Christina Aguilera is opening up about her famous 2003 MTV Video Music Awards kiss that she shared with Madonna during their performance alongside Britney Spears, who also shared a kiss with the pop icon.
“Shock value gets more and more extreme or whatever,” Christina told Lowe. “But honestly, at the time, yeah, I never thought anything of it. It was like, ‘Okay, it’s two girls kissing.’ It wasn’t shocking back then. It’s not shocking now, to me. But it’s so many things.”
Aguilera also revealed how special the moment was considering how big of a fan she has been on Madonna since childhood.
“Madonna, first of all, the queen of reinventing herself, was a huge inspiration. When I was little, I was not allowed to listen to her or watch her videos or anything. It was just like a no-no, but then whenever you grow up, and I discovered her catalog and her videos and the fact that she had such a message.”
Back in 2018, Aguilera admitted that she felt left out of the media storm that followed the kiss, which primarily focused on Madonna and Spears. She explained to SiriusXM’s Radio Andy in that interview two years ago why the frenzy focused primarily on her fellow performers.
“And you know why they cut it? The cutaway to get Justin [Timberlake]’s reaction. I saw the newspaper the next day, and it was like, ‘Oh — well I guess I got left out of that one.’ “
The 39-year-old says that she was not too pressed about being left out of the headlines.
“I mean everything happened so quickly back then, and everything was in a whirlwind. But I had my own performance that night. It was ‘Fighter’ and it was with Dave Navarro. It was a kickass performance. So I was okay with that.”
