Alicia Keys, photographed wearing Iceberg for the cover of the 78th issue of British lifestyle magazine Dazed & Confused (now Dazed) by Terry Richardson in June 2001.

In Alicia’s 2020 memoir More Myself, she recalls how she felt “manipulated” and “objectified” during a photoshoot before the release of her debut album around 19-years-old. Although she did not name the photographer nor publication, many fans and news outlets drew unmistaken comparisons between her descriptions.

Known to models as "Uncle Terry," Richardson has been infamous since the 1990s for "an almost soft-p*rn aesthetic" featuring nudity, innuendo and simulated sex acts, according to The Guardian. Since the early 2000s, he’s been accused multiple times of using his influence in the fashion industry to sexually exploit models during shoots. In 2017, major fashion magazines like Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair announced they would stop commissioning Richardson.

While on set, the photographer insisted that he needed to shoot photos of her alone, which her team obliged. “When I emerge from the dressing room, there’s just the two of us on set. ‘Open up your shirt a little,’ he directs while firing off a flurry of camera snaps,” Alicia writes in her book. “My spirit is screaming that something is wrong, that this feels sleazy. But my protests, lodged in the back of my throat, can’t make their way out.”

The photographer then asked her to pull the top of her jeans down a bit in the front. “If I say no, what doors will be closed to me? I swallow my misgivings, tuck my thumb between the denim and my skin, and obey,” she recollected. She says she “cried harder than ever” once she went home after the shoot. Alicia was appalled once she saw the cover when it finally dropped. “On the day of the cover’s debut, I pass a newsstand where the magazine is on display. I almost throw up.” 

Alicia added that the discomfort didn’t just stem from showing skin on a magazine cover, it was the feeling of being taken advantage of: “This isn’t about me showing some skin, which I’ll do on my own terms, for my own purposes, in the coming years. It’s about feeling manipulated. It’s about being objectified,” she writes. “I am beyond embarrassed, ashamed that I’ve sold part of myself…Had Jeff Robinson been in there, he would’ve voiced what I couldn’t at the time: Hell no. Close that shirt. Take your hand off your tit. And you’re not going to yank down your jeans.”

The experience had a profound impact on the now mother: “I swear that I’ll never again let someone rob me of my power,” she wrote. “It’s a promise I still work to keep.”