Christina Aguilera‘s ever-changing figure has been tabloid fodder for years, but the difference this time around is that the singer just doesn’t care what her critics might say.
At least, that’s what reports quoting the pop star have said, though the quotes have now been proven fake.
“The Voice” judge, who is set to release her new album “Lotus” in November, reportedly opened up to the Sept. 29 issue of Billboard magazine to set the record straight once and for all about her curves.
PHOTOS: CHRISTINA AGUILERA’S BODY EVOLUTION
The only problem being that the singer never even made the empowering statements.
“I told (my label) during this ‘Lotus’ recording, ‘You are working with a fat girl. Know it now and get over it,'” the “Your Body” singer reportedly told the magazine. “They need a reminder sometimes that I don’t belong to them. It’s my body.
“My body can’t put anyone in jeopardy of not making money anymore – my body is just not on the table that way anymore.”
Us Weekly initially reported the Billboard magazine interview quotes, but a rep for the singer has since denied their existence.
“She never said them,” Aguilera’s rep told Entertainment Weekly of the statements. The quotes, in which the singer recounts being told to lose weight or risk her career, do not appear in either the online story or the print publication.
Another quote that was widely published but does not actually appear in the Billboard story addresses how her music label supposedly told her to shed the weight.
“During the promotion of my album ‘Stripped (in 2002), I got tired of being a skinny, white girl,” she is quoted as saying. “I am Ecuadorian but people felt so safe passing me off as a skinny, blue-eyed white girl.
“The next time my label saw me, I was heavier, darker and full of piercings! Let me tell you, that wasn’t an easy pill for them to swallow.”
Aguilera, 31, supposedly admitted she’d gained about 15 pounds during the “Stripped” tour, and her label was not happy.
“They called this serious emergency meeting about how there was a lot of backlash about my weight,” she recalled. “Basically, they told me I would affect a lot of people if I gained weight – the production, musical directors.”
What is true, however, is that Aguilera has struggled with public scrutiny over her figure for years.
And indeed, as recently as last fall, the talented singer was making more headlines for her weight gain than her musical prowess.
Unflattering photos of Aguilera at a Michael Jackson tribute concert prompted Kelly Osbourne to make a few rather disparaging remarks about her figure.
“Maybe she is just becoming the fat b—h she was born to be,” Osbourne said of Aguilera during a segment on E!’s Fashion Police. “I don’t know. She was a c–t to me. …(She) called me fat for so many f—king years. So you know what? F–k you. You’re fat too.”
One year later, however, Aguilera is looking to move on from the sniping comments.
“This album represents a celebration of the new me,” she said, “and to me the lotus has always represented this unbreakable flower that withstands any harsh weather conditions in its surroundings, that withstands time and remains beautiful and strong throughout the years.”
jchen@nydailynews.com
