Pop star Nelly Furtado — who just released her new album, '7' — reflects on her early days in the music industry and tells PEOPLE that after she found fame in 2000, magazines would alter her appearance with "a lot of airbrushing.

Nelly Furtado has opened up on how she was airbrushed in photoshoots at the height of her fame, after being raised in British Colombia after her parents immigrated from Portugal

Those experiences prompted her to write the song “Powerless” from her 2003 sophomore album, Folklore. She sang, “Paint my face in your magazines / Make it look whiter than it seems / Paint me over with your dreams / Shove away my ethnicity.”

Nelly Furtado says her skin used to be lightened by magazines. The 45-year-old singer shot to fame in the 2000s thanks to hits including ‘I’m Like a Bird’ and ‘Turn Out the Light’, and was raised in British Colombia after her parents immigrated from Portugal.

Singer, songwriter, and record producer Nelly Furtado, known for her diverse musical style that blends pop, R&B, hip-hop, and folk, rose to fame in the early 2000s with hits like I'm Like a Bird, Promiscuous,

Nelly Furtado says her skin used to be lightened by magazines. The 45-year-old singer shot to fame in the 2000s thanks to hits including ‘I’m Like a Bird’ and ‘Turn Out the Light’, and was raised in British Columbia after her parents immigrated from Portugal.