Shelly Kearns may be Christina Aguilera's mom but that doesn't mean she spends her days living in luxury and basking in the glow of her famous daughter.

When she called AllPop from her home in the Pittsburgh area, she was busy dealing with her yipping Pappion dogs and her annoyed five-year-old son whose sandwich they'd just stolen. On top of her everyday duties as a mother, Shelly diligently goes through thousands of emails from fans demanding answers to the latest Christina-related rumours. The answers to questions which range from inquiries about the specific locations of her famous daughter's piercings to rumours about explicit adult videos claiming to feature Christina, can be found on the singer's official website - www.christina-a.com.

Shelly, who firmly says she doesn't sugar coat her life, openly discussed the odd and sometimes hurtful rumours surrounding her daughter, Christina's upcoming album and more.

Is overseeing the website a big job?

Huge, tones and tones of questions. The thing that surprises me the most is the rumours. I never realized, I always knew there was such a thing as a rumour mill where celebrities were concerned but I didn't know they cranked them out that quick, and spread them around that quickly. You have to have a thick skin to do what I'm doing but it's fine.

Where is your line, when do you decide that this question is a bit too personal, it's not somewhere I want to go?

Christina

We're pretty open people. Christina is kind of like me, pretty much what you see is what's there. After you deal with so many fans, you can kind of get a feel for who isn't really interested in the answer - if you're being baited just because no matter what you say they're going to make something horrible out of it. I pay attention first of all to how it's phrased because that will tell you whether the person is sincere-hearted or if they're just mean spirited and just looking for something.

What's the most common question you're getting these days?

Oh gosh, there's no common thread. They're all so varied as you can probably see by the rumour mill questions. They're everywhere from "Is it true she had an alien's baby"...they're pretty wild.

Are the whole Christina/Britney enemy questions dying off now?

That's pretty common. That's constant. They're dying off a lot more than they used to [though]. For some reason, the media from the very beginning kept ignoring the fact that the two were friends. They were inseparable on the 'Mickey Mouse Club'. I mean literally. Britney's mom Lynne and I lived at each other's apartments practically with these girls back and forth. They're so alike, personality wise. I remember more than once that Christina was furious, crying and everything else because she'd read horrible things about Britney she'd come in and say 'look at this, this isn't fair, she's not like this'. This of course was early on before she realized that you know, no matter what we tell people, if it's not ugly I guess they think it's boring. The truth must be boring because they're great friends always have been always probably will be. She's given interviews and everything else sticking up for Britney but it's funny how that doesn't get spread around.

How did you decide to start answering the rumour questions online?

It's funny because everything sort of morphed into that. Way back, when she did some things with Keizo (a Japanese singer) before 'Mulan', she was on a couple of his shows on tour in Japan, she was on an album of his. I didn't even know how to work the computer, and I just kind of poked around to see if there was anything out there about him, seeing if they said anything about her. Next thing you know she was signed to RCA and she'd done 'Reflection' for 'Mulan' so I learned on my feet as I went, 'oh gee, I didn't know that fans were out there talking to each other about anybody.' That's how computer illiterate I was. Just kind of poked around about 'Reflection' and out popped a site that somebody had done about 'Reflection' and Christina. And I went 'Oh, this is cool' you can imagine in the beginning. I actually found out you could contact the webmaster and I talked to her and then they asked me for an interview, the more popular she got the more I kind of saw things. I used to , in the very beginning when the first few websites came out, I remember emailing the webmasters to thank them because that's a lot of work. And then they thought that was cool cause I was a mom, so little by little you kind of keep contact and it grew and grew to the point where I would have notebooks of which fan sites were strong in photos cause they would call me and ask me. Livedaily.com asked me for an interview and it turned into a message board and everything took a life of it's own.

Was part of your reason [for answering questions] was that if you can answer rumour questions you can have an amount of control [over the rumours]?

