Alicia Keys was says she was 'manipulated and objectified' by photographer when she was 19

Alicia Keys has bravely opened up about her experiences as a young woman in the music industry, shedding light on some of her most harrowing ordeals.

The American singer-songwriter recalled an incident when she was “manipulated” and “objectified” while shooting for a magazine when she was just 19 years old.

The 39-year-old said she remembers the “shame” she felt being told to open her shirt and pull down her jeans by a sleazy photographer.

Alicia candidly wrote about the experience, which happened in 2000, in her new memoir.

The Empire State of Mind songstress, whose real name is Alicia Augello Cook, was preparing for the release of her first album at the time when she claims the photographer insisted to her team that he needed to take pictures of her alone.

The American singer-songwriter recalled an incident when she was “manipulated” and “objectified” while shooting for a magazine when she was just 19 years old (PA Wire/Press Association Images)

She then writes that rather than disclosing his desire for “a provocative image”, the photographer “led [her] into it”.

“When I emerge from the dressing room, there’s just the two of us on set,” Alicia recalled.

“‘Open up your shirt a little,’ he directs while firing off a flurry of camera snaps. 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.

Alicia Keys has bravely opened up about her experiences as a young woman in the music industry, shedding light on some of her most harrowing ordeals (Getty Images)

“‘Pull the top of your jeans down a bit in the front,’ he urges. 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.”

Alicia went to to explain how she remembers crying “harder than ever” when she got home from the shoot.

“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 wrote.

She said she remembers the “shame” she felt being told to open her shirt and pull down her jeans by a sleazy photographer (Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

She didn’t name the photographer, or the magazine, but wrote that she wanted to throw up when she saw it on sale.

Alicia’s remembers her manager’s appalled reaction months later when the cover was published.

“I am beyond embarrassed, ashamed that I’ve sold part of myself ... Had Jeff [her manager] 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.”

Keys, who has two children with husband Swizz Beatz, 41 - nine-year-old son Egypt and five-year-old Genesis, has bravely written about her experiences in her new book More Myself: A Journey.