Christina Aguilera looked “Dirrty” good in her recent Instagram post as she celebrated her 44th birthday with a bold, topless pic. The singer gathered countless compliments for her slim figure and timeless features, but a deeper look at the reactions reveals a sad reality about double standards between two of the most famous singers of the 21st century.
Aguilera has been a famous figure in media since her debut on The Mickey Mouse Show with Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Ryan Gosling in the early ’90s. Three decades later, the “Ain’t No Other Man” hitmaker now flaunts everything in a sultry, topless Instagram birthday photo, reminiscent of her Back to Basics 2006 era. She’s only wearing leather high-rise short shorts and a pair of black sandals, paired with a “Candyman” leather captain hat, blonde hair in big curls around her face, and her signature bold makeup.
Although the photo is in black and white, it’s safe to assume she donned her signature red lip and smokey eye, with intense false lashes. The photo gave 2000s Christina Aguilera vibes in the best way, and the singer captioned it, “Birthday suit #44.”
Christina Aguilera’s topless photo brings back countless sad realities
In her youth, Christina Aguilera had a toned, petite body that changed naturally as she aged and had children. The “Beautiful” singer shares son Max Liron, 16, with music executive Jordan Bratman, and daughter Summer Rain, 10, with Matthew Rutler. After the birth of her children, her image changed in tone from the “sexy, bad girl” she portrayed in the early 2000s with her Stripped era, but she continued to be a major bombshell all the same.
Aguilera’s career has featured highs and lows, and her weight loss struggle has been a natural part of her journey; however, now that she’s back to a tiny, tiny figure, she’s praised all over the internet — the constant body shaming she received for years has suddenly vanished.
Her nude picture gathered thousands of compliments, leading one to surmise that the public simply can’t deal with artists who have a few extra pounds on them. Earlier this year, Aguilera was accused of using Ozempic for her weight loss, but she denied it during an interview with Glamour for her August 2024 cover story.
“I have a maturity now where I just don’t give a f–k about your opinion. I’m not going to take it on. It must be your responsibility to take up your space. Other people’s opinions of me are not my business.”
“Getting older in years, but younger in appearance is what I’m talking about!!” wrote a fan in the comment section under Anguilera’s topless photo. “44 NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD,” added another.
The Grammy Award-winning singer’s dedicated fandom has stayed by her through everything, but, as a comparison, looking back at some of the 2023 comments when she was thicker, those comments don’t pass the vibe check. “Who is this big tank?” wrote a troll on one of her photos, while another added, “In Burlesque you looked good.” A different quote-unquote fan wrote, “cringe.” Of course, she received a lot of praise for her curves, too, but not as much as she gets for her slimmer frame, not just in her comments, but on other fan pages, too.
The response to Christina Aguilera’s photo highlights a sad double standard about Britney Spears
Let’s face it: Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears will always be in direct competition. The two couldn’t be more different, as Spears was bubblegum pop and Aguilera had a more R&B/soul sound. Each of them had different styles, vocal skills, and talents, but that has never mattered in the media.
Considering Britney Spears’ previous struggles with mental health, every time she posted a nude photo or a sexier one, she was widely slammed online, with people who didn’t know her claiming she needed professional help.
Instead, Aguilera, whose “bad girl” days are far behind, is universally praised for showing off her skin. Both women do it on their own terms and they’re entitled to show as much or as little skin as they want; however, looking at Christina Aguilera’s comments, one can’t help but see how one woman is deemed “desperate” for attention while the other is lauded as “successful.”