4 The Times Magazinet’s remarkable that even though the
new Britney Spears documentary,
Framing Britney Spears, is not yet
available to view in the UK – it
apparently comes out here next
month – it’s already made such an
impact that Newsnight ran a piece
on it. Around the world, meanwhile,
social media can talk of little else.
In a way, though, it’s obvious why
thousands, if not millions, of people can be
discussing something they haven’t yet seen.
Framing Britney Spears claims to tell the
“disturbing truth” about Spears’ vertical ascent
to fame at the age of 16: the TV interviews
where she’s asked if she’s still a virgin; the
public turning on her when she is framed
as “the baddie” in her break-up with
Justin Timberlake; her subsequent mental
breakdown; the constant pursuit by paparazzi;
the loss of custody of her children; the
hair-shaving; the “attacking a car with an
umbrella”; the politician’s wife who said
Spears should be shot; and the evening in
2007 where, finally, she was strapped to
a trolley and wheeled into an ambulance,
broadcast live on TV news channels.
Since that incident, Spears has been under
the legal conservatorship of her father – a
man she claims to be “scared” of. He has
control of her estate, her career, her travel
arrangements, her medical care and even
her ability to choose whom she marries.
The reason everyone is able to discuss
Framing Britney Spears without having seen
it is because: we already knew this was the
truth. We know everything. We know every
bit of Spears’ life from the past 25 years. She
is up there with Princess Diana and Amy
Winehouse as one of the most constantly
filmed, photographed and followed public
figures of our age.
The difference with Framing Britney
Spears, however, is that, in 2021, this is the
first time the story of her life has been told,
in chronological order, by someone who hassaid, “And all this? It was bad. It was wrong.”
Previously, we have just kind of presumed
that if pretty young girls want to sing and
dance and be applauded at the end of a
concert, then, more often than not, their
lives will be horrible. That’s just what happens
to hot girls in the spotlight – they get hotter
and hotter, with that light constantly in their
eyes; they have high-profile relationships
and break-ups; they get sad; they drink
or take pills; they become so hot they boil
over and unravel – and that’s all part of
the show. The audience doesn’t just get
the records or the videos; it gets the
headlines and the helicopter footage
of the hospitalisation too. If you don’t likethe music, no worries – you can enjoy the
chat-show host’s jokes about the breakdown
instead! Everyone gets something. Being a
“triple threat” means you can sing, dance
and have your exploding private life serialised,
every day, by the tabloids.
And, somehow, there has lingered the belief
that the very young women in question both
know this and are fine with it. By continuing
to put out singles, go on tour and be famous,
they are indicating that they kind of... want
this to happen. So you must not feel sympathy
for them. You must call them “attention
hungry” or “fake” or “manufactured”. Indeed,
if you’re cool and into “real” music and art,
you should scorn them for entering the game
in the first place. They might be crying but
they have diamonds in their mouths. That’s
what fame is. So save your tears.Fame is: being interviewed while in
hospital, and while on medication, because
you have a new single out. And being cheerful
while you do it. I know this because, in 2004,
I interviewed Britney Spears while she was in
hospital. Before the breakdowns and the hair-
shaving. I wasn’t the only one: Spears was
spending the day doing phone interviews from
her hospital bed after what her PRs claimed
was a “knee operation”, but which chatboards
on the internet had already decided was a
secret breast enlargement, because her real
tits were “too small”. Obviously, it doesn’t
matter which of these two things it was. The
pertinent information here is that the world
was talking, in a cocksure, prurient and
judgmental way, about her tits, and felt this
was absolutely normal and justified.
Spears sounded spaced out from the
painkillers but was unfailingly polite and
cheerful. She was 22. I was 30. I spent most
of the interview trying to be sympathetic
about how awful her life was while she
brushed off my concern with a steely,
professional sunniness honed while being a
state-level gymnast at 9 and a member of the
Mickey Mouse Club at 11. I couldn’t believe
she was doing an interview from hospital. She
couldn’t believe I thought it was weird. Three
years later she would collapse, be sectioned
and lose legal control of her life.
Looking back now at all the women I was
interviewing and writing about from the mid-
Nineties roughly to 2010 – when the punky,
feminist, grunge and riot grrrl scenes had died
down and were replaced by post-Spice Girls
sexy pop stars and the first wave of reality
TV stars – they were, essentially, in some kind
of killing fields for young women who just
wanted to act or dance or sing. Or even just,
with the rise of reality TV, be themselves.
We think our current era of online abuse
and misogyny is toxic for women. Back then
was an era of Daily Star columnist Dominik
Diamond calling Big Brother’s Jade Goody
“a slapper with a face like a pig”, promptingI
CAITLIN MORAN
I interviewed Britney Spears
from her hospital bed
Seventeen years on, the star is finally being treated as a victim
She sounded spaced
out from painkillers
but was unfailingly
polite and cheerful
ROBERT WILSON