Alicia Keys doesn’t want to talk about those pesky rumors that she homewrecked her current fiancée and baby-daddy Swizz Beatz’s marriage to Mashonda Tifrere. The rumors have been swirling for a year, including the “open letter” Mashonda wrote out on some public forum last year, where she called out both Swizz and Alicia. Alicia has never really spoken about it, despite having to do quite a bit of press to promote her album. But no more! Fabulous Magazine (which seems to be the weekend magazine of The News of the World) has a new interview with Alicia, and the reporter had the balls to ask Alicia about the her (alleged) homewrecker status. Alicia’s response? “Oprah Winfrey is the wisest woman I know. She’s like my big, clever, older sister. A while ago she gave me one piece of advice which was to never get drawn into talking about that sort of thing. All I know is that right now my life is really, really good.” Girl, name-dropping Oprah won’t help your ass now. The full piece is here, and here are some of the highlights:

Alicia Keys on loving Swizz: “Oh yes,” she says dreamily. “I am very much in love. Right now love is my main inspiration. Love is the one thing we all want in our lives and I am completely surrounded by it. Love fills you up in a way nothing else can and it’s the most amazing, amazing thing.”

On motherhood: She’s even considering adopting a child from Africa in the future. “I’m so looking forward to being a mum,” she says. “My mum was the best mum to me. She was my best friend as well as my mum. And I want to be the same to my child.”

Fabulous Mag on the homewrecking: “Both Alicia and Swizz have strongly denied that they were together while he was married. In fact, despite regularly being seen at the same events and holidaying together in Hawaii in January, they only admitted they were a couple in May, when they were photographed hand-in-hand following Alicia’s sell-out gig at London’s O2 arena. Their public outing came just weeks after Swizz’s divorce was formalised. Two days later, headlines announced they were planning to marry and expecting a baby. Not exactly music to Mashonda’s ears.”

But Alicia won’t be drawn into discussing her fiancé’s ex. She shakes her head: “Oprah Winfrey is the wisest woman I know. She’s like my big, clever, older sister. A while ago she gave me one piece of advice which was to never get drawn into talking about that sort of thing. All I know is that right now my life is really, really good.”

On her childhood: “Growing up for me was tough. I could have gone any way. I grew up around drugs and gangs and I knew kids who got involved in both. I was the kid who liked music, who liked acting, but I also liked to be popular with the other kids so I didn’t separate myself off. I’d be playing Chopin on the piano for my music lessons and then learning to rap with kids round the block. You had to be streetwise. At the age of seven I could spot a hustler or someone high on drugs.”

On her start in the industry: “I’d gone from being this kid from Harlem to flying round the world first class and working, working, working. It sounds like a dream and in many ways it was, but I got to a point where I couldn’t cope.” She turned from sunny-natured to “this horrible, argumentative, unhappy person. I’d fly into rages and I couldn’t sleep. I was tired but all the time people around me were talking about the next date in the diary, the next song, the next performance. My diary had no space in it for months on end. I wanted to scream. I was suspicious of so many people around me. I knew people were taking advantage of me and I felt as though I had all these fans all around the world but no one close to me who really cared. I had no balance in my life.”

On her grandmother’s death: “I was with her the night she died,” she says. “My grandmother was a very spiritual, open-hearted person. We were so close and in fact I look like her and act like her. Losing her made me realise just how much I’d been losing it.”

Some called it a breakdown, but it was her breakthrough: “No one warns you how hard it is to adjust to fame. Things happen, you find yourself becoming a person you don’t recognise and then you have to get back to who you were. I changed the people around me and changed the way I worked. I’d had this great career but I had no life, I needed to get my life back. I learnt to meditate and I told everyone I needed time off every few weeks in my diary. It’s working,” she smiles. “Life isn’t just about getting what you want and having a great career, it’s having what you need.”

[From Fabulous Magazine]

She does sound happy and at peace… and also a little smug and full of herself? Sure, she has reason to be full of herself – she’s pretty awesome with the whole music career and being beautiful and positive and all of that. But you also have to look at how she’s trying to project herself – like the criticism and gossip and rumors about how she got her man aren’t bothering her in the least. I do think she’s bothered by it, though. Maybe I’m wrong. In any case, I can’t believe Alicia ended up with a dude like Swizz. She could do so much better.

Photos courtesy of NOTW/Fabulous. More photos in the slideshow.