She won't be spending it alone, at least. There's a new guy in the life of this suddenly single superstar, and if he weren't around to ease her through her divorce, she'd still have the paparazzi to keep her company. Still, there are other factors that might make the candles look a little dimmer as she faces her fourth decade:
* Burlesque, her debut as a movie star, is going down as a box-office bomb. It had a $55 million budget—before many millions more in marketing costs—making it the most expensive gamble in Screen Gems' history. After three weeks in theaters, the movie has edged up to a $34 million gross, only about half of which is headed back to the disappointed studio's coffers.
Reviews weren't much kinder to her performance than to the overall film, which got a 38% approval rating among the critics surveyed at Rottentomatoes.com. (Among "top critics," it was an even lower 26%.) USA Today called her "clearly not at ease in front of a camera." The New York Times said Aguilera is "a serviceable screen presence" who gives "a dutiful, stolid performance in a movie that quickly proves achingly dull." "Aguilera can dance like nobody's business," opined the New York Post, "but her acting debut isn't going to keep Anne Hathaway awake at night."
* When Aguilera canceled her summer tour just after tickets went on sale last May, she cited the need to do interviews promoting Burlesque, among other factors. "With both the album press and film press I am booked the entire summer and need the time to focus on the work at hand... I realized there was not enough time to put together and rehearse for a proper show," she said in a statement. Which most people took as code for: I realized my dignity could not bear the sight of half-empty arenas.
* The album she was also supposedly canceling the tour to further promote, Bionic, was an unmitigated bust. It debuted on the Billboard chart at No. 3 with 110,000 copies sold, less than a third the opening-week total of her previous studio album. It dropped out of the top 20 after two weeks. That wasn't altogether surprising, given that lead single "Not Myself Tonight" had peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. Further singles did nothing to revive the album's fortunes. By the end of November, Bionic had sold a career-low 252,000 copies, and by December it had dropped off the list of the hundred best-selling albums of 2010.
* Amid all these career travails, there is the personal turmoil, of course. Aguilera filed for divorce from her husband of five years (and romantic interest since 2002), Jordan Bratman, in October. She subsequently revealed in interviews that they are not on the most amicable terms, which is particularly difficult for a couple with a 2-year-old child. Although she was the one who initiated the split, Aguilera spoke in interviews about "days when it feels impossible to even get out of bed, much less function as a mother."
But what if we were to look at the glass as one-third full?
Aguilera has enough still going for her that she's unlikely to fall into a George Bailey-like funk this Christmas. Consider these factors:
* That $34 million gross for Burlesque may look paltry weighted against the budget and other expectations. But how many other current music stars could drive even that many people into theaters, headlining their first movie? Given the reviews and generally derisive atmosphere into which it was released, it could have done a lot worse. And the fact that it was still No. 6 at the box office at the end of its fourth week says... well, it says something about the weakness of the Thanksgiving-time competition, but also speaks to how moviegoers didn't completely abandon the film after the first weekend.
* Aguilera did not divorce her husband to live life as a spinster. She has gone public with new boyfriend Matt Rutler, a set assistant on Burlesque (saying she kept things platonic with him before the divorce filing). The singer-actress is likely to become much more a fixture of the tabloid press, now that she can be photographed alongside someone other than her former partner of nine years. And while she probably has no desire to fall into the "famous for being famous" camp, the interest in her as an icon and subject of gossip may not be much affected by how she is or isn't doing on the charts.
And so another diva turns thirty. And not at a particularly high point in her career. Will she start the slide down the slippery slope to oblivion or will she become stronger and better at her craft and show some staying power like some of her predecessors??
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