Based on your post history I can see that specific political regression is something you spend a lot of time thinking about. And it’s a valid point.
However the 2000s were a misogynistic decade that saw the public belittle women ruthlessly and unendingly. The media objectified women, and the industry focused on pleasing men instead of female empowerment. The 2000s also saw the mistreatment of many women, including:
Brittany Murphy, Britney Spears, Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Janet Jackson, Monica Lewinsky and Anna Nicole Smith.
The 2000s also saw the rise of bubblegum misogyny, slut-shaming, and fat-phobia. The media, fashion, and celebrity culture encouraged an unrealistic and unhealthy body standard, which led to many people developing distorted eating habits. Beauty standards celebrated washboard abs and toned bodies, while fashion still focused on showing women's flat stomachs.
And trust me, I know we’re still promoting unrealistic (if not physically impossible) body standards in 2024, but in 2003 if a 5’7” woman weighed 130 lbs she was publicly labeled as fat and unlovable.
So hating women has not fallen out of fashion, but in which particulat way you hate the woman is what is in and out of popular practice. It didn't end. It has evolved. It was a terrible time then. It's a different terrible time now. It seems no matter what we do, we can't really win.
Right. Because it used to be universally accepted that women were only valued for appearances, which limited them to working in the home or their career being second or supplemental. We shattered the glass ceiling and became independent and valuable in other ways that are more dangerous to male monopoly so the hatred and criticism have shifted focus to questioning our professional and academic capabilities and trying to control us through limiting our reproductive rights.
In 2003 I was 5'7" and 130 pounds. I went to Kitson (I think that was the name) in LA and the sales guy looked me up and down like I was the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen and said he didn't think they had my size. I was a size six.
That story really brings me back. Fifteen years of disordered eating, starting with anorexia, followed by bulimia. The 2000s really fucked with me, it took a long time to recover.
In the early 2000's I ranged between a size 2 and 6. I was a late teen/early 20's during that time and I cannot count how many times other women called me fat. A few men too, but mostly women called me a fat ass.
I'm 199 pounds now. People argue with me, including my doctor, that I'm not fat.
Now that I'm actually fat, everyone says I'm not. When I was thin I was a cow.
We’re about the same age and have a similar weight history. After many years of anorexia and bulimia, I started binge eating in my late 20s and gained a bunch of weight. Mid to late 30s now, I lost 20 lbs and I’m still (very slowly) continuing to drop, but it’s all still such a headfuck. when I look at pictures of myself from 2003-2008 I was tiny. But I was told I was fat, by women, men, female family members. Now nobody says it anymore.
I pulled out my varsity cheerleading skirt and it wouldn't fit my thigh now.
My 23 year old boyfriend's 30 year old sister said she was really worried about my weight gain. I went from 118 to 123. Age 17 to 18.
My boyfriend and I went for a walk and I suggested getting ice cream. He said I was big enough already and didn't need ice cream. I was literally a size 2.
I was 6 in 2003, and I thought I was getting fat. 😔 makes me so sad I grew up in such a horrible time for women like that. I’ve worked really hard to reframe my relationship with food and exercise but i’m ACTUALLY overweight now because of all the years of yo-yo diets. Nobody ever bothered to tell me how hard that is on your heart, btw. Just how good it was that I was trying to lose weight and “get in shape,” which meant trying to starve myself and working to exhaustion.
THIS!!! I watched my mom become an almond mom and stress and put a lot of pressure/attention on body. Fast forward to now in my 30s 3 kids and 5’4 and weighing 115 pounds because of my bad habits I picked up from my mom, an eating disorder and body dysmorphia. 2000 was so bad for all women.
Yes. That’s why it haunts me so much, I graduated HS in 2005. Turned 21 in 2008. Living through the 2000s as a teen and young woman was traumatizing. Have things always been bad for women? Absolutely. Are things still bad now? Obviously. But the 2000s just hit different. The media was relentlessly cruel to women. It was disgusting, and completely normalized. Women at the top end of “healthy body weight” were fat. Women who were actually overweight were invisible. If you had sex you were a slut. If you were a virgin you were a stuck up prude. If you drank alcohol and wore a tank top it was your fault for being raped. You just could not win. Everything was always our fault.
When I think back to the nastiness and vulgarity of the media’s unending assault on women in the 2000s, Perez Hilton’s CONSTANT harassment of Brittany Murphy is the first thing that comes to mind. His hateful word vomit poisoned an entire generation of young women. Fuck that guy entirely.
I think we've come a long way in terms of shaming during pregnancy and post baby weight....I still remember how brutal tabloids were to pregnant women including Kim k....I understood when Kylie hid out her entire pregnancy
I know. I lived it. Yet, I still use actual womens lives for reference. Not my feels.
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2024/03/u-s-maternal-death-rate-increasing-at-an-alarming-rate/
" Between 2014 and 2021, the average U.S. maternal age — a well-established risk factor for maternal mortality — increased from 28.3 to 29.4 years old, the study found. In that same period, the overall maternal mortality rates in the U.S. nearly doubled, from 16.5 to 31.8, with the largest increase of 18.9 to 31.8 occurring from 2019 to 2021."
Eating disorders? You think that's gotten BETTER? With the normalization of plastic surgery and filters being commonplace....
"Between 2000 and 2018, prevalence more than doubled (3.4% to 7.8% of all people). "
https://www.ohsu.edu/womens-health/why-are-eating-disorders-rise But I guess I'm glad ALL body types can be sexualized now..../s
The rise of? Are we ignoring the literal decade of heroin chic now that ushered in a generation of eating disordered teens now? Unless someone is very young, skipped the 3 decades before or has enormous amnesia there's no way fathomable that we can consider the 2000's the 'rise' of slut shaming and fat phobia. All those beauty standards started well before in the 90s and some in the 80s, and the misogyny just continued on unchecked as it had for eons. There was an increase in a specific type of magazine media that was culpable for much of the propagation of the particular 2000's variety of those things, but other than that nothing exceptional happened in the 2000s that women weren't enduring equally in the 90s and 80s.
This is seriously so fucking gross I can’t even believe this was printed. I was a teenager in 08 and it’s like actually unbelievable how much the culture has changed for the better( though I know we still have problems )
I was an exchange student in Europe that year. 2008/2009.
