Alicia Keys Talks the Power of Aging: ‘You Get More Beautiful as You Get Older’

Alicia Keys is at peace with aging.

In an interview with New York of The Cut magazine, the 42-year-old musician said she has embraced aging for many reasons.

Alicia Keys wears a custom bejeweled Versace dress and dramatic thigh-high boots for Albies

“I like to be smarter. I like to be more aware. I like to be aware of what I’m thinking,” she said. “I like to be in touch with what I think and feel comfortable knowing that what I know is the right thing for me, that I don’t have to ask so much for confirmation from everyone else to decide if it’s a good thing for me or not.”

Keys also believes that “you get more beautiful as you get older” because “your heart opens up more” and “you have a quality inside you that is somehow much stronger.”

Photo of Alicia Keys without makeup.

Michael Muller/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

The “Dnevnika” singer told the newspaper that after starting in the music industry at an early age, she learned over time how she wanted to express herself.

“It opened my eyes that I didn’t feel comfortable or beautiful if I didn’t have my armor on, and if I didn’t have all my face and hair and nice things and nice clothes on, somehow I was less than beautiful or less than. I realized, like , Wow, what’s underneath all that?‘ ”

That realization influenced Keys’ decision to go makeup-free in 2016.

Alicia Keys Launches New Makeup Collection With ‘All Our Journeys in Mind’

“I think it was just an awareness of how much we’ve subscribed to societal standards of beauty, and I hadn’t thought about that before. I just hadn’t thought about it,” she said.

In a previous conversation with PEOPLE about her lifestyle beauty brand, Keys Soulcare, Keys said she brought makeup back into her life on her own terms.

Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards Kevin Mazur/MTV VMAs 2021/Getty

“I have to determine what beauty is for me. No one can tell me what it is, and I can’t tell anyone what it is either. That’s why my relationship with [makeup and beauty] came to where he is,” she told PEOPLE.

In a birthday tribute in January, her husband, Swizz Beatz, opened up about how much he appreciates Keys’ sense of self.

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“She’s one of the purest goddesses alive. What I love most about her is the positive vibes. It’s her birthday and I have a surprise for her,” he said in a song he shared on Instagram.

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Source: HIS Education