Christina Maria Aguilera was born in the Staten Island borough of New York City, New York, on December 18, 1980, to Shelly Loraine Kearns (nee Fidler), a musician, and Fausto Xavier Aguilera, a United States Army soldier. Her father is Ecuadorian, while her mother has German, Irish, Welsh, and Dutch ancestry. Her family moved frequently because of her father's military service, and lived in places including New Jersey, Texas, New York, and Japan. Aguilera and her mother alleged that her father was physically and emotionally abusive, claims which he denied; Aguilera used music as a form of escape from her turbulent household. Following her parents' divorce when she was six years old, Aguilera, her younger sister Rachel, and her mother (who later remarried Jim Kearns and gave birth to one more child, Michael 'Mikey' Kearns), moved into her grandmother's home in the Pittsburgh suburb of Rochester, Pennsylvania. After several years of being estranged, Aguilera expressed interest in reconciling with her father in 2012.  Growing up, Aguilera, known locally as "the little girl with the big voice", aspired to be a singer, singing in local talent shows and competitions. She won her first talent show at the age of 8, in which she performed Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)". In 1990, she appeared on Star Search singing "A Sunday Kind of Love", and was eliminated during the semi-final rounds. She later performed the same song during an appearance on Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV's Wake Up with Larry Richert. Throughout her youth in Pittsburgh, Aguilera sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before Pittsburgh Penguins hockey, Pittsburgh Steelers football, and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games, in addition to the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals. She attended Rochester Area School District in Rochester and Marshall Middle School near Wexford, and briefly attended North Allegheny Intermediate High School before being home schooled due to bullying.  In 1991, Aguilera auditioned for a position on The Mickey Mouse Club, although she did not meet its age requirements. She joined the television series two years later, where she performed musical numbers and sketch comedy until its cancellation in 1994. Her co-stars included Ryan Gosling, Keri Russell, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake. When she was fourteen, Aguilera recorded her first song, the duet "All I Wanna Do" with Japanese singer Keizo Nakanishi. She later sent her cover version of Houston's "Run to You" to Walt Disney Pictures in hopes of being selected to record the theme song "Reflection" for their animated film Mulan (1998). "Reflection" peaked at number 19 on the U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary Chart.

Answer this question "How did she get started singing?" by extracting the answer from the text above.
Aguilera and her mother alleged that her father was physically and emotionally abusive, claims which he denied; Aguilera used music as a form of escape