ChristinaMultimedia Presents: Christina Statistics

'I'm a risk taker and I've always been like that, especially when it comes to fashion.'

'I was in a weird head space, I was not myself, for sure. I was kind of running around, crazy, experiencing things for the first time. That was the first time I had really broken things, and it felt so good - *beep*ing great.'

'Ooh, that was just a little phase (smashing plates to relieve pain). I don't do that any more but it was good fun, a release. I recommend it to everybody. That's as long as you're not hurting anybody. And find a place where you're not going to be in the way of anything. Oh and don't destroy anything valuable that you'll regret later.'

'People betrayed me and I had a really hard time. That, along with what I'd been through with my family and my father and hard times at school meant I was knocked down. It was too much and I felt I'd been through the wringer - I was like a punchbag. I think talking to people is important and my family have helped me through it. I'd definitely be open to going to a therapist. I went when I was younger. But making this record ('Stripped') has been therapeutic. It's a tough record, it's personal and it's made me feel vulnerable. It's honest. Emotionally I've laid myself bare - it's what's in my heart. I've been writing a lot of poems and I wanted to disappear from the public eye and live life for a minute. I didn't want to play it safe.”

'It was a really hard time. Anything just set me off...I almost wanted to, you know, hurt myself. And it was the first time I'd ever had thoughts like that. I have a lot of pain and anger.'

'Mmm... I do keep a journal that keeps me in touch with myself, and I'm always writing down thoughts and ideas, which then I turn into song lyrics and things like that. But also, my priest gave me this cross from back home, which I keep under my pillow sometimes. I'm afraid of the dark, so... it's just as a little bit of protection.'

'Certain people want to see me solely as a pop act, but there are many different sides to Christina Aguilera besides the pop girl.'

'I can't be the same genie in a bottle that I was before, so the genie is a little out of the bottle now.''

'Actually, my nickname at the moment, given to me by my A&R guy, one day we were going through how can we shorten my name - and let me explain. You know how Christmas is sometimes spelled Xmas? So Xtina is sometimes my nickname. Spelled that way, if not said that way. I think it's kind of cute, and some people just hate it. But it's fine for now.'

'People want to knock someone who's different.'

'Oh, boy, that's probably my worst quality.' [Regarding lateness]

'I'm not a smoker. I'm way more of a drinker than I am a smoker. I'm talking about, you know, cannabis. Being high, it's not the best feeling for me. But all my boyfriends happen to be. So I can take it around me, I just don't participate, for the most part.'

'People like to see singers play it safe and it scares people if we go beyond the boundaries sometimes.'

'But I'm a really different person from what I seem to be publicly. I'm very, very introverted. I'm a really deep thinker, and a lot of people don't get to see that side of me.'

Source: Platinum Blonde - MTV Internet Article (10/1999)

'To keep my own sanity, regardless of where the music industry was going to go, I needed to be myself.'

'I don’t read the interviews I do because everything gets misconstrued.'

'Whatever I do, it's my business. It's not my job to parent America'.

'But I don't believe there's a rule book, and I don't believe I have to live by society's standards.'

'There is neither a moral or a visual reason. At the end of the day I am a musician, an artist and not a model.'

'This is the real me that people are seeing.'

'Maybe that's why I'm rebelling!'

'Now I'm getting to do my own material and let people know that there's an artist behind the singer. Now people are going to get to see the real me.'

'I'm a girl who knows what she wants, goes for it, and will not settle for less.'

'I knew it was going to be a battle first of all because people knew me as being straight pop and so into the 'Genie in a Bottle' thing - but I was 17 years old when I made that record. I've come into my own now, and I definitely had a vision going into this ['Stripped' album].'

'People now say, 'What is she trying to do?' But they should be asking, 'What was she trying to do before?' This is the real me.'

'I'm not a little puppet who does what she's told. I was pushed into this whole teen pop phenomenon thing.'