On Tuesday (Aug. 28) during an interview with Cosmopolitan prior to her October cover issue release, Christina Aguilera opened up about her new upcoming The Liberation Tour, her iconic early-2000s style makeover, her dating life and more.

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The pop star famously received flack when she introduced fans to Xtina for her second album, Stripped. Dying her hair black, posing nude on magazine covers and overall flaunting a more sexually explicit persona were all part of Aguilera’s new era surrounding her 2002 LP (which was fronted by the song “Dirrty” featuring Redman).

Still, Aguilera hasn’t allowed that to keep her from being herself and inspiring women to be proud of their bodies.

“I love the female body, and I think it’s something to be proud of, not something that men should dictate ownership of,” the singer told the magazine. “‘Dirty’ was extremely controversial at the time, but it would be nothing now. I hope I paved the way and helped set the ground rules that women can be any version of themselves they wanna be…and proud of it.”

When asked about going totally natural for the cover of her latest album Liberation, the “Fall In Line” singer told the magazine that although she does still enjoy getting made up, she wanted to show her flaws for this project.

She then explained that the natural look relates to the sound of the record and the upcoming The Liberation Tour.

“With this record, I’m stripping back a lot and just trying to find myself again — just the true love and the art in the process, and not just going for some formulaic sort of force-fed direction that we can get caught up in,” Aguilera said. “I want to flip it on its ear and I want to do something completely unexpected from a pop-formatted show — a fresh perspective that I’ve never done this of a tour before — super creative, super interesting.”

Aguilera also expressed why she has avoided dating another another person in the entertainment industry: “I’ve had opportunities, but it isn’t my style to date another person in the business. There’s gotta be something wrong with you if you want to be in this business. I mean, hi! I definitely have my issues. I think that I can only handle one [celebrity] in the relationship, and I need to be it.”

Aguilera’s cover story in the October issue of Cosmopolitan hits newsstands Sept. 4.