Nelly Furtado claims magazines used to ‘lighten’ her skin, edit hips

Nelly Furtado claimed in a new interview that magazines used to “lighten” her skin and alter her body shape during the early days of her fame in the 2000s.

“I have olive skin, and they’d kind of lighten my skin a lot in photos and kind of take my hips down all the time — they would always cut off in editorials,” she recalled to People Thursday.

Furtado, 45, was raised in British Colombia but her parents immigrated from Portugal.

Nelly Furtado told People magazines would edit her skin to make it lighter when she became famous at the turn of the century. nellyfurtado/Instagram The “I’m Like a Bird” singer also claimed editors would “take [her] hips down.” nellyfurtado/Instagram

The pop star, who rose to fame in the early aughts for hits like “I’m Like a Bird” and “Promiscuous,” said she recalled there being “a lot of airbrushing” at the time.

However, she had no trouble calling out such practices in her lyrics, such as in her 2003 song “Powerless.”

“Paint my face in your magazines / Make it look whiter than it seems / Paint me over with your dreams / Shove away my ethnicity,” the song states.

“By my second album, I guess I was kind of angry about it,” Furtado surmised to People.

Furtado sang about the experience in her 2003 song “Powerless.” Getty Images “Paint my face in your magazines / Make it look whiter than it seems … Shove away my ethnicity,” she sings in the song. Getty Images

Despite the disheartening experiences, the “Say It Right” songstress said she “felt so lucky and blessed” during that time period.

“I always had such a good team around me, that was family,” Furtado gushed to the magazine.

“My team around me felt so solid and really looking out for my best interests. And I think I was just raised right.”

Despite her dissatisfaction with being so heavily edited, Furtado said she felt generally “lucky and blessed” during that period in her life. Getty Images “I always had such a good team around me, that was family,” she gushed to People. Getty Images

The “Maneater” singer added that she was raised with a “sense of assertiveness,” which helped her navigate the cutthroat music industry.

Furtado released “7,” her seventh studio album, this month after taking a seven-year break to raise her children.

She has a 21-year-old daughter, Nevis Gahunia, with her music composer ex, Jasper Gahunia, plus a 6-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son with her rapper ex, Jerry, whose real name is Gerard Damien Long.

Furtado released her seventh studio album, “7,’ this month. Casablanca/Republic Records The project debuted after her seven-year hiatus from releasing music. Getty Images for Artists for Peace & Justice

Furtado joked that she went “off to [her] own planet” during her hiatus in a recent chat with NPR.

“I like to keep one foot in, like, a very kind of normal life, I think. I had two more kids. I have three children. And so, I think I was just kind of home with my kids,” she explained.

“And also the way that my business works, like, putting out music and touring … you get in a little bit of a bubble ’cause you’re traveling, and everything’s quite fast-paced, so you don’t really get to feel the poetry of life. So I need to slow down and kind of feel the poetry.”