Christina Aguilera started performing to her stuffed animals when she was just two years old, and by the age of six, she'd progressed to actual human audiences. Encouraged by her grandma, Aguilera began singing at block parties in Wexford, the Pittsburgh suburb that her mother grew up in. Aguilera's mom returned to Wexford with her daughters after leaving her husband, and before long, little Christina was a local celebrity. "I was known around the neighborhood as the little girl with the big voice, and I always liked that contrast," she told Newsweek.
According to her mom, Aguilera became "irritable" when she had no events to sing at, so when the chance to appear on TV talent show Star Search came along, they jumped at it. "I was eight, and I sang Whitney Houston's 'Greatest Love of All,'" Aguilera told Rolling Stone, recalling how she cried when she came in second to a 12-year-old named Christopher Eason. "I was told it was fixed, but I'm not going to hold a grudge," she joked. "My mom made me go back out and shake his hand and tell him I was happy he won. Tears were running down my face. Awful." Eason went on to become a barista in Oklahoma City.
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