Christina Aguilera Calls 2011 a 'Rough Year'

Christina Aguilera

Courtesy Marie Claire

Out with the old, in with the new.

That's the attitude Christina Aguilera is taking at the start of the new year, as she is ready to put 2011 and all the mishaps that came with it behind her.

Speaking to Marie Claire, even Aguilera herself admits that she's been through a "rough year," marked by a series of minor highs and major lows.

The singer was asked to perform the National Anthem at the Super Bowl in February, only to flub the lyrics. Then, less than a month later, she and her boyfriend, Matthew Rutler, were arrested she for public intoxication, and he for DUI.

But her trouble actually started back in 2010, when Aguilera, 31, and her husband of five years, Jordan Bratman, divorced.

"It's hard for anyone to go through that in public," says Aguilera about her divorce and subsequent woes. "But when you're a celebrity and under a microscope, it's 58 million times harder."

Good Relationship with Ex

She and Bratman still maintain a friendly relationship, according to Aguilera, if only for the sake of their 4-year-old son, Max.

"He's a devoted father," the former Mickey Mouse Club star says of her ex. "We always make sure that we put Max first."

"I have to surround my son with positive, strong relationships so that he feels he has a cohesive family," she adds. "Children of divorce feel broken when parents want to take shots at each other. There are many different types of families; I try to center ours around Max and his happiness."

Though the second half of 2011 was better than the first for Aguilera, she's recently been getting flack for her curvy physique. But she's taking it in stride.

"I've been through my highs, I've been through my lows," she tells Marie Claire. "Being too thin. Being bigger. I've been criticized for being on both sides of the scale. It's noise I block out automatically. My son is healthy and happy, so that's all that matters to me."

Christina Aguilera

Courtesy Marie Claire

Though she tells the magazine that she doesn't weigh herself and instead bases her self-judgment on how comfortable she feels, Aguilera says she's learned to recognize when she's becoming unhealthy one way or the other.

Of her time working on the 2010 movie musical Burlesque, Aguilera admits: "I lost so much weight that I was too skinny."

And now?

"I happen to be very confident in my own skin," she tells the magazine. "It takes time to get to that place, but it's all about embracing yourself and your body."

As a coach on NBC's singing competition show Th! e Voice< /em>, it's up to Aguilera to bring out confidence in the aspiring artists she mentors which is something she's only recently learned to see in herself.

Aguilera said her next album will be centered around the theme of surviving.

"Time heals everything," she says. "Sometimes you have to go through that pain and heartbreak so that you can get to the other side and come out on top."