Britney Spears has seen the kind of fame that was unheard of. At the age of 17 she
was catapulted into the global limelight, and the entire world obsessed over her every move.
The harsh reality of fame, the indignity of it all, the unrelenting press photographing her every
move, led to Britney Spear’s very public and very concerning breakdown.
People hoped that this was rock bottom for Britney, and in the decade since, it seemed that
she had bounced back and was living a peaceful life with her two children and her boyfriend.
But dedicated fans started to look into her strange online behavior,
wondering if she was sending hints that she was in fact trapped by her father and long
standing conservatorship that had forced Britney to work for the people around her.
So not only had Britney suffered a public breakdown,
but had been paying for it with her freedom for 13 long years.
How did this happen?
Fame is a tricky beast. We’ve heard so many stories of it destroying people.
Some people devolve into drug or alcohol abuse, others end up dying
under tragic circumstances, while some just disappear entirely. And some, some
people are just fine no matter how much scrutiny and speculation they face.
In Britney’s case, there are aspects that are unique to her. While many people have
come to fame at a young age like her, in some cases even younger,
Britney resonated with people in a way that was unbelievable.
People had such an interest and curiosity about her. She was the perfect blend of
innocent and sexy, with a lovely personality that endeared her to everyone around her.
When she started dating Justin Timberlake the people went mad! Their relationship just made
sense to everyone. He’s a pop star,
she’s a pop star, they’re both talented. She’s from Mississippi, and he’s from
Tennessee. They were both on the Mickey Mouse Club. IT JUST MADE SENSE!
Since it was Britney’s first love, and serious relationship,
she was so publicly excited, and the people were right there with her.
While she previously didn’t comment on her personal when asked about it
Now she was talking openly about her relationship!
That is until it all came to a screeching halt.
Britney and Justin broke up. And while she stayed perfectly silent about why they were parting,
he put all of his feelings and anger on display in a song called “Cry me a river”
accusing Britney of cheating, and using a Britney look alike to boot.
Despite the incredibly public betrayal, she
spoke only well of him, and never condemned him for airing their laundry publicly.
.
But something had changed. The public was now turning against Britney,
and the line of questioning she constantly faced went from excited to accusatory.
The theme of Britney’s life had become all about control,
with so many of her songs showing her fantasizing about breaking free.
Britney had started off her image as being an innocent girl,
representing the all-American spirit. And no matter what she did or said,
the general public did not want to see her break too far from her squeaky clean image.
Reeling from a public breakup and the constant picking over her image and her songs,
Britney has started rebelling from the control the entire world was trying to exert on her.
From a sudden elopement with her friend from back home, to an even more sudden annulment,
to getting engage to Kevin Federline - Britney was doing things that were baffling to the public.
Even her personal style shifted, as she became unpolished, and after she had her first child,
made all sorts of mistakes and the press and the public pounced on it all.
I think this right here is the hardest
aspect of fame - and that is the public’s feeling of ownership over their celebrities.
Britney, as famous as she was, was a public commodity, and there was never a shortage
of people demanding she either cover up, change her behavior, settle down, or grow up.
And I think people felt this level of involvement with Britney because she
had let them into her life enough that they thought they knew her.
Now I’m not trying to be critical of Britney, she obviously has done the best she can with
a very difficult situation. But I do think that had she stuck with her initial strategy
of keep the public and press out of her public life, there wouldn’t have been
such a voracious appetite to delve into every little detail of her personal life decisions.
A good example of someone who has kept the press out of her personal life is Elizabeth
Olsen. Now she had the very valuable guidance from her two older sisters,
who had experienced the ridiculous nature of fame and the press since they were babies.
The Olsen twins were a phenomenon. Between starring in many TV shows and direct-to-video
movies, the two girls were millionaires before even turning 18. At the height of their fame,
there was such a curiosity about them, and the two were constantly asked very personal questions.
But looking back on these interviews, it’s fascinating to see the two of them looking at
each other before giving very measured responses that never really gave away too much about them.
This was the big piece of advice they gave their younger sister Elizabeth,
who unlike her sisters, waited until college before entering the industry.
The Olsen twins warned Elizabeth to be very careful about every interview she puts out since
the media will eventually draw from everything to eventually drive a negative narrative.
Elizabeth Olsen has clearly taken that to heart since no matter how famous she becomes,
staring in big blockbusters, we know very little about her and her personal life. For any actress
the biggest question is who is she dating, and that’s the question that Elizabeth never
answers, keeping her dating history perfectly private, and staying away from social media.
In fact, while researching this video,
I discovered that she might be married. But that’s how private she keeps her life.
Now, Britney Spears had been pretty open with the press,
answering all sorts of questions, that I’m sure she found inappropriate and crossing the line.
And I think she would be the first to say that she trusted the press too much to not turn on her.
But the press will always turn. They know that people get tired of hearing only positive things
about a celebrity, so if there is an option to turn them into the villain they absolutely will.
This is something we discussed previously when it came to the Press’ treatment of Katherine the
Duchess of Cambridge, when they turned on her, critically combing over her and her family’s
background and posting disparaging headlines. In a fashion typical of her majesty the queen’s maxim,
Katherine neither complained nor explained anything to do with the negative press,
and instead continued to do her work, as well as give the press nothing to pounce on.
This I believe is the best strategy, since the press is
looking for spectacle to report on. And if someone’s response is stony silence,
and utmost professionalism, then there’s nothing really to cling to and report on.
When Britney Spears started to face excessive negative press,
she seemed to feel so incredibly frustrated and disappointed by it. By 2006, there were
two big issues that the press and public had with her, and that was the fact that
she had married Kevin Federline, and that she seemed to be irresponsible with her children.
