Christina Aguilera Biography / Pictures

Biography

Christina Aguilera's was born in Staten Island, New York, but grew up primarily in Wexford, Pennsylvania. As a teenager, she sang the National Anthem before Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Pirates games.

Christina Aguilera's first song recorded was in Japan, but she only caught the attention of Americans when she released the song "Reflection" for the Disney animated production of Mulan. The video clip featured a young Christina with a bob hair cut.

Catering to the fresh pop sound that was popular of the era, her career is still going strong in the year 2003, although her image has become increasingly s--ual.

In the year 2000 she emphasized her Latino heritage, following the Latino trend of the time, by releasing her first Latin album, Mi Reflejo. At this time she claimed to have been learning Spanish.

Christina Aguilera's second official English-language album was Stripped. This features many interludes, one before the track "Infatuation", which features her speaking Spanish, and a duet with Alicia Keys; however, Christina cannot speak Spanish fluently yet - even though she is learning Spanish - as she forgot the language while growing up. Her mother is fluent in Spanish because of her former husband, Aguilera's father, who is Ecuadorian-American, while her mother is from Newfoundland and is of Irish descent; they met while he was serving on an American airbase in Newfoundland.

By the year 2002, however, her previously heralded vocals were much overlooked as she began to change her fresh, youthful image into that of a highly s--ualized woman with hip-hop and p----star influences. After the release of that album, she has taken part in photo shoots for the magazines Maxim, Rolling Stone, and Cosmo Girl. Many of these photographs featured her n--- or semi-n---. At the same time, Christina began to cultivate a more s--ually provocative image. She denied that this change was a matter of publicity, claiming that the erotic emphasis better reflected her true personality than did the image she cultivated in 1999. She told German paper Netzeitung, "I like having s--.It's fun....I love experimenting with my s--uality. I want to try out as much as possible. It would be wrong of me to hide this side of my personality. I have fun being s--y and tough at the same time."

The video for her 2002 single "Dirrty" featured her writhing with members of both s--es including a female-only shower scene in which she was wearing only a thong and a bra. As she puts it, "I like the way I am. This is how I bring out my s--uality."

The "Dirrty" video also made the news when the government of Thailand banned the video from national television, because a pair of posters that appear in the background of the boxing ring advertise, in the Thai language, the s-- tourism and underage girls of Thailand. The producers and director of the video claimed to be ignorant of the meaning of the posters. She is currently banned from entering Thailand as it is considered to have offended the Thai people.

Musical peers such as Shakira, Jessica Simpson, and Kelly Osbourne criticized the video, but Christina responded by pointing out, "I may have been the naked-ass girl in the video, but if you look at it carefully, I’m also at the forefront. I’m not just some lame chick in a rap video; I’m in the power position, in complete command of everything around me. To be totally balls-out like that is, for me, the measure of a true artist."

Christina went so far as to condemn her work on her first album, telling an interviewer, "I was playing a part dictated by my then manager and my record company. I hated who I was back then..."

In early 2003 Christina aroused much comment when she gained a noticeable amount of weight. Unflattering photographs of her flabby midsection spilling out of her conventionally skimpy costumes were circulated. Christina was quoted as saying, "I couldn't care less about stupid diets. Eating is sensual and fun. I'm not going to let it be spoiled by calorie counting." Whether she will be able to reconcile this attitude to her s--ually-charged image remains to be seen.

In June 2003, she began a tour with Justin Timberlake, called the "Justified & Stripped" tour. In the fall of that year, she toured Germany.

Christina opened up a new vein of controversy in Autumn 2003 by viciously attacking fellow teen-pop musicians. She told Blender magazine, "Look at people like Britney. They’re desperate to come across as sweet, good little girls, but then you see them in photo shoots that are extremely s--ual—tight little booty shorts, and not much else. SO why do they try to be virginal in interviews?" Concerning her most formidable rival, Britney Spears, she claimed, "These people aren’t artists; they’re just performers—fake and superficial...I was up for kissing Britney, but Britney wasn’t. She was….she seemed very distant, even during rehearsals. Every time I tired to start a conversation with her—well, let’s just say she seemed nervous the whole time. I wanted to reach out to her, because I feel she needs somebody in her life right now to help guide her."

Discography for Christina Aguilera

• Christina Aguilera (1999)
• Mi Reflejo (2000)
• My Kind of Christmas (2000)
• Just Be Free (2001)
• Stripped (2002)