Oh sure, well after I got to do it I realized why no one else does it. Very, very hard work. What shocked me the very most when Christina became famous and any celebrity family will tell you the same thing I'm sure, when reality really sets in, your world, your perception of reality that you had accepted your whole life, is really rocked. You lose your footing a bit. It's kind of scary. Cause wow, I had no idea that this isn't really the way it seems to be, you know, that I can't always believe my evening news. My evening news just a couple of months ago announced that I was crippled and bedridden and Christina dropped her tour - what tour? She's not on tour - and she rushed to my bedside, to give you an example. I had no idea not to believe radio DJs. Well good grief, they're worse than the National Enquirer. That is I think, why I maintained contact with the fans. I was thinking that I've seen other parents try this but it's so painful so hard. But you have to put it in perspective, it's just theses kids don't understand. When we were not famous, you always wondered what was it like. So I thought, 'well I'll help them to realize what it is like', it's not all sugar but it's not all bad. It's fun, of course it's fun but at the same time I saw a lot of stage mothers when I was coming up through the ranks with Christina. You know, when you have a child that's like Christina or Britney, I saw the same thing in her, they have this passion about what they love doing. I don't care if they weren't getting paid anything, they'd still be doing this stuff. Even with all the rumours, they're still there, cause they love it. Now, if you have a child like that, sure do whatever you can to help them toward their goal. But my point with the rumour mill and all this other stuff is to show people too, if you're just pushing your child because you or Aunt Martha wants her to be a famous singer, she might make it, and if it's not truly in her heart, make sure you understand what she's going to be subjected to. Cause if it's in her heart, she'll be fine with it, she'll deal with it and she'll still be very happy cause she wouldn't be happy being anything else. But if it's not in her heart and you push her, it's going to really hurt her.

Was there ever a point when the rumours started coming in that you talked to her about trying something else, considering a career that was less high profile?

Christina

If you know Christina, the type of in-born thing that I'm talking about, [for] everybody in our family who knows her, it's laughable, she is singing, it's just in her. Even if she's not in front of the camera anymore it'll still be her.

When she was really young, when she was a little girl, we were very confused because kids would be all upset because it was okay if she was out doing little league or cheerleading or something, but fame seemed to flip them out because apparently it threatened them for some reason. Now back then, she'd come home from school in tears because somebody was mean or threatened this or that and I said 'Well sweety, are you sure you want to do this, I'm behind you a hundred percent if you want to but make sure' It was never a question, she would look at me and say 'Well how come they can do cheerleading and I can't do singing? I thought it was about what you want to do.' And I thought, well, okay, she's ten and she makes more sense than anyone else. That was the only time, those days way back in elementary school. [that Shelly questioned the career path].

What do you think it is about people like Christina that make people have to know how many piercings they have and feel like they have a right to know that information?

It's a weird phenomena, we've often wondered that ourselves, especially teen pop. It's like in their minds they morph you into a non-emotional life form, they realize on some level that you're a human being but somehow it doesn't register in there. I get more letters of people saying: 'Well, you should have thought of that before you became famous. Once you become famous you have no privacy."

I don't think people are inherently mean, I think they simply don't understand because they just don't take the time to think it through enough because it doesn't affect their lives personally enough to do that. I don't know what makes them go after people like Britney...like Justin...well, the boys don't get attacked like the girls do which is a thing that basically really ticks us off but anyway. Not because we think they should but the whole point is, wait a minute now if you're going to let up with them, let up with us too.

You know, people have very encapsulated lives, we all do in a sense. It's just that the people in the lime light get to see a lot larger of a portion of society than most people and as a result it just kind of opens your eyes. It's a blessing in a way cause you get to see a lot more. As a result though, they [some fans believing rumours] don't understand how silly some of these things get and if they did, they wouldn't tend to believe things so readily. If they realized how many things are made up - dozens a day....

As far as the adult-tape rumours go, you released a statement on the website, is there anything else you want to say about the rumour?

Anytime something is that big and you know it's a fake, what is your first tendency? [To say] 'Well, that's ridiculous'. We got so many letters about that it became easier just to say let's just post something on the website so everybody can just see all at once. Most people are just really good people, but they don't'realize, you don't realize see the underside, the dark side of people until you're a celebrity, as a result I think that kind of makes people believe. You relate to somebody according to what you would do so you don't realize that there's so many slimy people out there who would just do horrible things if it makes a buck. Celebrities are such prime targets because nobody can reach them to verify anything. That's what I'm doing on the internet for her. Just ask me, I'll tell you. People say, 'You're always saying no that's not true' and I say 'The minute you actually ask me something that I know she did do I'll tell you, no problem'.