As much as the public loved her relationship with Justin Timberlake, they felt absolutely
the opposite with when it came to Federline. In no sense of the word did people think he was good
enough for her since he didn’t seem to have much of a successful career and already had one child
and another on the way when he abandoned his pregnant girlfriend to start dating Britney.
Britney sat down with Matt Lauer in 2006 to complain about
the increase in negative press as well as explain her side. Rather
than decreasing the media scrutiny as she had hoped, it only got worse from there.
Life didn’t really seem to be going Britney’s way.
After months of speculation that her marriage with Federline was on the rocks,
Britney spears filed for divorce.
And in January of 2007, Britney Spears walked into a salon
with a bunch of photographers in tow and shaved her hair off.
The photographers then followed her into a tattoo parlor where they saw her fully shaven head,
and finally the night ended with her attacking a paparazzo’s car with an umbrella.
Looking back many people often say that
they completely understand what drove Britney to her breakdown.
And I agree because this could happen to anybody. As I see it,
and please take this as my opinion and not fact, that Britney’s life had become
so overly complex and out of control, that it drove her to publicly unravel.
According to psychologists, we all have this mental perception of what the world
is. This is our assessment of what good or bad things could happen
in any situation. For example, a wife may be absolutely certain that when she goes home,
her husband will be there and he’s someone she can trust and he will be faithful to her.
And that if she walks into a dark alley way at night something bad could happen.
So our brain is constantly mapping out points of safely and danger in the world,
so that we know where we can relax and where we’re facing a problem and need to have our guard up.
Now as long you we can predict points of danger and safety, we’re good. But when we’re wrong,
it’s a big blow, and it’s knocks us down because our system of detection is proven faulty.
What if a wife comes home to discover her husband has been cheating on her.
What if a woman discovers that her ex-boyfriend has made a song about her,
using her lookalike to tell the world that he thinks she cheated on him.
Betrayal from an enemy is expected, but betrayal from someone you loved is devastating,
because it doesn’t just make you doubt the world,
it makes you doubt yourself and your ability to keep yourself safe.
Now what if this keeps happening? What if you
keep getting betrayed or proven wrong. In many instances leading up to 2007,
Britney kept expecting the world to behave a certain way, and kept getting proven wrong.
I’m sure all of you can relate to this, I know I can. If your understanding of the world is
constantly proven wrong, it pushes you into intense depression, fear, anxiety, and even anger.
And if you’re pushed far enough, and your anger gets worse and worse, and maybe you throw alcohol
and drugs into the mix which only destabilize the situation more, then according to psychologists,
a person will max-out and breakdown at whatever is their weakest biological flaw.
Meaning if a person has a biological predisposition toward a certain mental
illness, and if their life is complex and frustrating enough,
then they will get pushed to the point that they start manifesting symptoms of that mental illness.
Now, again, I don’t know specifically about
Britney Spears’ situation. Her father came out last week claiming that she
is mentally ill and suffering from an addition. Who knows what the truth is.
But it completely makes sense that while going through a divorce, a custody battle, stalker
like press, and the world constantly criticizing her every move and hell bent on controlling who
she is, a person would find it impossible to maintain their mental health. And according to
Britney herself, her family hasn’t exactly been helpful through this hell either, allegedly.
The recommended treatment by psychologists for people struggling with the chaos of their lives,
is to take a step back - identify aspects that are too complex, breakdown problems into bite sized
issues, cut out poisonous habits like drinking and drugs, and slowly start
to rebuilding by taking small steps and fixing issues and simplifying their life.
I can talk about this in greater detail in a separate video if this is of interest to anyone.
But Britney didn’t really have this option after her breakdown.
The real problem in this situation is that Britney is the golden
goose to her family. And at her lowest point, they allegedly took the steering
wheel and since then have locked her out of her most basic human rights,
including any kind of control of her finances, her work, or even her body.
I think over the next few months we will learn a lot more about what really
went on in the background so I’ll save my comments on the conservatorship till then.
So if fame is really hard to deal with, why is it that some celebrities seem to
have a good handle on it? Now I’m not too familiar with the Kardashians,
I definitely haven’t kept up with them, but in researching this video I started to see
the very unique strategy that they’ve embraced in maintaining their fame.
The Kardashian’s have put their entire lives online or on air. And yet,
I suspect that we don’t really know them at all. During most of their interviews they
discuss very little about their personal issues, and maintain a pretty polished
persona. Every photo of them is airbrushed to perfection, and they have plenty of the paparazzi
in their pockets taking so called candid photos which are clearly edited before being published.
Now I don’t mean any of this as criticism. I think the Kardashians have accurately understood
the publics desire for spectacle and drama, and provide it thoroughly through a show that they
control fully, but outside of their show present themselves as drama free as possible. They also
keep that one solid degree of separation from the public, and steadfastly maintain their privacy.
And it has worked. The Kardashians are all millionaires and billionaires,
and have seemingly preserved their mental health and familial harmony
through the process, in a way I’m sure many celebrities would envy.
I think Britney’s biggest mistake was to be too open,
and give too much of herself to the people and to the press, and trust us with who she really was.
After seeing how the press would twist and misrepresent everything she would say,
she slowly became more and more guarded. And in the years since her breakdown,
she has given very few interviews, and when she has, she’s never let out too much information.
Now, as we see her reemerge into what is going to be another media storm around the details
of her conservatorship, as she takes her first steps into freedom, I truly truly hope that
she keeps us all out of her personal life, since let’s be honest, it’s none of our damn business.
Says the girl who just made an entire video about her.
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