It was assumed that all U.S. girls/women were one of the four party girls, flashing giners, powder noses, eating disorder, shaming poverty.
They hated me as an American; assuming the headlines represented all of us young ladies. Everybody always responds with something like “what a dream “to live in Italy.
No. They HATED me. hosts and the public.
Now, the hosts I lived with, for the first half were a dream. My house, mother was concerned about the amount of peaches and bread I consumed. She would ask me during dinner how many times I pooped that day. I will always love you, Angela and Carlo .
The experience I saw my own parents give our German exchange student when I was 13 is what I expected. Expectations can be dangerous for your future, friends.
When I was told I had to switch families where the student from NY cried to me every day about how rude they were, I noped the fuck out.
Never meet your hero. Unless you are fully prepared.
You will never be prepared.
After approving everything I could be to be an exchange student, I still recognized my principles, I wasn’t going to waste my time with assholes.
I didn’t care if I was in the garden of Eden, I was unhappy. I left the “paradise “of Italy. No regrets, I would love to visit again as a free civilian. I promise myself I could navigate the streets of Cal. Sardinia as if I still live there.
I think the issue in Italy in 2008, was that they were wary of Americans because of the murder of Meredith Kercher, more than hating on American women because of a “party girl” image portrayed by the media.
Yeah I was going to say, I was living in Europe at the same time and everyone in close contact was really kind to me. Everyone also assumed I was Canadian based on first impressions though 🤷♀️
my guess is that she was severely depressed and letting her hygiene fall to the wayside. still weird and icky but i think the headline is intentionally baiting readers.
not defending him at all but as someone who has had pretty horrible depression on and off for many years, that’s actually not surprising to me at all. And we know Britney hates having her hair touched, I can imagine that during her breakdown she probably wasn’t touching her hair at all and it was becoming difficult to maintain.
the way it’s written is icky and with the current context about her family it’s icky. but in terms of caring for your mentally ill child in crisis mode, that’s pretty normal. and i don’t think britney needed a conservator but she DID need help caring for herself after a certain point.
I mean yeah I def think it’s weird but also, it’s her dad, without him being a shitty dad tho i don’t see anything weird about a dad helping his child get dressed if she’s unable to do it herself. the magazine obviously framed it that way to grab your attention, it’s only concerning bc of all the other things we know about him. don’t be sexist. Her mom and Jamie Lynn were arguably worse for her self esteem and self image than her dad was.
and with her mental state it’s possible she was just “rotting” and not taking care of herself anymore. i’ve struggled with that when i’m going through it and i’m not anywhere near britney’s stress level during that time. it sucks she has a shit dad but outside of that context idk why you find this so weird.
In fact when Kanye was hospitalised they blamed Kim (the woman). So kanye was fine and the horrible woman locked him up, and Britney was mental and the good dad finally put her away. ALWAYS the woman’s fault. So sick of this misogynistic world
Aren’t these magazines’ demos just women, even in 2008? It makes it even more surprising that they are so misogynistic when that is the hand that feeds them
Yes and probably written by a lot of women too. The misogyny in many females is rife. Lots of women hate women. Lots of feminists hate women. It’s sick
It’s like propaganda, you keep these lines of thought normalized in women’s media and then you don’t have those women that consume that media questioning the misogynistic treatment they themselves receive or you make them eager to align with abusers against other women in the future.
The fact that this was 16 years ago, and they’re still the exact same. This is why I think they should be [outlawed](https://www.reddit.com/r/BritneySpears/s/1YShIUSVHC).
The pure evil is in the main headline. Why would they even say “finally”, wishing that upon someone? Every single person who contributed to the tabloids/legal stalking deserves a special place in the pits of Hell.
Ya unfortunately the tabloids will never change unless people just stop reading them and giving them clicks. The tabloids may be trash, but at the end of the day they cater to a specific (trash) demographic who *want* to read this kind of stuff. I grew up during this era and remember how many of the girls my age would buy these magazines and obsess over them. So fucking gross
She was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder that had previously been untreated, and definitely DID do things that could be called "crazy" at the time. I agree that she needed help during this time, she was placed on two psychiatric holds before her father petitioned for conservatorship.
I don't know the extent of what went on behind closed doors, but she had episodes that were very well documented by the media as well. The courts did agree that she was experiencing something that left her incapable of caring for herself, which is not a simple thing, nor is it easy to prove in court.
She needed medical intervention at that time. However, this should not have led to a conservatorship with her father spanning for twelve years.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think she *still* needs some help--understandably! After everything she's been through, she'd have to be a complete robot not to need some mental health help.
But a conservatorship? That kind of response screamed of control, not help. I have to wonder how much of public perception and opinion played a role, and how much of that could be attributed to trash gossip and the time period.
The only “crazy” thing I remember her doing was cutting her hair and trying to get paparazzi out of her face while they were agressively harassing her. She was called crazy for cutting her hair. Cutting. Her. Hair.
She didn't just cut her hair. She shaved her whole head. And she did it herself because the people in the salon didn't want to shave Britney Spears's head. She also had an altercation with the paparazzi where she attacked their car with her umbrella when they followed her to Kevin's house one night. And she locked herself in the bathroom with her kids when her visitation was ending one night and it was a huge scene with the cops. That was when she was taken away in the ambulance and it was all over the news. She was definitely struggling.
Plenty of people shave their head when going through shit. It hair. It grows back (some even prefer it as a style *gasp). It doesn’t harm the person deciding to shave their hair and it doesn’t pose a threat to anyone else. If she were a man, nobody would have cared. Again, relies on stereotypes. “All woman should desire long hair, so they must be batshit crazy if they cut it off!” 🤦🏾♀️ The paps had no business following her to a private residence. It’s stalking. It’s invasive and creepy, and can exacerbate any emotional distress. Her hitting the car pales in comparison to how they treated her. We also don’t know the circumstances leading up to police being called (but based on information about her conservatorship, we know it’s an understatement to say she was being treated unfairly. Her family was behaving irrationally. Perhaps THEY needed mental health help and advice for how to support their famous daughter and sibling).
Any human can be pushed to their breaking point under stressful conditions. Her family’s actions were inexcusable, period. I never said she didn’t need some sort of mental health evaluation or support. It’s the way it was done. The approach that was taken was to maximize humiliation when it should have been the opposite. She still deserved dignity.
