THREAD: Stripped era's most iconic moments, to refresh twitter's memory of the most influential good girl gone bad era in the history of pop music aka the blueprint ✨
To portray a new persona, Christina adopted her new alter ego "Xtina" and made several changes to her appearance in order to transition into an edgier and a more provocative look.
This was the first time Xtina was in control of her career. She stated that going into this, she'll take full credit if people don't like it and she didn't care if she would sell one or two copies. (Luckily she ended up selling over 13M copies from the album alone.)
The album's lead single was Dirrty, although it was banned by MTV, protested in certain countries and flopped in the US, the song still managed to make a huge impact worldwide and it became a classic. Xtina also got credited for inventing the sl*t drop with the video.
Fellow pop stars Shakira and Jessica Simpson also disapproved of the video, Simon Cowell went as far as calling her a sl*t on national TV, but despite all the backlash from critics and the general public, Xtina proudly stood by her work and never backed down.
Xtina wearing chaps while debuting the first ever live performance of Dirrty under the Brooklyn Bridge, 2002. With time they became her signature look and the blueprint for pop stars today.
Xtina continued to promote her new image by making an appearance at the 2002 VMAs where MTV made her present an award to Eminem during their beef. Xtina confronted him backstage and they ended up making up.
Xtina at an after party later that night, serving another hoe look.
Xtina took it one step further by booking a performance with the Pussycat Dolls at the Roxy theatre where she wore nothing but lingerie. Fun fact: Leonardo DiCaprio and his pal Tobey MaGuire were in the audience and watched her perform.
The rehearsal outfit for this was fire as well.
Xtina photographed by Frank Ockenfels for the December issue of Blender Magazine, 2002.
Xtina for Rolling Stone, 2002. The magazine made a map of all her piercings which she used to get as a way to cope with her trauma. Interesting comparison, the magazine referred to Xtina as the princess of pop while calling her peer Britney Spears just a "teen dream".
Xtina for Maxim Magazine's January issue, 2003. This remains their all time best selling issue and her BTB era spread went on to become the 2nd best selling Maxim issue of all time.
The second single, Beautiful, received universal acclaim and became her signature song. Xtina won a Grammy, a GLAAD media award and the Stonewall organization named it the most empowering LGBT+ anthem of the 2000s. It's also been cited as an influence by many of today's artists.
The third single, Fighter, was positively received as well for it's empowering message and vocals. It showed Xtina's versatility and birthed the name of us Christina stans aka "Fighters". Xtina once again proved to be a chameleon in the music video which garnered numerous awards.
The fourth single, Can't Hold Us Down, features the queen of rap Lil Kim and discusses the double standards between men and women in society and has been widely recognized as a feminist anthem. Lyrically, Xtina also claps back at Eminem's misogyny. Video dir. by David LaChapelle.
The fifth and final single, The Voice Within, was met with positive reviews from music critics for it's inspiration message and powerhouse vocals. For the visuals, Xtina kept it really simple and did a one take video.
Later that year, Xtina embarked on her second tour which was a joint tour with her former Mickey Mouse alumni. They posed for Rolling Stone to promote the tour and sparked romance rumors but they remained just friends. The Stripped tour ended up grossing $130M overall.
You can't talk about the Stripped era and not mention this legendary performance which had an even more legendary outcome (check following tweets) because the MTV producers cut away Xtina's kiss to show Justin's reaction.
Xtina for Blender Magazine, 2003. This caused a lot of drama back in the day because it was the most brutally honest Xtina has ever been in an interview discussing her peers and the music industry in general.
That fall, Xtina was set to host the EMAs where she stirred up controversy once again by wearing a nun outfit and clapping back at Kelly Osborne in front of millions of people. (The year before she caught Kelly at a club and put her in a headlock and made her cry)
Some iconic looks that are worth a mention:
Ending this thread with an appreciation tweet for Xtina's messy and provocative street style. Hopefully y'all enjoyed it ❤
You can follow @xtinaspipe.
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