I never understood why so many people hated Britney Spears. It’s been about 25 years since I first saw her in her first hit “Baby One More Time.” She seemed like a sweet, talented young woman. But it didn’t take long for so many people to despise her. I’m not saying, they just didn’t like her, no they downright hated her. And most of it was coming from women.
During this era, Britney was having to contend with Christina Aguilera (another person who people hated but I think sounded better than Britney), Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore. However, Moore decided that she was better suited for acting. It seemed that Britney who wasn’t even 18 at the time found herself the subject of ridicule and scorn almost immediately after her success. I mean, let’s face it, she was just a kid herself and being given the Spanish Inquisition for everything she did.
Now, many years later, it seems we all owe her one big apology. I always liked her, but never really agreed with her as when she was interviewed saying she liked President George W. Bush’s policies. This was used in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 to mock her. Yet, she was still just 22-23 at the time she gave the interview. I don’t know if she thinks the same now 20 years later but it shouldn’t be something she is constantly mocked over.
It was only until about five years ago when the FreeBritney movement started that people began to look at her in a different light. It’s no surprise it came about following the MeToo Movement in 2017. In The Women in Me, her memoir, she shows us the hypocrisy she has endured for decades as people looked at her behavior as dangerous. Yet others, mostly men, have done worse and it’s viewed as normal. Let’s not forget during her conservatorship, Charlie Sheen was going on a rambunctious tirade for months that is nowhere near what Britney did. And if you go back to the early 2000s when people began to question her behavior, Robert Downey Jr. seemed like he was going to end up in the obituaries with his rowdy behavior and substance abuse. Now he’s an Oscar winner actor who was part of one of the biggest movie franchises in history.
Yet, Britney got drunk in Vegas as an adult who could legally drink and jokingly married her friend. Britney got pissed off people were grabbing her hair whenever she was out in public and decided to shave it off. However, a few years later, a lot of women were shaving their heads because that one character did it in The Hunger Games movies. I think the biggest criticism came from Jack Nicholson who appeared at the Oscars shortly after that happened with a shaved head.
Even now as her conservatorship has ended, people are constantly commenting on her social media because she posts pictures of herself semi-nude. Oh, my God! It’s not like a lot of other women and men do the exact same damn thing. We even have OnlyFans now. A lot of people are really obsessed with Britney and I have to admit, it’s time to Leave Britney Alone. She’s 42 now. I don’t think she’s going to do so much outrageous stuff.
And the purpose of the memoir is for Britney to set the record straight. She says that she never did any illicit drugs. She even says that she never did like to do cannabis which is what both Justin Timberlake and especially Kevin Federline liked to do. I read where Timberlake has had to cancel shows and his popularity is waning. Most of his fans have grown up. And if they didn’t really care for him before, they sure won’t like him now after reading how he was. I don’t doubt that Timberlake screwed around on Spears and even forced her to get an abortion, away from a clinic. But there’s one thing Spears says about her former beau that explains why I never have liked him – Timberlake acts like he’s black.
Spears says ‘NSync was different from The Backstreet Boys in how they utilized more R&B and hip/hop in their music. One thing that seemed obvious from the start that I never did see, Timberlake was another white homeboy wannabe. He wasn’t near as bad as Federline but he has been annoying this way. Even though people have denied Timberlake would speak in “blaccent,” I know the culture of white young men at the time and a lot of them talked this way.
What’s worse is that after her split up with Timberlake, who dragged all their drama through his music, she met Federline. If Timberlake is just a scumbag, then Federline is a lot worse – he’s a mercenary. And Jamie says she realized that too late. Federline was able to play with her emotions to get married to her, get her pregnant, and try to get a singing career. Britney says he was always in the recording studios partying and getting high. I don’t doubt it. He saw his meal ticket. He could have Britney birth a baby or two and then get a divorce so he will have her pay him for child support.
Last year, Federline came under fire for wanting an additional $40,000 a month in child support as their oldest son, Sean Preston, was turning 18 meaning the payments will be cut off for him. And Jayden James, their other son, isn’t too far behind turning 18. It’s obvious everyone wants to sponge off of her and that was the purpose of the conservatorship.