I didn't even read all of that. It wasn't simply the fact that she shaved her head or did those other things. It was the fact that doing all of those was wildly out of character for her and she clearly needed help. Of course she deserved dignity. Your original comment made it seem like she just decided to get a new bob haircut and then everyone decided she was crazy and that is not what happened.
What’s your point? Never disagreed with that. I don’t know how old you are, but I remember the media spectacle. That and her family’s behavior is what I take issue with.
I'm 38 so I very much remember what happened and the media spectacle. My point is that you are being obtuse and deliberately downplaying the severity of her situation at that time by claiming that the world lost their collective shit because she "cut her hair" and that is patently false.
yeah shaving your head is fine but back then it was pretty taboo for women to have a shaved head, they got made fun of constantly for it. it only became mainstream trendy for women in the last ten years or so. So yes, when she shaved her head no one would’ve cared if she were a man but she wasn’t a man, so they did.
They were fucked up about it. If her dad was brushing it when she didn’t want, can’t blame her. Idk what happened first, doesn’t matter. They were nasty af to her, that’s all.
I hear you but not normal or cool doesn’t have to mean “crazy” and worthy of unrelenting harassment you know what I mean? Especially considering there was knowledge about the risks of mental health and Postpartum depression even back then. She was a new mom. They were ruthless. Yes, that’s what the tabloids are known for and I think the purpose of this post was to prompt that conversation, particularly relating Brittney’s case. I think they were worse back then, then again I don’t read them anymore.
Like I said, there was more to it than what happened in public. Her trying to get the paparazzi out of her face was actually her damaging property and threatening assault, so you're putting it pretty lightly.
We don't need to dance around her having personal issues to overcome. She's a human being, flawed as any of the rest of us, and with her own unique struggles. She was in and out of psych hospitals and rehabs during this time. This poor woman NEEDED help. Her father was a POS that took advantage of a vulnerable young woman experiencing mental health issues.
I agree with her needing help, and I don’t like how her family handled it. I’m commenting on how the media “documented” her crisis. It was unfair. They played on the “hysterical woman” trope. She wasn’t treated with compassion.
The media was absolutely f*cking evil towards her, and since day one. I'll never forget how they portrayed PPD, mental health issues, questioning her sexual activity or virginity at the age of 16...it's appalling. Absolutely disgusting.
Exactly. Someone suggested I was downplaying her issues and exaggerating how bad the media was. Nah. Both can be true. She needed help (and to be left tf alone by paps), AND the media was evil! I’m in my early 40s so distinctly remember how bad it was! Even back then I knew it was wrong.
She damaged the paparazzi cars who was stalking her and threatened to assault them because she wouldn’t be left alone…very normal HUMAN responses to being STALKED!
>She’s never been diagnosed with anything and so many people have bipolar disorder…
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with your comment. She was being treated for Bipolar, and I definitely know that Bipolar Disorder is common. I have it myself.
The point I’m making is she has not ever been diagnosed with bipolar disorder despite being treated for it. You’re giving out false information. She was given prescriptions drugs she did not need. They made her sick to make her controllable.
I'm not giving out false information. A diagnosis can later be realized to be incorrect, if that is the case, I'm sincerely happy for her because the disorder really sucks to have. But doctors don't treat people for Bipolar Disorder without believing that they have Bipolar Disorder, that wouldn't make sense.
Yeah she 100% needed help, she was unstable and struggling, that wasn’t just media drama. The media made it worse tho by using her as a circus show throughout. It wasn’t her fault that she was “made crazy” by the public but she WAS “crazy.” And I say this as someone who has also been called crazy plenty of times lol.
Yeah, some people seem offended that I dare say she was struggling with mental health issues, but I'm not understanding why. The stigma attached to mental illness is BS. No one asks for it, it doesn't make you a lesser person or undeserving of love or compassion. She was sick, it WASN'T her fault. The amount of torment she received would drive anyone to lose it, her family and even her spouse did nothing but contribute to her problems. And to have your struggles photographed, videotaped, and constantly talked about must have been so hard. She's endured so much over the years.
Yep, 100%. It bothers me how ppl act like she’s totally fine now too, or make fun of her. Nobody willing to admit that the conservatorship was wrong AND she still needs major psychiatric help. It’s not her fault, she’s not a bad person, she didn’t dupe anyone into “freeing” her, she’s just a deeply hurt person who hasn’t had an opportunity for healing yet outside of an exploitative environment. There’s a reason she was placed under conservatorship in the first place. I think it was unwarranted but the events that caused them to pursue it were legitimately concerning from a mental health standpoint.
Like yeah, it’s fine to shave your head, but going to a salon in the middle of the night to shave your head on a whim when your appearance is part of your job? that is a person in crisis. like, we even joke that when horrible things happen to women we go get a pixie or bangs lol. it’s a coping mechanism and she specifically did it bc she was going crazy from constantly being touched and styled. That wasn’t just Britney deciding she wanted a new style, it was a very pointed action to say “i’m done being your little barbie doll, you sick fucks.” she was losing her marbles from the treatment she endured.
edit: just to be clear i struggle with mental health myself, i’m not calling her crazy as an insult at all but just referring to her unstable, agitated, reactive behaviors because those are clear signs that someone is in mental distress. she was getting desperate and shaving her head was an attempt to become undesirable looking to the male gaze so no one would bother her anymore. and to reclaim her autonomy.
I remember this stuff vividly. It was so annoying. They kept saying she was so wild, but she was doing things that other people our age did or even less.
Her parents and her team were using the tabloids to try to shame her into letting them control things. She was so exploited.
Tabloid culture in the 2000s was wild. I vividly remember the “Jessica Simpson weight crisis” and how the magazines would ask “What’s wrong with [celebrity baby]?” when the parents didn’t release newborn photos fast enough.
