The singer, gearing up to release new album Liberation, recalls the time she and Eminem had major beef

Christina Aguilera took a trip down memory lane in her latest interview, traveling back to an unpleasant moment in her career.

Opening up to Billboard in a wide-ranging chat about her upcoming album Liberation, the star, 37, reflects on when she was just 19 years old and became the subject of some very hurtful, misogyny-laden lyrics by rapper Eminem.

“Things have definitely changed,” she says in response to the interviewer mentioning how verbal attacks like that towards a woman would be taboo today, in the era of Time’s Up and #MeToo.

Miller Mobley

Back in 2000, Eminem rocketed up the charts with his controversial song “The Real Slim Shady” in which he name-checks everyone from Will Smith to Britney Spears. But it was a particularly obscene verse targeted at Aguilera that had everyone talking.

“Little bitch put me on blast on M-T-V / ‘Yeah he’s cute but I think he’s married to Kim, he he’ / I should download her audio on mp3 / And show the whole world how you gave Eminem V.D.” he raps in the song, at the time upset over an MTV interview Aguilera gave where she voiced disapproval of his violent lyrics about then-wife Kimberly Scott.

For her part Aguilera says, she couldn’t be happier with her response back then. “What was great was how badass I was at such a young age to then write ‘Can’t Hold Us Down,’” her female empowerment anthem from the hit 2002 album Stripped.

On the track she sings “So what am I not supposed to have an opinion / Should I keep quiet just because I’m a woman / Call me a bitch cause I speak what’s on my mind / Guess it’s easier for you to swallow if I sat and smiled.”

Frank Micelotta/Getty

The two famously met face to face in 2002 when the “Dirrty” singer presented him with the MTV Video Music Award for Best Male Video as some in the crowd booed during his speech.

Says Aguilera of recent strides made by women, “We are coming slowly but surely around a corner, not taking the things that we used to.”

Miller Mobley

Eminem, 45, who released Revival last December and performed to sold-out crowds at Coachella last month, recently revealed that he celebrated 10 years of sobriety, commemorating the milestone on Twitter.

Aguilera’s Liberation is out June 15.