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Grammy Award-winning musician Alicia Keys talks to Variety on Feminism, Giving up makeup and the #MeToo movement as she covers the magazine, barefaced.
Read excerpts from her interview below:
On giving up Makeup: Sometimes, I want some damn makeup, and I’m going to wear it! Guess what — if I want to wear red lipstick and put eyelashes on, I can do whatever I f—ing want. I am the creator of my own destiny.
On the media frenzy surrounding the “#nomakeup movement”: Suddenly it was a movement, and I don’t even know what that means. It doesn’t have anything to do with makeup or no makeup. It has to do with who are you, what makes you feel good, how do you want to express that and even just asking the questions — What do I feel? How do I feel good? However that is, you should do it.
On the messages the media transmits to young women in the entertainment industry: We’re supposed to be this big, and so tiny, and so skinny. If we have any hips or any thickness or width with us, we’re fat. We torture ourselves; we don’t eat. I’ve experienced all of that. I was subscribing to this sick identity. Stay in your place, be feminine, be a lady, don’t make too much noise. If you go to work without makeup, it’s like, Are you tired? You look tired. And it’s like, I’m not f—ing tired!
On her song ‘Girl on Fire’ – If I never do anything else — if I do nothing else — this has been something. Being a woman, being a girl, is the most awesome thing to be. I personally feel we are the more evolved species. We are the greatest creators on the planet, like, the planet literally would not exist if we weren’t in it. We’re the entire universe, in five feet five inches. One beautiful, elegant, awkward body.