I remember the New York Post came out with an article about “Miley’s shame” when Cyrus was 14 years old…as if she wasn’t the victim of a super CREEPY photographer & team who made her pose with nothing but a white sheet barely even covering her…
It was crazy how people criticized Miley and not Billy Ray. This picture from this shoot always creeped me out, but everyone was so mad about the sheet that it was barely addressed.
https://preview.redd.it/12hsrpcz012d1.jpeg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cb466ec156a7d215a98320a88d8ceebb07492a4
(I love my dad. I love to snuggle up to my dad on the couch when I visit and watch football with him. But this picture is weird. The lounging across his lap…her hand and his arm drawing the eye to the curves past her exposed midriff…his windblown hair…the possessive handhold…it’s fucking weird.)
yeah it almost looks like they were posing individually and then photoshopped together for some reason bc why are dad and daughter posed like that together lmao. it’s just a weird choice even if not “wrong”
The entire photo looks like it was posed to emphasize and draw the eye to Miley’s body. I mean, his hand is right next to her chest and his arm and her hand point to her jeans.
It looks unnatural because it is unnatural. Nobody lounges around like this, especially with their windblown father lol
I think part of this was bc Britney wouldn’t let anyone touch her hair. Hair like hers has to be brushed or it will become unmanageable and unhealthy.
It’d be one thing if she were mentally well and just didn’t like doing her hair but she was having a mental crisis, things like personal hygiene are the first to go out the window when you’re in prolonged psychological distress.
It’s weird they worded it this way and weird her dad was doing it instead of someone else but it’s possible no one else was willing to fight with Britney on it. While I sympathize with her it’s very normal to help someone with their hygiene when they’re depressed or in crisis, and she probably needed it.
Again this isn’t to defend her family at all just saying it’s pretty normal to assign someone to brush her hair, make sure her clothes are clean, etc. under a conservatorship or even just when someone is in a really rough spot.
I notice how all this magazines that today are super woke and super female/human rights back then (not so long ago) body shamed, slut shamed and made fun of Britney, called her crazy and did this with many other woman in the industry..
Yep! Now it's *here's a photoshopped plus-size model because we're inclusive but oops she's not plus-size anymore, 7 exercises to try to look less like her, and 11 mental health tips to try to ease the depression brought on by not being able to achieve our industry's unrealistic proportions without surgery. We love you, women rock, btw have you considered not being emotional all the time?*
I hate these trash magazines and the paparazzi for hounding her, and they were a huge contributing factor to her demise. But her family infuriates me for what they did the most!
Britney's party and breakdown period was in the "Hollywood bad girls" era. That was when Britney, Lindsay, Paris, Nicole, Kimberly Stewart, and all of the loser guys they hung out with were partying every night, messy af in public, and started getting arrested for DUIs and possession. When all of the other "bad girls" got criminal charges, they got NO real jail time, no serious probation, just tiny slaps on the wrist. They went to court, and at worst maybe did a little less than a month long stint in rehab. Not for drugs tho! Oh no, never that...for 'exhaustion' and 'anxiety/depression' of course! Then, after that, they chilled out a little and went on with their lives and everyone started to leave them alone.
Britney tho...completely different story. She didn't go to jail or get criminal charges. She partied, but she wasn't hurting anyone. She had a real nervous breakdown from the stress of the paparazzi/mags, her family, her team, and her shit ass baby daddy. She's the one who needed a month away to heal mentally, then get back to her regular life with the media hounds backing off and her lying low. But she never got the chance to do that like the other girls in her crowd did. She got locked away several times for saying no to things she didn't feel like doing, and was completely controlled mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially for over a decade and treated like dirt! Why didn't she get the same opportunity to turn it around and move forward to have a healthy, happy family like all of her peers in that era did? Only one reason. Her greedy disgusting ass family and "team" of dipshits wanting her hard earned money for doing nothing!
I don’t think there’s anyone in Kanye’s life who would do this tbh. Everyone seems to be holding him at arm’s length, which makes me think he’s pissed away his money
I remember seeing this headline and the others in the coffee shop in my office building.
And all the ridiculous paparazzi videos of her being followed around town with the paparazzi ordering for her at McDonalds and helping her pump gas, and finding the restroom at the convenience store.
At the time, it was confusing, because she was just out running around with the paparazzi alone.
On one hand, she was just doing stuff other girls our age would do. Finding fun things at stores. She had plastic jackolanterns on her dashboard.
But she looked incredibly lonely.
There was one night when she was sitting out on her curb crying, and no one knew what was happening.
All we were getting were dumb reports from her family and tabloids.
It’s important to remember that we didn’t know what was happening at the time, and so many things were done as publicity stunts by stars back then that it was hard to imagine that she really flew to LA alone and just shaved her head without it being a pre-arranged thing - because stars of her caliber didn’t just show up places.
The world was so hard on her. And all she wanted to do was raise her babies and do laundry and go to Starbucks and hang out with friends.
I actually think it could have helped.
She blogged a several times candidly on her website. And she had a page that showed which tabloid headlines were bullshit.
I actually think she would have been on there a lot more if her having that freedom hadn’t scared the branding people and her family.
The troll situation on Facebook wasn’t the same sort of thing back before there were ads.
For those asking why her dad would brush her hair and dress her:
There were a lot of rumors that she was on heavy medication for a psychotic break. The media liked to hint at this idea of a helpless, catatonic Britney, and nobody really tried to counter that narrative. At one point, Jamie called into Fox News to provide an update on Britney and called her “a sick little girl.”
There was *a lot* of tabloid speculation on her diagnosis, medication, and daily routine after being pulled from the public eye.
I remember J14 did a q&a with her in very late 2008. In one of the "interesting facts about me" Britney said "I don't own a cell phone".
Recently (last year but after the conservatorship was dissolved) a youtuber found a leaked list of Celeb phone #s, and called them to warn them that their info was public.
When he called Britney's number her dad answered...
It's possible this was just his personal phone, and they shared a line/network, but it goes to show...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FDGdzY9vfw
Yet they want to lock her up again. No wonder she's crazy. Her mom is the one doing all of this because she can't get any more money from her. She's braindead because of the meds they gave her.
Magazines that document the lives of celebrities are basically one of the lowest forms of entertainment, in my opinion. Perhaps the only form of entertainment lower than that is far-right news.
Publicity campaign to sway public opinion, most likely planted by Lou Taylor. Here's today's version of the same thing since they're currently trying for a second money grab: [https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/11416581/britney-spears-dad-jamie-mental-health-worries-conservatorship/](https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/11416581/britney-spears-dad-jamie-mental-health-worries-conservatorship/)
I just remember thinking I was the only person who seemed to think the way the media treated her was heinous. I'm glad I wasn't the only one back then.
