Alicia Keys No Makeup: The Photos You Need to See

In her open letter, Keys explained that: Before I started my new album, I wrote a list of all the things that I was sick of. And one was how much women are brainwashed into feeling like we have to be skinny, or sexy, or desirable, or perfect. One of the many things I was tired of was the constant judgment of women. The constant stereotyping through every medium that makes us feel like being a normal size is not normal, and heaven forbid if you're plus-size. Or the constant message that being sexy means being naked. All of it is so frustrating and so freakin' impossible. I realized that during this process, I wrote a lot of songs about masks filled with metaphors about hiding. No disrespect to Maybelline, the word just worked after the maybe. But the truth is … I was really starting to feel like that — that, as I am, I was not good enough for the world to see. Keys said whenever she left the house, she was always worried about being photographed without makeup. (Instagram)