Jetting in from across the pond, Christina Aguilera brought her iconic star power to the Savoy Theatre on Wednesday night, when she rocked the pink carpet at the gala night of Burlesque the musical.
Stepping out alongside her co-producer on the project and writer of the show, Steve Antin, the What a Girl Wants singer, 44, couldn’t help but gush about the project and being in “magical” London despite the torrential downpour!
© Dave Benett/Getty Images“I can’t believe it was starting to rain, but this is so special. It’s it’s a little more magical to be in London when it’s raining for the premiere,” she told HELLO!.
“It’s so exciting to be here and to be celebrating something that is our baby. We’ve worked so hard on. Steven has been imagining this moment for how long now?”
© Getty ImagesSteve added: “I’m the luckiest guy on Earth tonight standing here next to Christina Aguilera, my producing partner, who helped me get the movie made, who got the movie made and was such a big part of the development and writing the songs and developing the character and the script and now helping me bring it to the stage. So like peel me off the ceiling.”
Xtina’s seal of approval
Christina famously portrayed ambitious small-town girl Ali Rose in the 2010 film, starring alongside Cher, but taking centre stage last night was Jess Folley, 22, who has not only composed music for the show, but is taking on the all-singing, all-dancing role.
It’s safe to say that Jess had Christiana’s seal of approval, the Essex-born perfomer explaining: “I remember Steve telling me that he was sending Christina videos of me from early on and you know she’s she’s a very busy woman and she’s such an icon and she had her own life and things to do, but she would always respond to him on the messages and be like: ‘She’s doing really well’ or ‘She’s he’s really cute’ which really is something that she didn’t need to do. I really appreciated because it gives you a little bit of confidence.
© Getty Images“I’ve got the approval of the one person that I feel like I really want it from because I’ve got so much respect for everything she did with the role originally, so it was it’s really nice.”
She also explained that her role in the show came as somewhat of a surprise, as she was initially only on board as a composer.
© Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images“I didn’t have a very conventional audition process because I came into the show as a composer and then I got a text from one of the producers who asked: ‘Can you just send us a video of you singing one of the songs?’
“So I was in my bedroom and I sent a video singing the song. I then did the workshop for the production and then the next thing I knew I was doing it.
“I wrote Ali’s ‘I want’ song. I went away, wrote the song in a few hours, recorded it at home, did the demo at home, played it, and then sent it back to them. The producers were like: ‘Yeah, we love it,’ and next thing I know, it was in the show!”