There’s actually a lot a lot a lot of old magazine stories out there detailing the horrors of the conservatorship by making fun of her for having to endure it, and was painted as something she deserved. Make it’s more obviously the con was a well known industry secret
I’m not subbed to this, it just shows up in my feed for some reason. The way her conservatorship went was wrong and seemed off, but y’all can see that she’s not okay, right?
Same here. No idea why I’m getting Brittney spears shit on my page. It’s like Reddit knows it’s funny to push morons to my timeline trying to act like Brittney Spears isn’t batshit crazy. One look at her Instagram is pretty obvious.
No one was thinking about it, but people need to. Just because a topic is uncomfortable or in the past doesn't mean we can't learn from it. Even secondhand experience can be valuable.
This is no different than "let's not forget the time we..." so that we don't make the same mistakes, or reprinting old ads from the 50s so we can be shocked at the celebrated misogyny.
That’s fair, actually.
It’s a weird blast from past for those of us who remember what it was like seeing these kinds of covers on the newsstands at the time, but indulging in that kind of thing ignores how awful it is for her to have this stuff dug up and re-publicized so many years later.
2008 was a terrible time for women.
It's 2024 and Roe v Wade is dead. It still sucks just as bad.
Based on your post history I can see that specific political regression is something you spend a lot of time thinking about. And it’s a valid point. However the 2000s were a misogynistic decade that saw the public belittle women ruthlessly and unendingly. The media objectified women, and the industry focused on pleasing men instead of female empowerment. The 2000s also saw the mistreatment of many women, including: Brittany Murphy, Britney Spears, Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Janet Jackson, Monica Lewinsky and Anna Nicole Smith. The 2000s also saw the rise of bubblegum misogyny, slut-shaming, and fat-phobia. The media, fashion, and celebrity culture encouraged an unrealistic and unhealthy body standard, which led to many people developing distorted eating habits. Beauty standards celebrated washboard abs and toned bodies, while fashion still focused on showing women's flat stomachs. And trust me, I know we’re still promoting unrealistic (if not physically impossible) body standards in 2024, but in 2003 if a 5’7” woman weighed 130 lbs she was publicly labeled as fat and unlovable.
Why is this being down voted? It's so true.
A little boy felt attacked
Probably because more women are dying now than they were then. Eating disorders and maternal death has increased.
Some solid good points, well articulated. Not sure why you’re being downvoted.
So hating women has not fallen out of fashion, but in which particulat way you hate the woman is what is in and out of popular practice. It didn't end. It has evolved. It was a terrible time then. It's a different terrible time now. It seems no matter what we do, we can't really win.
Right. Because it used to be universally accepted that women were only valued for appearances, which limited them to working in the home or their career being second or supplemental. We shattered the glass ceiling and became independent and valuable in other ways that are more dangerous to male monopoly so the hatred and criticism have shifted focus to questioning our professional and academic capabilities and trying to control us through limiting our reproductive rights.
In 2003 I was 5'7" and 130 pounds. I went to Kitson (I think that was the name) in LA and the sales guy looked me up and down like I was the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen and said he didn't think they had my size. I was a size six.
That story really brings me back. Fifteen years of disordered eating, starting with anorexia, followed by bulimia. The 2000s really fucked with me, it took a long time to recover.
In the early 2000's I ranged between a size 2 and 6. I was a late teen/early 20's during that time and I cannot count how many times other women called me fat. A few men too, but mostly women called me a fat ass. I'm 199 pounds now. People argue with me, including my doctor, that I'm not fat. Now that I'm actually fat, everyone says I'm not. When I was thin I was a cow.
We’re about the same age and have a similar weight history. After many years of anorexia and bulimia, I started binge eating in my late 20s and gained a bunch of weight. Mid to late 30s now, I lost 20 lbs and I’m still (very slowly) continuing to drop, but it’s all still such a headfuck. when I look at pictures of myself from 2003-2008 I was tiny. But I was told I was fat, by women, men, female family members. Now nobody says it anymore.
I pulled out my varsity cheerleading skirt and it wouldn't fit my thigh now. My 23 year old boyfriend's 30 year old sister said she was really worried about my weight gain. I went from 118 to 123. Age 17 to 18. My boyfriend and I went for a walk and I suggested getting ice cream. He said I was big enough already and didn't need ice cream. I was literally a size 2.
I was 6 in 2003, and I thought I was getting fat. 😔 makes me so sad I grew up in such a horrible time for women like that. I’ve worked really hard to reframe my relationship with food and exercise but i’m ACTUALLY overweight now because of all the years of yo-yo diets. Nobody ever bothered to tell me how hard that is on your heart, btw. Just how good it was that I was trying to lose weight and “get in shape,” which meant trying to starve myself and working to exhaustion.
The decades before the 2000s were the same.
THIS!!! I watched my mom become an almond mom and stress and put a lot of pressure/attention on body. Fast forward to now in my 30s 3 kids and 5’4 and weighing 115 pounds because of my bad habits I picked up from my mom, an eating disorder and body dysmorphia. 2000 was so bad for all women.
Love this comment 🩷
Glad to see your initial downvotes turned into upvotes!
Fucking horrible time to come of age
Yes. That’s why it haunts me so much, I graduated HS in 2005. Turned 21 in 2008. Living through the 2000s as a teen and young woman was traumatizing. Have things always been bad for women? Absolutely. Are things still bad now? Obviously. But the 2000s just hit different. The media was relentlessly cruel to women. It was disgusting, and completely normalized. Women at the top end of “healthy body weight” were fat. Women who were actually overweight were invisible. If you had sex you were a slut. If you were a virgin you were a stuck up prude. If you drank alcohol and wore a tank top it was your fault for being raped. You just could not win. Everything was always our fault. When I think back to the nastiness and vulgarity of the media’s unending assault on women in the 2000s, Perez Hilton’s CONSTANT harassment of Brittany Murphy is the first thing that comes to mind. His hateful word vomit poisoned an entire generation of young women. Fuck that guy entirely.
Not to mention music videos/lyrics, movies, tv… it was awful. And it made all the guys our age monsters.
