It’s safe to say that last night’s BET Awards was incredible. From Beyoncé’s dancers crushing it on the red carpet to the BET president calling for gun reform, it was a powerful evening.
Going off of the trend of power and #slaying in all ways, Alicia Keys went completely bare faced and it’s safe to say that she was just as gorgeous as ever.
And this isn’t the first time that she ditched the makeup for something big. In an essay for Lenny Letter, Keys explained that growing up, “We all get to a point in our lives (especially girls) where we try to be perfect.” Whether it’s putting on makeup, trying to be skinny, or just being someone you’re not, we are all guilty of it, she writes. At one point it even got so bad that it was messing with her on a day to day basis. “Every time I left the house, I would be worried if I didn’t put on makeup: What if someone wanted a picture?? What if they POSTED it??? These were the insecure, superficial, but honest thoughts I was thinking. And all of it, one way or another, was based too much on what other people thought of me.”
It wasn’t until a photographer for her most recent album wanted to shoot her right after she got home from the gym when it all changed. “It was just a plain white background, me and the photographer intimately relating, me and that baseball hat and scarf and a bunch of invisible magic circulating. And I swear it is the strongest, most empowered, most free, and most honestly beautiful that I have ever felt.”
After that, she didn’t want to cover up anymore, “Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing.” And so she didn’t and hasn’t. Amen, sister.