Pink says it was ‘unfair’ how she was positioned against other pop stars when they were younger

She was a fan of Britney Spears as a young performer and performed with Christina Aguilera on their number-one hit cover of Lady Marmalade in 2001.

But Pink was critical of how she and her fellow pop stars were pitted against each other early in their careers in a new interview with People published Wednesday.

The 41-year-old singer–songwriter recalled how her early stage persona was described as the ‘anti-Britney’ and the ‘anti-Christina’ despite her not launching any public feuds against her fellow performers.

‘It was so unfair to all the girls,’ Pink said of how they were treated by the industry and media outlets. ‘None of us wanted that. I love Britney — she used to carry around my album.’

As she sees it, the different singers simply came from different backgrounds, but they weren’t actively feuding against each other. 

‘I was like, “Dude, I’m a street punk, I just skateboard. That doesn’t have to be the anti-Britney. I don’t want to fight anybody,” she continued. ‘I think we navigated through it as good as a 20-year-old girl can.’ 

Despite the made up competitions between singers, she thinks things are moving in a more positive direction with younger stars. 

‘Now I think it’s totally different. Girls supporting girls is rad — I love to watch it.’ 

Although Pink didn’t care for the artificially created catfights, she did come into contact with Christina Aguilera when they were crafting their hit Lady Marmalade cover in 2001.

The song, which also features singing from Mya and rapping from Lil’ Kim, got off on a bad start after Christina’s label executive Ron Fair allegedly strong armed a meeting before the vocal recordings in order to get the Genie In A Bottle singer the most high-profile vocal spot.

‘Ron Fair walked in and didn’t say hello to any of us,’ Pink recalled of a meeting to discuss how to craft the song which she recounted in 2009 for VH1’s Behind The Music.

‘He said, “What’s the high part? What’s the most singing part? Christina’s going to take that part,”‘ she said.

‘And I stood up and said, “Hi. How are you? So nice of you to introduce yourself. I’m Pink. She will not be taking that part. I think that’s what the f***ing meeting is about.’

At that point, ‘I just became the a**hole,’ Pink added.

In March, the video’s choreographer Tina Landon recounted how tensions got even worse on the set of the music video to Cosmopolitan for the recording’s 20th anniversary.

‘They were all sitting there watching each other work. Paul Hunter, the director, was trying to give Christina direction and she couldn’t hear him,’ Landon explained.

‘She said, “What did you say?” And Pink reiterated what Paul had said. Christina did the thing: “I was talking to Paul.” I just sank down in my chair going, “Oh, God, please don’t let this get worse.” And it didn’t!”

In 2017, Pink shared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that she and Christina made up years later.

‘She’s so talented and, deep down, I’ve had bad days, too. She’s a really sweet person. We made up on The Voice,’ she said.