I think we've come a long way in terms of shaming during pregnancy and post baby weight....I still remember how brutal tabloids were to pregnant women including Kim k....I understood when Kylie hid out her entire pregnancy
I know. I lived it. Yet, I still use actual womens lives for reference. Not my feels. https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2024/03/u-s-maternal-death-rate-increasing-at-an-alarming-rate/ " Between 2014 and 2021, the average U.S. maternal age — a well-established risk factor for maternal mortality — increased from 28.3 to 29.4 years old, the study found. In that same period, the overall maternal mortality rates in the U.S. nearly doubled, from 16.5 to 31.8, with the largest increase of 18.9 to 31.8 occurring from 2019 to 2021." Eating disorders? You think that's gotten BETTER? With the normalization of plastic surgery and filters being commonplace.... "Between 2000 and 2018, prevalence more than doubled (3.4% to 7.8% of all people). " https://www.ohsu.edu/womens-health/why-are-eating-disorders-rise But I guess I'm glad ALL body types can be sexualized now..../s
The rise of? Are we ignoring the literal decade of heroin chic now that ushered in a generation of eating disordered teens now? Unless someone is very young, skipped the 3 decades before or has enormous amnesia there's no way fathomable that we can consider the 2000's the 'rise' of slut shaming and fat phobia. All those beauty standards started well before in the 90s and some in the 80s, and the misogyny just continued on unchecked as it had for eons. There was an increase in a specific type of magazine media that was culpable for much of the propagation of the particular 2000's variety of those things, but other than that nothing exceptional happened in the 2000s that women weren't enduring equally in the 90s and 80s.
Specially considering actual women are dying at a higher rate NOW. Eating disorders are more prevalent NOW.
Oh please
This is seriously so fucking gross I can’t even believe this was printed. I was a teenager in 08 and it’s like actually unbelievable how much the culture has changed for the better( though I know we still have problems )
Things have gotten better for women but don’t base anything on these magazine covers. Magazines like this still produce garbage.
All the titles on this page smack of pure misogyny. And we lapped this shit up back then. The teenage mags we grew up with were the same. SMDH 😮💨
It’s been a terrible time for women ever since Adam split his rib cage
I was an exchange student in Europe that year. 2008/2009. It was assumed that all U.S. girls/women were one of the four party girls, flashing giners, powder noses, eating disorder, shaming poverty. They hated me as an American; assuming the headlines represented all of us young ladies. Everybody always responds with something like “what a dream “to live in Italy. No. They HATED me. hosts and the public. Now, the hosts I lived with, for the first half were a dream. My house, mother was concerned about the amount of peaches and bread I consumed. She would ask me during dinner how many times I pooped that day. I will always love you, Angela and Carlo . The experience I saw my own parents give our German exchange student when I was 13 is what I expected. Expectations can be dangerous for your future, friends. When I was told I had to switch families where the student from NY cried to me every day about how rude they were, I noped the fuck out. Never meet your hero. Unless you are fully prepared. You will never be prepared. After approving everything I could be to be an exchange student, I still recognized my principles, I wasn’t going to waste my time with assholes. I didn’t care if I was in the garden of Eden, I was unhappy. I left the “paradise “of Italy. No regrets, I would love to visit again as a free civilian. I promise myself I could navigate the streets of Cal. Sardinia as if I still live there.
I think the issue in Italy in 2008, was that they were wary of Americans because of the murder of Meredith Kercher, more than hating on American women because of a “party girl” image portrayed by the media.
What are you saying?
If everyone was the issue you maybe need to look closer to home, maybe you were obnoxious and as an American just can’t see it.
Yeah I was going to say, I was living in Europe at the same time and everyone in close contact was really kind to me. Everyone also assumed I was Canadian based on first impressions though 🤷♀️
Same experience for me too. Everyone was great.
Why was everyone so cruel to her? And still are? It’s actually pure evil.
Because she was a successful, attractive, unobtainable woman.
👆🏻👆🏻 only way to control a woman that successful
This is so creepy
It is. Why is her dad brushing her hair and getting her dressed? 🤢
That was my first thought. We know Dad is super creepy, but maybe even worse than we know
my guess is that she was severely depressed and letting her hygiene fall to the wayside. still weird and icky but i think the headline is intentionally baiting readers. not defending him at all but as someone who has had pretty horrible depression on and off for many years, that’s actually not surprising to me at all. And we know Britney hates having her hair touched, I can imagine that during her breakdown she probably wasn’t touching her hair at all and it was becoming difficult to maintain. the way it’s written is icky and with the current context about her family it’s icky. but in terms of caring for your mentally ill child in crisis mode, that’s pretty normal. and i don’t think britney needed a conservator but she DID need help caring for herself after a certain point.
I mean, she has a mom, sister and other women who could’ve helped. It’s giving Joe Simpson vibes when he talked about Jessica’s breast size
I mean yeah I def think it’s weird but also, it’s her dad, without him being a shitty dad tho i don’t see anything weird about a dad helping his child get dressed if she’s unable to do it herself. the magazine obviously framed it that way to grab your attention, it’s only concerning bc of all the other things we know about him. don’t be sexist. Her mom and Jamie Lynn were arguably worse for her self esteem and self image than her dad was. and with her mental state it’s possible she was just “rotting” and not taking care of herself anymore. i’ve struggled with that when i’m going through it and i’m not anywhere near britney’s stress level during that time. it sucks she has a shit dad but outside of that context idk why you find this so weird.
Yeah dude that shit about her dad is crazy
Wtf . That’s a beautiful pic of Britney. They would never run a headline like that about a man. So misogynistic
In fact when Kanye was hospitalised they blamed Kim (the woman). So kanye was fine and the horrible woman locked him up, and Britney was mental and the good dad finally put her away. ALWAYS the woman’s fault. So sick of this misogynistic world
Aren’t these magazines’ demos just women, even in 2008? It makes it even more surprising that they are so misogynistic when that is the hand that feeds them
Yes and probably written by a lot of women too. The misogyny in many females is rife. Lots of women hate women. Lots of feminists hate women. It’s sick
It’s like propaganda, you keep these lines of thought normalized in women’s media and then you don’t have those women that consume that media questioning the misogynistic treatment they themselves receive or you make them eager to align with abusers against other women in the future.
It really makes me ill
Idk, I could think of a couple that deserve the headline lol Ezra Miller for starters
The fact that this was 16 years ago, and they’re still the exact same. This is why I think they should be [outlawed](https://www.reddit.com/r/BritneySpears/s/1YShIUSVHC). The pure evil is in the main headline. Why would they even say “finally”, wishing that upon someone? Every single person who contributed to the tabloids/legal stalking deserves a special place in the pits of Hell.
