MUMBAI: Singer Alicia Keys says she dressed like a tomboy in baggy jeans to avoid being catcalled by men as a young girl.

The ‘Empire State of Mind’ hitmaker has admitted that as a young girl, she would prefer to dress in baggy jeans than a skirt to avoid men from approaching her while she was out and about in New York, as their "animal instinct" scared her.

"I definitely started hiding when I got old enough to walk down my NY streets alone. I started to notice a drastic difference in how men would relate to me if I had on jeans, or if I had on a skirt, or if my hair was done pretty. I could tell the difference, I could feel the animal instinct in them and it scared me,” Keys wrote in a blog post.

"I didn't want to be talked to in that way, looked at in that way, whistled after, followed. And so I started hiding. I chose the baggy jeans, I chose the ponytail and hat, I chose no make-up, no bright colour lipstick or pretty dresses. I chose to hide,” she added.

The 34-year-old also admitted she never hid herself "intentionally".