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Christina Aguilera has reflected on the ‘double standards’ and ‘inappropriate’ exchanges she faced when she went on tour with Justin Timberlake in the early noughties.
The singer, who is now 42, was in her 20s when she and Timberlake joined forces for the 2003 Justified & Stripped Tour to celebrate the release of both of their latest albums.
The tour saw the pair hit dozens of venues across North America, with the Black Eyed Peas in tow as the support act.
It sounds like the stuff of 90s kids’ dreams, but Aguilera made clear it wasn’t all fun and games as she spoke with Alex Cooper for the latest episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast.
“There was a lot of female comparisons and double standards with women,” Aguilera recalled about that time.
“Because I went on tour with Justin, we did the Stripped [&] Justified tour, and there were things where I was just like, ‘Why is it okay for him and not okay for me, you know what I mean?’”
The singer remembered how she was ‘constantly pushing back’ while on the road, adding: “It was so inappropriate sometimes, the things [the media] asked about that era.”
Cooper dove further into the topic of double standards, honing in on the comparison between men and women that can take place even when they’re doing the same thing.
“It’s like, ‘I’m doing the same thing and I’m being called a slut, and he’s, like, the boy next door’,” Cooper said.
Despite being the voice of saucy tracks like ‘Dirty’, Aguilera revealed she didn’t lose her virginity until ‘later than you would think’, and explained on the show that she’d grown up with ‘so many opinions’ about her, but she was ‘not gonna play’ by anyone’s rules.
“I’m not gonna see myself as you see me,” she continued. “I’m gonna own my sexuality. For myself. Sexuality is a beautiful thing. And we need to take care of it as women to really make sure that we prioritize it and ourselves and what it means to us because every woman is different.”
When it came to creating her music, the singer was keen to champion songs that ‘mean something’ and are ‘valid’ to who she is.
“That includes sexuality! I felt that there was a lot of shame and fear around the subject … so I just wanted to be who I was and make a safe space for everyone to feel good — and make it a conversation,” she said.