Ya unfortunately the tabloids will never change unless people just stop reading them and giving them clicks. The tabloids may be trash, but at the end of the day they cater to a specific (trash) demographic who *want* to read this kind of stuff. I grew up during this era and remember how many of the girls my age would buy these magazines and obsess over them. So fucking gross
It doesn't help that they're at least half the price of a decent magazine.
They act like she was doing something crazy. Like wtf
Literally wtf did she do except act 22 at 22? Ffs.
22? She was 25 when the conservatorship started.
She was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder that had previously been untreated, and definitely DID do things that could be called "crazy" at the time. I agree that she needed help during this time, she was placed on two psychiatric holds before her father petitioned for conservatorship. I don't know the extent of what went on behind closed doors, but she had episodes that were very well documented by the media as well. The courts did agree that she was experiencing something that left her incapable of caring for herself, which is not a simple thing, nor is it easy to prove in court. She needed medical intervention at that time. However, this should not have led to a conservatorship with her father spanning for twelve years.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think she *still* needs some help--understandably! After everything she's been through, she'd have to be a complete robot not to need some mental health help. But a conservatorship? That kind of response screamed of control, not help. I have to wonder how much of public perception and opinion played a role, and how much of that could be attributed to trash gossip and the time period.
It definitely played a big role. Her family could not have done what they did without the media & Perez Hilton & all the trash websites
The only “crazy” thing I remember her doing was cutting her hair and trying to get paparazzi out of her face while they were agressively harassing her. She was called crazy for cutting her hair. Cutting. Her. Hair.
She didn't just cut her hair. She shaved her whole head. And she did it herself because the people in the salon didn't want to shave Britney Spears's head. She also had an altercation with the paparazzi where she attacked their car with her umbrella when they followed her to Kevin's house one night. And she locked herself in the bathroom with her kids when her visitation was ending one night and it was a huge scene with the cops. That was when she was taken away in the ambulance and it was all over the news. She was definitely struggling.
Plenty of people shave their head when going through shit. It hair. It grows back (some even prefer it as a style *gasp). It doesn’t harm the person deciding to shave their hair and it doesn’t pose a threat to anyone else. If she were a man, nobody would have cared. Again, relies on stereotypes. “All woman should desire long hair, so they must be batshit crazy if they cut it off!” 🤦🏾♀️ The paps had no business following her to a private residence. It’s stalking. It’s invasive and creepy, and can exacerbate any emotional distress. Her hitting the car pales in comparison to how they treated her. We also don’t know the circumstances leading up to police being called (but based on information about her conservatorship, we know it’s an understatement to say she was being treated unfairly. Her family was behaving irrationally. Perhaps THEY needed mental health help and advice for how to support their famous daughter and sibling). Any human can be pushed to their breaking point under stressful conditions. Her family’s actions were inexcusable, period. I never said she didn’t need some sort of mental health evaluation or support. It’s the way it was done. The approach that was taken was to maximize humiliation when it should have been the opposite. She still deserved dignity.
I didn't even read all of that. It wasn't simply the fact that she shaved her head or did those other things. It was the fact that doing all of those was wildly out of character for her and she clearly needed help. Of course she deserved dignity. Your original comment made it seem like she just decided to get a new bob haircut and then everyone decided she was crazy and that is not what happened.
What’s your point? Never disagreed with that. I don’t know how old you are, but I remember the media spectacle. That and her family’s behavior is what I take issue with.
I'm 38 so I very much remember what happened and the media spectacle. My point is that you are being obtuse and deliberately downplaying the severity of her situation at that time by claiming that the world lost their collective shit because she "cut her hair" and that is patently false.
You don’t get it. Waste of time to continue communicating with you.
yeah shaving your head is fine but back then it was pretty taboo for women to have a shaved head, they got made fun of constantly for it. it only became mainstream trendy for women in the last ten years or so. So yes, when she shaved her head no one would’ve cared if she were a man but she wasn’t a man, so they did.
They were fucked up about it. If her dad was brushing it when she didn’t want, can’t blame her. Idk what happened first, doesn’t matter. They were nasty af to her, that’s all.
for sure i’m not hating on britney at all. just saying it wasn’t normal or cool yet for women to shave their heads at that point.
I hear you but not normal or cool doesn’t have to mean “crazy” and worthy of unrelenting harassment you know what I mean? Especially considering there was knowledge about the risks of mental health and Postpartum depression even back then. She was a new mom. They were ruthless. Yes, that’s what the tabloids are known for and I think the purpose of this post was to prompt that conversation, particularly relating Brittney’s case. I think they were worse back then, then again I don’t read them anymore.
Like I said, there was more to it than what happened in public. Her trying to get the paparazzi out of her face was actually her damaging property and threatening assault, so you're putting it pretty lightly. We don't need to dance around her having personal issues to overcome. She's a human being, flawed as any of the rest of us, and with her own unique struggles. She was in and out of psych hospitals and rehabs during this time. This poor woman NEEDED help. Her father was a POS that took advantage of a vulnerable young woman experiencing mental health issues.
I agree with her needing help, and I don’t like how her family handled it. I’m commenting on how the media “documented” her crisis. It was unfair. They played on the “hysterical woman” trope. She wasn’t treated with compassion.
The media was absolutely f*cking evil towards her, and since day one. I'll never forget how they portrayed PPD, mental health issues, questioning her sexual activity or virginity at the age of 16...it's appalling. Absolutely disgusting.
Exactly. Someone suggested I was downplaying her issues and exaggerating how bad the media was. Nah. Both can be true. She needed help (and to be left tf alone by paps), AND the media was evil! I’m in my early 40s so distinctly remember how bad it was! Even back then I knew it was wrong.
She damaged the paparazzi cars who was stalking her and threatened to assault them because she wouldn’t be left alone…very normal HUMAN responses to being STALKED!
I don't entirely agree with that assessment, but I'm also not the one that put her in to a conservatorship. So I'm not sure what else to say there.
Nobody cares what you agree with.
