KT Tunstall has backtracked on lewd comments she made about Shakira’s music video for her hit song “She Wolf”.
The 50-year-old Scottish singer-songwriter said in a new interview that she was probably “jealous” when she claimed in 2010 that Shakira was “shoving her lady bits in my face” and “stripping off” for attention in the video.
Tunstall said she has since reconsidered her view, saying: “What business is it of mine to comment on anything that another artist does? And why have I got a problem with it?”
“Maybe I was jealous because it was making her successful,” she told The Times.
The singer, whose best-known songs include “Suddenly I See” and “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” from 2004, said that “showing skin” was never part of her image as a musician, and that her label often wanted her to wear jeans and boots.
Tunstall wanted to try something new after her debut album Eye to the Telescope, by wearing glittery dresses, but said it didn’t pay off commercially.
“I’m sure they were right that I would have stayed in a higher echelon if I had repeated myself, but I was just not interested in doing that,” she said.
In 2010, Turnstall made headlines when she criticised the Colombian singer’s music video for being “X-rated” and said it shocked her.
She told Daily Record at the time: “You've got little girls watching some pretty X-rated stuff.”
“The Shakira video actually shocked me and I am not easily shocked. I was like, 'You are shoving your lady bits in my face. I didn't ask for that.”
“It is shocking but it seems they need to shock to get attention.” She added that “stripping off” was not something that she would want to be “part of”.
“I am not a model,” she said. “I'm a girl who can sing and play guitar. If I wasn't singing and playing guitar, I wouldn't be on the cover of a magazine.
"There's no price for me to strip off – it's not worth it. It's about mystery. Mystery is missing from music and the more you can preserve that, the better it is for the fans.”
In the music video for “She Wolf”, Shakira appears in a cage wearing a nude leotard, as well as hopping across buildings and dancing in a nightclub.
The song peaked at number four on the UK charts and number 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
The Independent has contacted Shakira’s representatives for comment.
