Alicia Keys Says She Was ‘Manipulated’ To Pose Topless In Earlier Days Of Career: I’m Beyond Embarrassed That I Sold Part Of Myself

Alicia Keys Says She Was ‘Manipulated’ To Pose Topless In Earlier Days Of Career: I’m Beyond Embarrassed That I Sold Part Of Myself

Alicia Keys is opening about the ups and downs of her career in her new memoir More Myself. 

It was previously reported that she also wrote about her struggle of continuing her pregnancy with her second child.

Now, she’s telling the story about a time she said she was tricked into a risque photoshoot for a magazine cover ahead of her debut album.

She wrote, that the 2000 incident was with a photographer, who refused to take the pictures of Alicia Keys with anyone on the set.

Alicia Keys

The singer explained,

“When I emerge from the dressing room, there’s just the two of us on set. ‘Open up your shirt a little,’ he directs while firing off a flurry of camera snaps. My spirit is screaming that something is wrong, that this feels sleazy. But my protests, lodged in the back of my throat, can’t make their way out.”

She continued,

“‘Pull the top of your jeans down a bit in the front,’ he urges. If I say no, what doors will be closed to me? I swallow my misgivings, tuck my thumb between the denim and my skin, and obey.”

“This isn’t about me showing some skin, which I’ll do on my own terms, for my own purposes, in the coming years. It’s about feeling manipulated. It’s about being objectified.”