*Alicia Keys has written a lengthy blog post revealing how starting at a young age, she hid her ‘true self’ in order to fit in with her peers. The 34-year-old mother of two recalls, “For as long as I can remember, I’ve hidden myself. Not intentionally, I didn’t mean to, but I did. Little pieces at a time.”
In a blog titled “Revelation,” Keys confesses that her desire to hide was intensified by the unwanted male attention she would receive as she got older. She said she could feel “the animal instinct in them and it scared me.”
“I definitely started hiding when I got old enough to walk down my NY streets alone,” the New York native wrote. “I started to notice a drastic difference in how men would relate to me if I had on jeans, or if I had on a skirt, or if my hair was done pretty.”
Revealing how those experiences forced her to change her style in order to go unnoticed, Alicia wrote:
“I didn’t want to be talked to in that way, looked at in that way, whistled after, followed.. and so I started hiding. I chose the baggy jeans and timbs, I chose the ponytail and hat, I chose no makeup, no bright color lipstick or pretty dresses. I chose to hide.”
As Page Six reports, when Alicia’s debut album, “Songs in A Minor,” was released in 2001, her tomboy style caused many to speculate that she was a lesbian.
“I had the baggy/braided/tough NY tomboy thing mastered, that was who I was (or who I chose to be) and I felt good there,” she said. “Then because of the way I spoke or carried myself, people started calling me gay and hard and I wasn’t gay, but I was hard and although I felt comfortable there, it made me uncomfortable that people were judging me and so slowly I hid that side of myself.”
As she matured, Keys said she chose to stop hiding and accept who she is. Just days ago, she posted a sexy recreation of Sintra Arunte-Bronte’s famous Jamaica tourism poster from 1972. Check it out below.
“I don’t have to hide anymore, I don’t have to pretend and hold back, I don’t have to think that my intelligence, beauty and sensuality are intimidating to others,” she said.
Alicia married rapper/producer Swizz Beatz in 2010, and they have two sons. Her latest song, “28,000 Days,” is available now on iTunes.
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