Former Danity Kane standout, Aubrey O'Day, hasn't discussed her upcoming Playboy shoot since the news surfaced. But, she talked about the upcoming spread a little more in-depth with MTV recently.

In an interview with MTV News, Aubrey called the shoot "empowering" and said it made her feel "beautiful."

"You could never imagine how empowering it is to be nude in front of cameras and have people looking at you in that way and seeing you as beautiful," she told. "You're seeing yourself as beautiful. I mean, a lot of the times I think I'm seen as a bad girl, and I think that's because I'm so open."

O'Day shot her Playboy spread, which hits newsstands on Friday (February 13), with photographer Markus Klinko. She admitted that she only agreed to do the shoot if he was made available.

"I only agreed to do it because [Markus] was shooting it," O'Day revealed. "He is unbelievably amazing. He agreed with me that we needed to do something classy, iconic and truly beautiful. I mean, I think a lot of the type of way I'm portrayed in the media isn't always the way I am in my heart. And I think that we were able to capture that with [this shoot]."

The singer was rumored to have received a nice payday for the appearance too -- $500,000 is the amount people are whispering.

Now that she's done it, is she worried about the criticism? After all, Aubrey has been a target of tabloids and bloggers for quite some time. She says no.

"I'm always gonna be true, whether people like it or not. I'm just gonna be me. I'm gonna be real. I'm not gonna do anything because people want me to. I'm not gonna hide something about me," she laughed. "I think people are scared to be who they are, and if anybody's gonna go out there and let everybody know, 'Be who you are ... no judgment here,' it's gonna be me."