Colbie Caillat was ‘all insecurities’ making revealing ‘Try’ video

Colbie Caillat’s latest single “Try” has gone viral, and happily so.

But even though the song highlights the importance of women staying true to themselves rather than transforming for someone else, the singer said Sunday that she wasn’t free of self-doubt while shooting the accompanying video -- which has notched more than 17 million YouTube views since its release three weeks ago.

“I’m used to always being Photoshopped and caked on with makeup, and when I started out with no makeup and I was just sitting there with these lights on and everyone was looking at me on the cameras, I was just all insecurities,” said Caillat, dressed in a black pantsuit with metallic paint tattoos on her arms, on the Young Hollywood Awards’ 2014 blue carpet.

PHOTOS: Young Hollywood Awards | Scene

The music video simply features the 29-year-old and other women of all shapes, sizes, colors and ages taking off their makeup and confidently going au naturel under the bright stage lights.

“I felt liberated once the video was out,” the “Bubbly” singer told the Los Angeles Times outside the Wiltern in Los Angeles, “and it’s really affected people so positively. I’m just so happy I did it.”

Caillat performed the ballad live Sunday night, with the faces of the women who’d joined her in the video flashing above her on the Young Hollywood Awards stage.

“They were so beautiful and comfortable, standing there with a smile as they were singing with no makeup on,” said Caillat, who noted that she’d been inspired by her video costars. “They weren’t hiding in their own skin, they were just like, ‘Yeah, this is me.’”

She said taking off her own makeup confidently required baby steps, since she’s used getting “all dolled up” for events. Surrounded on the blue carpet by young starlets “dolled up” for the awards event, the singer’s biggest piece of advice to young people in the industry echoed the thrust of her song.

“It’s really hard to stay true to yourself; it’s one of the biggest challenges. Follow your gut instinct, because people are going to want you to be something you’re not,” Caillat said.

“Be happy and comfortable with who you are, whoever it may be.”

Follow me on Twitter @haleyslone