American singer Christina Aguilera has received extensive media recognition as a cultural and public figure. Her public image has received press coverage for undergoing reinventions and transformations.
After debuting in the late 1990s, Aguilera rose to fame with her bubblegum pop eponymous debut album which saw her as part of the late 1990s teen pop wave. Since then, throughout her career, Aguilera has reinvented her public image numerous times. She broke free of her teen idol image by embodying a provocative, sexual image with her follow-up album Stripped (2002). This image received a generally mixed media response. She later embraced an old Hollywood style inspired by 1920s aesthetic with Back to Basics (2006) and later a futuristic image inspired by the birth of her son and her album Bionic (2010).
In the early 2010s, Aguilera faced a highly publicized era with negative media coverage following personal struggles and the commercial failure of Bionic and her film Burlesque (2010). She subsequently spent six years as a coach on The Voice. She saw some success with collaborations including "Moves Like Jagger", "Say Something" and her album Lotus (2012), before making a widespread musical comeback with Liberation (2018).
Throughout her career, Aguilera has been named a pop icon, gay icon, fashion icon and a triple threat entertainer and is closely affiliated with The Walt Disney Company, being honored as a Disney Legend in recognition. She has embraced a diva persona, often garnering polarized views and comparisons to singer Mariah Carey. Aguilera has been involved in various celebrity feuds, most notably with Eminem. She has also received media coverage for her fashion, style and physical appearance, often facing body shaming and slut-shaming comments.
Mainstream perceptions In the media 1990s–early 2000s Before her debut, RCA Records vice-president Nick Cucci noted in the July 24, 1999 issue of Billboard magazine that Aguilera would "not be a quick-burn teen artist" and called her a "signature artist". Producers had reportedly invested over $1 million worth of writers, producers and vocal lessons into Aguilera. After rising to fame with her self-titled debut album a month later, Aguilera began to appear in the media. Three singles from the album peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100 including "Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants" and "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)". "Genie in a Bottle" is noted as one of Aguilera's signature songs and was described a "hormone-bomb" by Stereogum writer Tom Breihan, who went on to say that after its initial reception, Aguilera explained to the public that her "big hit was not about sex" but rather "about self-respect". "What a Girl Wants" is also recognised as the first new number-one entry of the 21st century. The song itself received positive reviews and its accompanying music video reached the top of the Total Request Live'''s (TRL) video chart for over five weeks.
After her debut, Aguilera began to be heavily compared to Britney Spears in the media. Due to these comparisons, Aguilera was consequently considered a rival to Spears. David Browne of Entertainment Weekly opined that Aguilera was "a good girl pretending to be bad" when compared to Spears. Christopher J. Farley of Time considered her a more impressive artist. The two had first met at 12 while co-starring on The Mickey Mouse Club show alongside peers Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake. Yahoo! News writer Elle Nelson noted that while the two have "never seemed to return to the same friendship they had as kids", they have since supported each other throughout their careers various times.
Early in her career, Breihan found that Aguilera "thought of herself primarily as a [...] young Mariah Carey-type", but was instead marketed as a bubblegum pop artist due to the genre's popularity in the late 1990s. The New York Times writer Lola Ogunnaike opined that "her label morphed her into a pop princess" despite Aguilera's protests. Aguilera herself later noted her frustrations with this era, adding that she felt she was portrayed as a bubblegum pop artist who "had to play a virgin but not act like one". Aguilera was labeled as a teen idol, and has been named as one of the artists who revived teen pop in the late 1990s. Time magazine stated that she was a "pioneer [in] a different type of teen stardom", crediting her vocal ability as responsible for the phenomenon.
In 2001, Aguilera covered "Lady Marmalade" for the Moulin Rouge! (2001) soundtrack alongside Pink, Mya and Lil' Kim. Reports of a "feud" between Aguilera and Pink began to surface although in 2009, Pink revealed in an MTV interview that she had taken offence to executive Ron Fair pushing for Aguilera to receive the "high parts" of the song. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Aguilera noted that "there was no drama whatsoever when all of us were on that stage together". Aguilera and Pink later reunited on The Voice.
"Dirrty" image
Wanting to depart from the teen idol image, Aguilera filed a fiduciary duty against her then-manager Steve Kurtz for "improper, undue, and inappropriate influence over her professional activities" and eventually hired Irving Azoff to manage her career. She began to sport a new image in early 2002 where she dyed her hair black, got body piercings, and posed nude for several publications. She began to embody a new provocative and extravagant alter ego which was referred to Xtina. Aguilera's new image was widely criticized by media outlets.