In September, Sean Preston turns 19 and Jayden James turns 18. Legally, they are her next of kin for any of her financial matters unless she has made legal changes otherwise. It’s no wonder now tabloid news report “people close to her” want her to undergo another conservatorship on claims Britney is using illicit drugs and drinking too much. This does sound very suspect with it being less than four months away from both her son’s birthdays. It’s likely Federline will find his tap run dry.
It’s a shame so many people treated her this way and still do. It’s one thing for some armchair warrior hiding behind a laptop to post comments, but these are people that were supposed to be her family. Sadly, Britney gives a little background on her family and it’s no wonder. Her father, Jamie, was raised in an abusive household. So, it’s natural he would go on to do the same thing. And while people comment on Britney’s drinking, apparently, Jamie had a history of alcoholism.
Take Miley Cyrus back in 2013 when everyone though she had gone off the deep end. Billy Ray didn’t immediately call for a conservatorship. No, it’s because he knew how to work for a living. I’ve never cared for his music but at least he hasn’t overly exploited his children the way other people have. The sadness for Britney is that she had the judicial system more of less allowing all this to happen as she recalls she was forced to be in bed by 9 p.m. every night, abstain from drinking any alcoholic beverages and even prohibited from eating certain foods. At the same time, her family was gorging themselves. She was literally their meal ticket.
It’s a hard book to get through even though Britney writes it as simple as she can. The chapters are relatively short. For those wanting to hear more about her career, you might be disappointed. The best tidbits are when she was just a teenager in Louisiana goofing around. She admits that she lost her virginity at an early age. However, she enjoyed playing basketball more than being a cheerleader, which is how the media image wanted to portray her. And seeing how Cailtin Clark has been treated, it’s obvious our society doesn’t like women unless they can be viewed mostly as sex objects.
Britney recalls all those embarrassing moments of Ed McMahon asking her if she had any boyfriends on Star Search; Diane Sawyer demeaning her for wearing a crop top; and the countless criticism of her performances at award shows. Since she was only 17 when her debut album was released, people around her wanted to keep her a child. When she became an adult legally, then those around her tried to push back. It’s tragic that most of her life people have wanted to keep their hooks in her because they need to keep her in arrested development.
Britney is in her early 40s. Can you imagine the nerve of people trying 25-30 years ago to tell all the 40-something women out there they’re just little children who need to be controlled? The memoir does have a few parts that seem hard to read as she mentions her ex-husband Sam Asghari in a positive light. (They were still married when the book was published.) Now, the tabloids have reported she was violent with him at one time chasing him with an axe. However, there doesn’t seem to be any police reports.
Whether or not it happened, I don’t think this hearsay will hold up. My advice to Britney is to move to another country where those who say they’re “close to her” will have a harder time trying to get stuff out of her. Granted as a memoir, you have to take a lot of what she says with a grain of salt. But I don’t think the publisher, Gallery Books, a subsidy of Simon & Schuster, would send this to press without the legal department double-checking everything. It might be an offensive move by Britney to tell her “family” to come after her in civil court to prove they didn’t do all this stuff.
Michelle Williams reads the audiobook, which is what I listened to. I don’t think an actress like Williams would do this if she had any questions of its authenticities. For the most part, Jamie, Lynne and their daughter, Jamie-Lynne, can argue they were doing what’s best for Britney. But you can’t deny that someone who is a danger to herself and those around her wouldn’t have the capacity to appear on TV shows, including The X Factor where she was a judge, go on tours and record albums, as well as establish a residency in Las Vegas where she performed on a daily basis for months.
No, this looks like a family of deadbeats found a legal loophole they could exploit for their own personal gain. It’s quite possibly there may be some possible criminal activities as it’s been reported that Jamie had more or less “bugged” her bedroom. I think this might overstep the conservatorship. It might be another reason people are tipping off the tabloids. They want to hurt her credibility because any logical and rational person reading this book can tell there were some moments where Britney was forced to do stuff against her will. And that might lead to a criminal investigation.
If anything else, the book should be a warning for the exploitation of others. Whenever money is involved, people will do whatever they can to get what they want. That’s why I don’t read too much into the tabloids and the paparazzi. They’re doing anything they can to make money off her.
Once, again, leave Britney alone!
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 