Christina Aguilera

Christina Maria Aguilera (born December 18, 1980) is an American pop and R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, and music video director. She was signed to RCA Records after recording "Reflection" for the film Mulan. She came to prominence following her debut album Christina Aguilera (1999), which was a critical and commercial success. A Latin Pop album Mi Reflejo, and a Christmas album, My Kind of Christmas, followed during this period and also sold strongly.

Aguilera took creative control over her second studio album Stripped (2002), which received mixed reviews and yet produced substantial sales. During the album's promotion, her overtly sexual image became the subject of intense criticism and ridicule. Her third studio album Back to Basics (2006) included elements of soul, jazz and blues music. It was released to good sales and positive critical reception. Aguilera's works have earned her five Grammy Awards amongst sixteen nominations, and over 30 million album sales worldwide.

Early life and career

Aguilera was born in Staten Island, New York, to Fausto Wagner Xavier Aguilera, a U.S. Army sergeant, and Shelly Loraine Fidler, a Spanish teacher. Aguilera's father was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, while her Pennsylvanian mother is of German, Dutch, Welsh and Irish decent. Her father, Fausto, was stationed at Earnest Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville, Newfoundland, Canada. Aguilera lived with her father and mother until she was 6 or 7 years old. When Aguilera's parents divorced, her mother took her, and her younger sister Rachel, to her grandmother's home in Rochester, Pennsylvania, a blue-collar suburb of Pittsburgh. According to both Aguilera and Fidler, her father was very controlling, as well as physically and emotionally abusive; she later wrote about her difficult childhood in the songs, "I'm OK" in Stripped, and "Oh Mother" in Back to Basics. Since then, Fidler has married a paramedic named Jim Kearns, and has changed her name to Shelly Kearns. She attended North Allegheny School District, near the Pittsburgh suburb of Wexford, Pennsylvania.

At fourteen, Aguilera recorded her first song, "All I Wanna Do", a hit duet with Japanese singer Keizo Nakanishi.

Since Aguilera was a child, she aspired to be a singer. Her musical influences included Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Nina Simone, and Madonna. As a child she performed at block attention, and was known as "the little girl with the big voice".

According to VH1's Driven, this label eventually backfired on her. When competitors learned they would be up against her in any given week, they immediately backed out, prompting insiders to claim it was "like sending a lamb to the slaughter." Her peers soon became jealous of her and would frequently subject her to ridicule, ostracism, and, in one gym class, attempted assault. Acts of vandalism around her house included the slashing of the tires on the family car. Eventually the family relocated and, by her own order, swore to secrecy about her talent lest another backlash occur.

On March 15, 1990, she appeared on Star Search singing Etta James' "A Sunday Kind of Love", but lost the competition. Soon after losing on Star Search, she returned home and appeared on Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV's Wake Up with Larry Richert to perform the same song again. People remarked that the then 10-year-old "sounded 20".

Throughout her youth in Pittsburgh, Aguilera sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey games, Pittsburgh Steelers football and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games. Her first major role in entertainment came in 1993 when she joined the Disney Channel's variety show The New Mickey Mouse Club. Her co-stars included Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Rhona Bennett (who later became a member of En Vogue), Ryan Gosling, and Keri Russell. According to the documentary Driven, Aguilera's Mickey Mouse Club co-stars called her "the Diva". One of her most notable performances was of Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing". When the show ended in 1994, Aguilera began recording demos in an attempt to get signed to a record label.

In 1997, she represented the United States at the "Golden Stag" International Festival with a two-song set which included a Sheryl Crow and Diana Ross song.

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