Christina Aguilera Gets Stunning Makeunder for ‘Liberating’ Photo Shoot

Christina Aguilera looks almost unrecognizable for her latest magazine cover, since she decided to leave behind the makeup.

The Voice judge posed without any makeup for the new issue of Paper Magazine, and said it felt “liberating” to show her own “raw beauty.”

“I’ve always been someone that obviously loves to experiment, loves theatrics, loves to create a storyline and play a character in a video or through stage,” Aguilera told Paper. “I’m a performer, that’s who I am by nature. But I’m at the place, even musically, where it’s a liberating feeling to be able to strip it all back and appreciate who you are and your raw beauty.”

The 37-year-old said she is not completely ditching make-up and wore a dirty blonde wig during the photo shoot. She is also seen wearing her trademark red lipstick in some of the photos taken by photographer Zoe Grossman.

“I mean, I’m a girl that likes a beat face, let’s not get it twisted,” she told Paper.

The new look could be part of her preparation to release a new album. She has not put out a new record since 2012’s Lotus and has not made a live-action movie since 2010’s Burlesque with Cher. Aguilera is also returning to the big screen with Drake Doremus’ science fiction movie Zoe and plays herself in Melissa McCarthy’s Life of the Party.

Aguilera has made part of changing her look a major aspect of her career. With every album release, she adopts a different style, be it the retro look for Back to Basics (2006) or a tech look for Bionic (2010).

“I can’t stay in a stagnant place for too long, which is why I think the position I was in with television just became very stifling,” she told Paper, referring to her six seasons on The Voice. “I need movement, I need to go explore, be an artist, create and transform.”

Aguilera said her current musical inspirations are hip-hop artists, including Childish Gambino, Chance the Rapper and Cardi B.

The “Genie in a Bottle” singer also opened up about her parents, Fausto Aguilera and Shelly Loraine.

“I watched my mom have to be submissive, watch her Ps and Qs or she’s gonna get beat up,” Aguilera told the magazine. “You can either be, unfortunately, so damaged by it that you take a turn for the worse, or you can feel empowered by it and make choices to never go down that route.”

Aguilera has been engaged to Matthew Rutler since 2014, and they have a daughter, 3-year-old Summer Rain Rutler. She is also mother to 10-year-old Max from her marriage to Jordan Bratman. She told Paper she does not want to push her daughter into the entertainment business.

“I don’t want to inject too much upon her as to how I’m choosing to live my life and what I’ve done in my career,” she said. “I just hope I can allow what I’m doing to influence her to be her own person. That’s truly what I hope for her… I really want to make sure my children are both very confident in the sense that they know who they are and that they won’t be easily swayed by outside opinion.”