Christina Aguilera sat down with Parade to chat about her post-divorce life, supporting Britney Spears, and her new show.

On her setbacks over the past year:

“I think it’s the perfect time in my life [to do this show] because in light of the past year, there’s been obvious setbacks. I’ve gone through a really hard divorce, and anyone who has gone through a divorce will speak about how hard the journey is from start to finish. It’s a life-uprooting time and there have been hiccups along the way that unfortunately the whole world gets to witness and judge.

I can laugh about my own hiccups and my own experiences in life because I’m getting through it. But I get to share these experiences with these people and I get to say not every performance day is going to be a great day. Sometimes you could be having the worst day of your life and you have to get up on that stage and you have to give to your fans in a way that they would never know the difference. You have to lose yourself in that moment and you have to be so involved. Take yourself out of your own headspace or use whatever you’re going through and put it into the passion of your song.”

She’s ready to open up about the past year:

“I think that’s the most important thing for me to do is to talk about my hiccups and the ups and downs in my career, especially in light of the past year. There have been things that have happened on stage that any performer can absolutely relate to and I’m so happy that I get to share these moments with them in such an intimate environment. I’m actually revealing a lot about myself during this show and a side of myself that I think a lot of people have never seen before, that only my closest friends see when the cameras go off. I just wanted to approach this show very openly. I’m human, too, and people make mistakes and go through things in life and I’m definitely taking that into the show.”

Click on “continue reading” after the gallery for the rest of the interview!

Photos by Fame

On her recent tweet to Britney Spears, congratulating her on her new album, Femme Fatale:
“I haven’t heard the whole thing in its entirety. I’ve been really hard on work on this show, but I am a huge supporter of her in light that both of our careers started off together and are still going strong. I think it’s extremely important to be supportive of fellow artists and especially females who get pitted against each other and torn apart. As an old friend of mine from the Mickey Mouse club, I think it’s important at this stage in the game to really show my support.”

Son Max isn’t ready to see mom in action:

“He doesn’t really like to see mommy in work mode quite yet. He’s so used to when he sees mommy, I’m in mommy mode, and mommy mode is all about Max. So as he grows up, he’ll understand that side of mommy as a good example of being positive and driven and focused. But for now, he definitely wants mommy all to himself!”