit cover version from last year’s box office smash
Shark Tale, and an MTV documentary on social issues facing young people.
Her ability to speak from the heart and say what she thinks without fearing the consequences has doubtless helped her become successful. But Christina is also completely driven and she has no time for her critics.
“I don’t read the interviews I do because everything gets misconstrued,” she smiles. “I read very little that’s written about me — although, if I’m on the best-dressed list I’m disappointed as it must mean I’ve become more conservative! I get bored easily and want to try new things. I’m an adventurous spirit and I need to push boundaries and limitations.
“I liked the title Woman of the Year because my album, Stripped, expressed a lot of passion towards empowering females, especially songs like
I’m OK and Beautiful. It’s about being strong, comfortable and in control.”
She says this with the utter confidence that everyone now knows she’s Christina, the very ‘together’ woman (not Chrissie the playgirl or Xtina the crazy, outrageous bad girl).
“Stripped was a huge stepping-stone for me, embracing my independence and growing. I truly wrote from my past experiences, personal situations such as my father (domestic violence) and falling in love for the first time,” she explains.
“My father was good at receiving the album. He realised it was my way of healing. I’m 24 now. I was six at the time it happened and he accepted it was what I needed to do. I’m pretty much out of his life and that’s something he’s had to learn to live with.”
She continues, “I grew up witnessing what my mum went through and that made me resolve that I’d never put up with that from a man in my life. Instead, I’ve always known I must hold the power position and be in control of my life and emotions.
“I have a strong personality and know what I want in life. I know where I’m going and people can be intimidated by that. A strong woman doesn’t want to be with someone who feels intimidated by her. I can’t deal with that, and that has been one of my dilemmas. Any man who comes into my life has to have his own thing going on and be driven and passionate.
“I tend to fall for guys who are more out of the limelight but have a love of music. They have to be strong and independent but not too independent. I’m definitely the one who needs space in a relationship, time to write and work. But then, if I’m coming home at the end of the day, I just want to forget everything and cuddle with my man.”
Christina’s current boyfriend is Jordan Bratman, who works for her management company.
“He’s amazing in every way. I truly love him. He’s not part of the hype so I try to keep him out of things as much as possible. But yes, it’s a great feeling and I’d really like to be married. Jordan’s the one guy I can credit for making me think about marriage in a whole new light. He’s my second love. I fell in love for the first time with one of my dancers.”
Disappointments and broken hearts have provided Christina with inspiration for many song lyrics.
“I thank God for the horrible experiences I went through because it made me a stronger person,” she says. “It can all work out, as long as you don’t get bitter. I had bitter moments. Betrayal and being taken advantage of by people around me business-wise were the worst times. I was under the thumb of people who were only interested in keeping me doing the same thing.
“But I’m not blaming anyone,” she’s quick to add. “You learn fast in this business and, once I knew where I wanted to go, I didn’t let anyone get in my way. If it hadn’t hurt, I may never have learned the lesson. The whirlwind from my first album to the point where I dropped my old management was empowering. My new management just let me be me. I said, ‘I know you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t care if I sell one or one million copies. I have to be myself and I’m going to do that with or without you.’ They let me be in my own creative space and get stuff done.”
Of course she admires other women who have this control.
“Well behaved women rarely make history,” she says. “I admire Madonna’s business sense, her ability to reinvent herself, her thirst for knowledge and her drive. When I came out with the song
Dirty, (she never misses an opportunity to redirect the conversation to a song title) I realised that she’s faced a lot of the nasty things I’ve faced. She did what she wanted to do and expressed herself.
“I’m also a big fan of Julie Andrews. The Sound of Music was the first thing that truly spoke to me. It moved me the way she sang. It’s corny to say, but whenever Maria escaped to the hills and sang to herself, it was freedom and my escape as well. I realised my voice was my escape at a young age, whenever my parents fought and I witnessed all the abuse.”
Christina comes across in the same vein as those great jazz divas who seem to have been born to struggle, to feel pain more sorely, to help ease the pain of others. “I’m so in the world of Nina Simone, Billie Holiday and Eartha
Kitt, one of the original bad girls. I’ve done a tour in America where I’ve connected to reinventing the old retro jazz blues souls singer, bringing it back.”
She is also still looking for the right role in a movie, she reveals. “I’ve been offered a lot but I want to stay away from romance, comedies and fluffy work. I met Stephen Spielberg at a breast cancer benefit and he explained that he’d seen me on
Saturday Night Live and thought I was ready for a movie. He said, ‘You go to the ledge and are unafraid to jump off.’ That was the biggest compliment to me because he was saying I was free.
“So I am interested in acting, but offers that have come in are ‘small town girl wants to be a singer, has dreams and aspirations, makes it as a star.’ JLo could pull that off, give it to her,” she laughs.
On the whole Christina is not known for her girl bonding abilities, although she did recently try to end the supposed feud with Britney Spears.
“My words were contorted in the press and I think maybe hers were too, so I wrote to her saying, ‘Look, I think the journalist was only poking for a response, there’s no need for this. We were thrown into this at the same time, we had a friendship once, so let’s not get caught up in the tabloids and have craziness forced upon us. From day one, people have been comparing us, so let’s not feed their game.’ I went on to tell her that I have great admiration for her work.”
Despite being the champion of the avant garde, a bit of a rebel, there’s something very homey and sweet about Christina. Does she see herself married with children soon?
“I’ve always wanted to be a young mum like my mother. She had me when she was 21. I do want a family, take time out, yes, but I’m going to continue to work as well. At the moment though, like most artists, I’m a total vampire. I don’t like the sunlight. I never go in to the sun. Sometimes, I might work till midnight, sometimes till eight in the morning.
“I get up around noon and as soon as I wake up I’ll have coffee. I don’t enjoy shopping so my stylist usually brings me things to wear. I’m not a breakfast person so I have cottage cheese and potatoes — fried, baked, mashed — with a good steak. I’m a meat eater. My first management had me running so crazy all over the place they wouldn’t even schedule a time for me to eat. It was awful. I was just dollar signs in their eyes and I’ll never go back to that.”
She thinks that as a reaction, she developed an addiction to body piercing. “It started out when I was on my first tour. I felt so caged. It was a rebellion and something I had complete control over. They couldn’t tell me what to do with my body.”
Parting with her old management signalled a change of heart — and image. “I took them all out. My nose, my chin, everything. It was over in the change of a hair colour,” she grins.
For every brazen bone in her body, there’s another side of Christina that likes to draw the boundaries, be private. By the end of my time with her, she’s considerably warmer. But I get the impression she doesn’t trust people easily.
“I don’t,” she agrees. “I put up walls although I’m learning how to open up. It takes time to warm up to people and a while to truly confide. I’ve been bitten by people close to me that I trusted. In LA now I have a few friends, mainly people I work with. My best friends are my sister, very cute, a musician too, and Marcy from back home — I’m godmother to her children.”
Christina has never severed links to her home in Pittsburg. She gives a percentage of tour money to a women’s shelter there. “My mum visits there all the time and I go at Christmas to wrap presents,” she explains.
It’s hard to see where the two worlds meet — the glamorous entourage, the bodyguard, the fearless Christina who is sometimes too fragile to confide. But when the worlds do collide it’s in a transforming and inspiring way. She is certainly intriguing — and just when you think she regards herself as an unapproachable icon, she warms, gets excited and sweetly asks if she can record a personal message for my friend Samuel because he’s one of her biggest fans.
The inner Christina has a kind and nurturing part after all.
By Chrissy Iley/Planet Syndication
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