Do you have to check with her sometimes?

Yeah, all the time. I do that quite a bit, matter of fact there was some sort of magazine article that splashed her across the front and said, 'No I'm not a virgin', I called her up and she said 'Mom I never even interviewed with that magazine before.

Have you found that being really up front about your answers, have helped to taper off the really bizarre rumours?

No, they never really taper off so you have to kind of accept the fact that there is an facet of people who seem like they need to believe things or else I don't think these fairy tales would be conjured up so often. For some reason, if you are successful in anything, you're going to threaten the guy next to you who isn't as successful even if you're the nicest person in the world, just you being successful is going to tick people off. Those are the people who are going to be out to get you. It's really sad, they don't know you, if they'd take that energy and focus it on themselves, they'd be where you are too. All you can do it answer honestly and I think the vast majority of people out there are not the yucky ones. But, they're the ones you notice the most cause they're right in your face. What I do is hard but it's worth it because I get Christina in contact safely with thousands of people and she's able to answer people through me and people are able to get true facts because we're sincerely not sugar coaters.

One example of that, is on the site when you were talking, quite frankly about your ex-husband and Christina's father and the abuse [Shelly suffered in that relationship]. How did you make that decision?

It's funny because I just kept quiet for a while until I saw where Christina wanted to go with it and she was very open. Plus, we discussed it. Plus, not to mention, it wasn't helping not to say anything. I know celebrities who are in very abusive home life situations and you've never heard about it. Because, my gosh it does open you up to a lot of cruel people. Just nastiness. But, at the same time you would not believe the amount of people from people who were in it when they read our story and are now having the strength to get out. You never know what little thing you say that will help somebody get out of a dangerous situation. It's worth anything to help somebody get out of where we used to be.

You're writing a book, what's it about?

It's kind of an odd book, I don't know how to explain it. It's not just a sugary bubble-gum thing where 'She was born, Dec. 18, Staten Island and her favourite colour is blah-blah,' that'll be in there for the fans but I'm also giving my experience kind of like I do on the website. Basically, what it's like. I basically pay attention to what people ask me the most like 'How do I help my daughter get famous?'.

What do you tell someone, when they ask you [how you helped Christina get famous] ?

I tell them what I did. I come from a very sport-minded only town. If you're sports you're a hero here but if you're fine arts, 'They're like, yeah well, okay prove to me I should be impressed,'. When Christina was young I kind of learned real quickly that this was sort of out of my control, that she was going to be this, that God was kind of guiding everything stuff would land in our laps and I thought, 'Oh, okay I'm supposed to do this,'. So I kind of figured this was what she wanted to be and she never, ever wanted to be anything else. I didn't know what to do at all, I was clueless. So what I did was went to bookstores, libraries, and read everything I could get my hands on written by professionals in the industry and that helped tremendously. I tell them about the good books out there, I tell them about mind-sets, you have to be able to visualize what you want.

What can you tell us about [Christina's upcoming] album?

Christina is excited about this album because it's much more her. Where they guided her in teen pop before, her heart has been in teen pop and R&B soul. They wanted to keep it more strictly pop before where now she's able to get those influences into her music more and not to mention it's her music because she's writing it.

Have you heard the music? Are you happy with it?

Yes, very much. It's funny because each piece is different, it's not one of these records that you put on and they all sound the same. It's great because it all comes from different parts of her and that's what she wanted to do, draw from different parts of her experiences. This one might be addressing the pain she's gone through, this other one might be addressing how cool this is, life, when you get your dream. [It's] from a more deeper perspective.

Can you confirm the June release date?

We're basically shooting for a summer release although they kind of pinned down June and we didn't expect that. But that was fine because we were kind of shooting for a summer release anyway.

When she's writing, does she come to you during the process, read lyrics to you?

Yeah, she does. Last time, she'll sit on the floor, and she'll sing something for me, and she'll go, 'What do you think, I can't make up my mind between this and this,' but most of the time she has these things completed and she just wants to get my feedback.

Are there any guest stars on the album?

She was telling me a couple, yes, that people are going to be pleased about. (More on: Christina Aguilera)

--AllPop