Looking back nearly two decades at the moment when Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears’ collaborative introduction of Whitney Houston at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, it’s easy to see the similarities their stylists were going for with their looks, which had zero natural vibes. At 37, Christina’s done plenty of growing up — and it shows, both in her music and in the fresh, clean and natural way she presents herself on the cover of her eighth studio 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,” the singer says in Cosmopolitan’s October cover story. “You can’t tell me something I haven’t already heard about myself anyway.” She recalls how the albums she released in the early 2000s, “Stripped” and “Dirrty,” came with more creative control. But the industry didn’t necessarily get it — nor were they always kind about the black-dyed hair and piercings she paired with the music back then. “It’s hard to hear yourself being called names. I remember being hurt by these commercials on MTV, pitting [Britney Spears] as the good girl and me as the bad girl. It’s like, if I’m going to be demure and innocent, that’s OK. But if I’m going to just be myself, I’m trouble,” she says, adding that she doesn’t regret the artistic choices she’s made. “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,” she says. “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.” Christina’s Liberation Tour hits the road this fall, beginning in Hollywood, Fla., on Sept. 25.
