Criminals usually have history from early adulthood or even earlier and they aren’t that smart. When a good man really snaps and goes on a “mission”, he’s really hard to catch.
Just being an asshole and refering to interviews after “Genie in a bottle”.
It was common phenomenon during the 90’s among rising female artists. There were probably some Harvey Weinstein type of studio execs with a sweaty foreheads that demanded black hair, heavy makeup, pushup bra with cleavage, black leather, bare skin and lots of grindy stripper moves.
This was usually after the first hit song and they quickly shook this off after the first album and tour. Probably at that point they got more say-so about their artistic choices.