Christina Aguilera Celebrates 20 Years Of 'Stripped,' Releases New MV For 'Beautiful'

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of her album Stripped, Grammy Award-winning superstar Christina Aguilera has released a new music video for her 2002 UK number one hit single “Beautiful.” The special version of the video also marked the World Mental Health Day.

Christina releases a new version of her 2002 album Stripped with a brand-new art and bonus tracks including a remix of “Beautiful.” 

Released 20 years ago, the original Jonas Åkerlund-directed video, where Christina sits in a room widely covered by old newspapers, shows multiple intrapersonal and interpersonal problems people of the different age endure every day. A young girl with anorexia, a transgender woman sitting in front of a mirror while putting on a makeup and wig, a teenage boy lifting weights in a room full of images of bodybuilders, a black woman looking through the pages of magazines showing white models, two gay men kissing on the street, a bullied girl, and people trying to avoid a goth man in a public vehicle. These were just some of the challenges, issues, and internal struggles people had faced in the past two decades.

“The original ‘'Beautiful' video set out to bring awareness and a sense of compassion in the face of judgment, criticism, and outside opinions. It still carries an important message to remember our core values outside of what’s being fed to us… to find a sense of balance and accepting ourselves for who we are,” says Christina during the release of her new video.

The 2022 version of the video, directed by Fiona Jane Burgess for the Linda Perry-penned classic song, shows almost the same problems that people still endure every single day since the last 20 years. People in the video, sans Christina, show the effect of social media to us. Opening up the video with kids watching videos on their cellphones, scenes of girls putting on a lot of makeup, a young lady sitting in a room full of photos of models plastered on the walls, thin boys looking at a big bodybuilder, a girl in front of a vending machine trying to buy diet supplements, young girls with faces full of pen marks in a plastic surgeon’s office, and more. The new video mirrors real issues in the society today.

The video ends with a shot of a bleeding cellphone and a powerful message of how social media is changing how young people see themselves and is often associated with body image issues, self-harm, and suicide.

If you are facing different issues, links to different mental health organizations are on www.christinaaguilera.com.

This month, Christina celebrates the 20th anniversary of Stripped. The album produced the hit singles “Dirrty,” “Beautiful,” “Fighter,” “Can’t Hold Us Down,” and “The Voice Within.” She received a Grammy award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “Beautiful” in 2004.

Stream the Stripped - 20th Anniversary Edition album here:

Lead photo from @xtina