She released the single "Dirrty" which garnered a negative response in the media with Entertainment Weekly labelling her as "the world's skeeziest reptile woman" and both Conan O'Brien and Simon Cowell calling her a slut. The music video for "Dirrty" garnered more negative criticism with various conservative organizations and moralists soughting to have the video banned on MTV. Aguilera also served as the host of the 2003 MTV Europe Music Awards and opened the show dressed as a nun before showing off a more revealing outfit, which also received media attention.
Writing for The Daily Telegraph, Adam White was more positive about Aguilera's new image and recognized that her "embracing of an overtly sexual image in the wake of adolescent stardom was a tried and tested route to adult success". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic also opined that Aguilera reached "maturity with transparent sexuality and pounding sounds of nightclubs". Aguilera went on to release her fourth studio album Stripped (2002) which received generally mixed reviews initially but has since gone on to become one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century. The album's second single "Beautiful" received universal acclaim from music critics and contrasting media reactions compared to Aguilera's previous efforts. The song later won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2004 Grammy Awards.
At the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, Aguilera opened the show singing "Like a Virgin" and "Hollywood" alongside Spears and was later joined by Madonna whom they both kissed. The performance received media attention with some media outlets retrospectively considering it one of the "most iconic" VMAs performances of all time. Despite this, Entertainment Weekly wrote that Aguilera is often forgotten to have been a part of the kiss, as during the moment, the camera man made the "decision to cut away from Aguilera's kiss with Madonna" to showcase Justin Timberlake's (Spears' ex-boyfriend) reaction. While Aguilera did not immediately respond to this, in 2018 she noted on an interview on Watch What Happens Live! with Andy Cohen that "I definitely saw the newspaper the next day and was like, 'Oh, well I guess I got left out of that one'" and praised her second performance during the show of her song "Fighter" with Dave Navarro.
Late 2000s In early 2005, Aguilera began to embrace a new image which was inspired by classic Hollywood figures and 1920s inspired aesthetic. This new image drew inspiration from actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood, such as Bette Davis and Marilyn Monroe, to go with her then-upcoming fifth studio album's 1920s–1950s musical direction. Vice writer Hazel Cills opined that Aguilera's new image was a result of her marriage to Jordan Bratman and wanted to "hark back to a time when women were ladies". She released the single "Ain't No Other Man" to positive reviews and during the song's music video, she adopted a new persona named Baby Jane, named after Bette Davis's character in the film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Aguilera released Back to Basics (2006) to positive reviews with Stephen Erlewine opining that the album was "all the more impressive" coming after the "near career suicide of Stripped".
In 2008, Aguilera adopted a futuristic image for her greatest hits album Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits. She began to incorporate electropop elements into her music, which drew comparisons to the image of then-newcomer, Lady Gaga. At the end of the 2000s, Aguilera was named the twentieth best "Artist of the Decade" by Billboard, and was nominated for the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Act Ever. In a review of her greatest hits album, Slant Magazine writer Sal Cinquemani opined that Aguilera's legacy was attributed to her combination of Whitney Houston's vocals, Madonna's outspokenness and Mariah Carey's image.
2010s Aguilera described her sixth studio album Bionic (2010) as an album "about the future", and credited her newborn son as an inspiration and added that he "motivating [her] to want to play and have fun". The album faced mixed reviews from critics including Perez Hilton. Entertainment Weekly later named Bionic the fifth worst album of 2010 in a year-end list. That same year, Aguilera also filed for divorce from her husband Bratman and began dating Matthew Rutler, a set assistant on her then-upcoming film. Aguilera subsequently starred in Burlesque (2010) for which she received praise for her role. Despite this, the film received mixed reviews. W writer Lynn Hirschberg opined that while the film was a "disappointment", it is "rare for a pop star to have success in musicals (for every Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues there's a Mariah Carey in Glitter)". Aguilera attributed the film's reception to a "tumultuous set" where the first-time director Steve Antin, clashed with his ex-boyfriend Clint Culpepper, the head of the studio. Aguilera's performance of the film's song "Express" on the seventh series of The X Factor UK also received criticism for being inappropriate for pre-watershed television.