"What is it in us that makes us feel the need to keep pretending... We gotta let ourselves be"
About this Quote
The subtext is celebrity-specific but widely legible. A pop star—especially a young woman marketed through shifting eras of “reinvention”—knows how tightly image can be policed: by labels, by tabloids, by fans who want a brand more than a person. When Aguilera says “pretending,” she’s implicating the whole machine that profits off self-editing, where even confidence can be choreographed. The “we” matters: she refuses the lone-wolf narrative of self-actualization and frames it as collective release, a shared permission slip.
“Let ourselves be” lands like a deceptively simple ending because it’s not about becoming someone new. It’s about stopping the constant, exhausting labor of translation: making yourself palatable, marketable, non-threatening. The line’s power is its refusal to romanticize that labor. It treats pretending not as a moral failing, but as a habit we can finally outgrow.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Love |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Aguilera, Christina. (2026, February 18). What is it in us that makes us feel the need to keep pretending... We gotta let ourselves be. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/what-is-it-in-us-that-makes-us-feel-the-need-to-86082/
Chicago Style
Aguilera, Christina. "What is it in us that makes us feel the need to keep pretending... We gotta let ourselves be." FixQuotes. February 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/what-is-it-in-us-that-makes-us-feel-the-need-to-86082/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"What is it in us that makes us feel the need to keep pretending... We gotta let ourselves be." FixQuotes, 18 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/what-is-it-in-us-that-makes-us-feel-the-need-to-86082/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.





