This post will be a little different than my usual ones. Not even sure it fits here, but the spiraling thoughts needed a release so I wrote it. Music has been a big part of me and I have rooted for so many singers and bands I can’t even count. But I hardly have ever found anyone with who to talk about it except my better half, and not sure does he has a choice of not listening to me 🙂
I think I have followed Britney Spears for most of my knowledgeable life. She is just 3 years older than me, so when her first single took over the world it was easy to identify with her. We were almost the same age! Though I am not a fanatic fan I have tracked Britney Spears’s story and cheered for her.
I have battled for a long time about should or should not publish my thoughts about it. But her story is more than just a singer. She is a woman, a daughter, and a mother – who was robbed of her own life.
…Baby one more time
It still seems kind of unbelievable that she was just 16 years old when she basically conquered the world. She looked like a regular schoolgirl but had this enormous career already. Living a dream and feeding all of our dreams at the same time. Even now when I look at her first video it seems like she had all the opportunities to create a perfect life. And nothing could stop her. From far-far away, her life looked perfect.
I remember when I first heard her song “Lucky” – it made me cry and it felt so realistically sad and hurt by it. And as years went by this was the song that kept popping in my head every time I saw her on the news. Like she had written her whole future into this one song.
You can refresh your memory of this song and video here: https://youtu.be/4vvBAONkYwI
I am not a doctor and hardly qualified to judge her mental health. But still, for me as a bystander, it all seems really strange. Parent should love their kids unconditionally and be willing to help them. What I can’t wrap my head around is a parent wanting to get paid for taking care of their child. Let me rephrase that – demanding to be paid. So from there, it all seemed fishy to me- I might be wrong and there is a chance that the truth is somewhere between her and her father’s story, but again – Jamie did and still tries to do anything in his power and beyond to prevent us from hearing her story. If he did everything right – why would he do that?
The lowest hit of them all
From everything she had to go through I still believe the lowest hit of them all was taking away her kids. It took me by surprise that a mom who is clearly well of and has all the possibilities in the world to take care of her kids and can afford all the help she might need – can lose her kids to a father who has no job and is financially fully dependable if the kid’s mother. The one thing that would break any mother. So maybe I have watched too many conspiracy movies but this action looks to me as a deliberate method to break her and they didn’t even need to orchestrate the audience – the paparazzi were always there. Always.
I guess they hoped she would lose her will and obey blindly. If you listen to her music in a row – album by album you can hear and feel the shift in her. Feel that the music has something missing. Don’t get me wrong – these are great songs, but there is something missing. Her soul. And it shows so clearly with her recent single with Elton John. She is there!
She is ill and unstable
After years of being controlled and forced to live under someone else’s rules. Rules were supposed to help her but how can any mom’s mental health be bettered by withholding her child from her? Isolating from people and limiting access to the world and society? It sounds like it would be contributing to even deeper problems.
At the same time, she was healthy and well enough to give concerts. Make new albums, and videos and go on tours. But not well enough to see her kids, drive her car, meet her friends and walk around freely? How can an extremely unstable and unfit person do all the work she did? She kept up a whole army of people, including the family who should be helping without any pay. While she herself was denied even the smallest perks.
Could any adult woman imagine asking her father’s permission to get a manicure, hairstylist, or have a cup of coffee from a favorite coffee shop? I don’t. I even can’t imagine asking these permissions from my better half, just as he wouldn’t for elementary things. A star stuck and captivated in her home.
Listen and reflect on these
And here is another prophecy-like song and video which for me seems like a description of her family dynamics https://youtu.be/u4FF6MpcsRw. Lucky (2000) and Piece of me (2007) were released way before conservatorship, in 2008 was placed.
And this one https://youtu.be/pt8VYOfr8To was released in 2013. This one is presented to us as a reflection of what it takes to be rich and afford luxury things. But in light of everything else released I keep seeing something else.
She posts nudes – she’s crazy
I don’t get why her revealing or nude pictures are worthy of being newsworthy or a cause to doubt her sanity. Hello, it’s Britney! Before analyzing and condemning her pictures at least google her. I get, that she is been away from the spotlight for a while and most newly adult reporters haven’t a clue about Britney just because they are too young. We have Google. Use it.
If you look back on her career her outfits have always been on the edge. Her appearances and performance too. She has always used her sexuality and womanly powers in performances and promotions. Check out all the cover photos she has done for different magazines throughout her career. So how now it is a sign of her mental health and not back then? Even during conservatorship when she was under high supervision by the same people who at the moment claim she’s not well because of revealing photos. I don’t get it.
And another thing. The Internet is full and overloaded with young women showing off everything they got. And we don’t even blink an eye. Should we demand cures and help for all of them? Are they all lost their mental health?
She is just a woman. Fit, and worked hard for it. Showing off. Just like she has always done since she was 15. With a little math – she has done it for more than half of her life. How now it’s not OK? Can we just let her live on her terms for a change? And if you don’t like the pictures or videos, scroll away and don’t look. Is it so hard? And if you truly are disturbed by women’s nudity – I think you should leave the internet. There is no escaping from that here.
*I didn’t use her pictures on purpose for 2 main reasons a) the copyrights and b) the internet is full of these. I don’t think her pictures would add anything to the post content-wise and it’s not intended for clickbait.
This was a surprising topic and I was surprised how it caputured me. Having seen many of Brittney’s career, I haven’t followed it up close, but you see the big news. I didn’t realize all the things she went through. It’s sad to see what fame does to people and especialy to the people around. When money is involved, people will do crazy things. And those who make it usually suffer and her children in this case as well. It was a great read and thanks for writing it.
I am glad it caught your attention and I like surprising 🙂
Great post and interesting thoughts. I remember the song Lucky, I listened to it for the first time in like, over a decade the other week and it’s really quite eerie how much it seems to reflect what her life was like. I think it’s so sad what happened to her but I’ll be honest, I don’t follow it too much.
Thank you for reading it though it wasn’t really your topic 🙂
This is a very interesting topic. I think it would be useful to gather the facts and build a “fiction” based scenario so this could be discussed from a mental health perspective without the fame bias but I don’t think it begins or ends with mental health. I can only state my opinion from the pieces I watched and second-hand narratives – I do believe she was sexualised on purpose from an early age and that alone has serious repercussions. The more recent argument over nudes was just a strategy to gain back control over her performance and life. Sadly she is not the only one in the industry. These star kids and adults need more help than what we can think or dream of.
This is a topic that needs more research on how fame and money can affect a person who is still developing, not to mention working this hard. This request tremendous physical labor to put on shows like these. I would like to think that today’s kid celebrities and their guardians are in a better place and they have more knowledge on how to prioritize kids’ well-being over money. Britney was one of the first whose career blew up like this so early. The media back then treated her and her peers as adults, not as kids that they actually were. Today the media seems to be more careful, and I am glad this “slam you down” attitude is starting to go over.
The whole industry is over-sexualized, and I am puzzled that she gets blamed for that. I honestly don’t even care WHY she does them, it’s her body and her right. We all have that right to post nudes of ourselves and apparently it can even be a job. I am pretty sure that most of the reason behind this bashing is that someone has been cut off from her bank account. Sometimes reading about a star’s struggles – how they are not able to get the help they need, makes me lose hope. If people with all the resources can’t get help, is there any change for others?