The 'If I Ain't Got You' singer recalls screaming inside 'that something is wrong' when a photographer told her to open her shirt and pull down the top of her jeans with just the two of them in the room.
- Apr 1, 2020
AceShowbiz - Alicia Keys' spirits to empower other women may come down to her own experience of being "objectified" when she was 19 years old. In her new book "More Myself", the 39-year-old singer opens up about being "manipulated" by a photographer to take part in a provocative photo shoot.
According to Page Six, in the book the R&B artist details how the shutterbug convinced her team he needed to photograph her alone. When there's only the two of them in the room, the photographer told her to "open up your shirt a little" and "pull the top of your jeans down a bit in the front."
Alicia remembers screaming inside, thinking that "something is wrong, that this feels sleazy." She adds, "But my protests, lodged in the back of my throat, can't make their way out. I swallow my misgivings, tuck my thumb between the denim and my skin, and obey."
The mother of two says she went home and cried after the shoot. "This isn't about me showing some skin, which I'll do on my own terms, for my own purposes, in the coming years," she writes. "It's about feeling manipulated. It's about being objectified."
When the magazine was released a few months later, Alicia says her manager was appalled when he saw the magazine cover and she felt "embarrassed" and "ashamed" of it. She also remembers feeling like she wanted to throw up when she saw it on newsstands.
"I now understand why the photographer wanted my team out of that room. A nineteen-year-old girl is more pliable than a set of her grown-a** managers," she shares. Now a stronger woman than she was, Alicia declares, "I swear that I'll never again let someone rob me of my power. It's a promise I still work to keep."