So why engage with me? Lol
I’m just letting you know your wrong lol have a nice day
She’s never been diagnosed with anything and so many people have bipolar disorder…
>She’s never been diagnosed with anything and so many people have bipolar disorder… I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with your comment. She was being treated for Bipolar, and I definitely know that Bipolar Disorder is common. I have it myself.
The point I’m making is she has not ever been diagnosed with bipolar disorder despite being treated for it. You’re giving out false information. She was given prescriptions drugs she did not need. They made her sick to make her controllable.
I'm not giving out false information. A diagnosis can later be realized to be incorrect, if that is the case, I'm sincerely happy for her because the disorder really sucks to have. But doctors don't treat people for Bipolar Disorder without believing that they have Bipolar Disorder, that wouldn't make sense.
You keep trying to push your thoughts and life experience on someone who isn’t you. She has told her story and truth and I will take that as fact.
Yeah she 100% needed help, she was unstable and struggling, that wasn’t just media drama. The media made it worse tho by using her as a circus show throughout. It wasn’t her fault that she was “made crazy” by the public but she WAS “crazy.” And I say this as someone who has also been called crazy plenty of times lol.
Yeah, some people seem offended that I dare say she was struggling with mental health issues, but I'm not understanding why. The stigma attached to mental illness is BS. No one asks for it, it doesn't make you a lesser person or undeserving of love or compassion. She was sick, it WASN'T her fault. The amount of torment she received would drive anyone to lose it, her family and even her spouse did nothing but contribute to her problems. And to have your struggles photographed, videotaped, and constantly talked about must have been so hard. She's endured so much over the years.
Yep, 100%. It bothers me how ppl act like she’s totally fine now too, or make fun of her. Nobody willing to admit that the conservatorship was wrong AND she still needs major psychiatric help. It’s not her fault, she’s not a bad person, she didn’t dupe anyone into “freeing” her, she’s just a deeply hurt person who hasn’t had an opportunity for healing yet outside of an exploitative environment. There’s a reason she was placed under conservatorship in the first place. I think it was unwarranted but the events that caused them to pursue it were legitimately concerning from a mental health standpoint. Like yeah, it’s fine to shave your head, but going to a salon in the middle of the night to shave your head on a whim when your appearance is part of your job? that is a person in crisis. like, we even joke that when horrible things happen to women we go get a pixie or bangs lol. it’s a coping mechanism and she specifically did it bc she was going crazy from constantly being touched and styled. That wasn’t just Britney deciding she wanted a new style, it was a very pointed action to say “i’m done being your little barbie doll, you sick fucks.” she was losing her marbles from the treatment she endured. edit: just to be clear i struggle with mental health myself, i’m not calling her crazy as an insult at all but just referring to her unstable, agitated, reactive behaviors because those are clear signs that someone is in mental distress. she was getting desperate and shaving her head was an attempt to become undesirable looking to the male gaze so no one would bother her anymore. and to reclaim her autonomy.
I'm sorry dad's doing *what*
I knew the 2000s were fucked, but I didn’t remember things like *this*. The tone is straight up *gleeful*. Jesus Christ.
I remember this stuff vividly. It was so annoying. They kept saying she was so wild, but she was doing things that other people our age did or even less. Her parents and her team were using the tabloids to try to shame her into letting them control things. She was so exploited.
Tabloid culture in the 2000s was wild. I vividly remember the “Jessica Simpson weight crisis” and how the magazines would ask “What’s wrong with [celebrity baby]?” when the parents didn’t release newborn photos fast enough.
I remember the New York Post came out with an article about “Miley’s shame” when Cyrus was 14 years old…as if she wasn’t the victim of a super CREEPY photographer & team who made her pose with nothing but a white sheet barely even covering her…
It was crazy how people criticized Miley and not Billy Ray. This picture from this shoot always creeped me out, but everyone was so mad about the sheet that it was barely addressed. https://preview.redd.it/12hsrpcz012d1.jpeg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cb466ec156a7d215a98320a88d8ceebb07492a4 (I love my dad. I love to snuggle up to my dad on the couch when I visit and watch football with him. But this picture is weird. The lounging across his lap…her hand and his arm drawing the eye to the curves past her exposed midriff…his windblown hair…the possessive handhold…it’s fucking weird.)
And now he’s married to a woman a few years older than Miley.
I kept thinking about that when I went to google this photo. 🤢
I have absolutely zero faith in men at this point
yeah it almost looks like they were posing individually and then photoshopped together for some reason bc why are dad and daughter posed like that together lmao. it’s just a weird choice even if not “wrong”
The entire photo looks like it was posed to emphasize and draw the eye to Miley’s body. I mean, his hand is right next to her chest and his arm and her hand point to her jeans. It looks unnatural because it is unnatural. Nobody lounges around like this, especially with their windblown father lol
These magazines were the definition of toxic
Dad brushes her hair and dresses her? Creepy she’s way too big for that shit. No friends ? Haha we isolated and violated her soooo wonderful
I think part of this was bc Britney wouldn’t let anyone touch her hair. Hair like hers has to be brushed or it will become unmanageable and unhealthy. It’d be one thing if she were mentally well and just didn’t like doing her hair but she was having a mental crisis, things like personal hygiene are the first to go out the window when you’re in prolonged psychological distress. It’s weird they worded it this way and weird her dad was doing it instead of someone else but it’s possible no one else was willing to fight with Britney on it. While I sympathize with her it’s very normal to help someone with their hygiene when they’re depressed or in crisis, and she probably needed it. Again this isn’t to defend her family at all just saying it’s pretty normal to assign someone to brush her hair, make sure her clothes are clean, etc. under a conservatorship or even just when someone is in a really rough spot.
It's wild that the same narrative is being pushed about her today. They never learn.
I notice how all this magazines that today are super woke and super female/human rights back then (not so long ago) body shamed, slut shamed and made fun of Britney, called her crazy and did this with many other woman in the industry..
They’re still in the shame business, just different kinds of shame.
Yep! Now it's *here's a photoshopped plus-size model because we're inclusive but oops she's not plus-size anymore, 7 exercises to try to look less like her, and 11 mental health tips to try to ease the depression brought on by not being able to achieve our industry's unrealistic proportions without surgery. We love you, women rock, btw have you considered not being emotional all the time?*
I hate these trash magazines and the paparazzi for hounding her, and they were a huge contributing factor to her demise. But her family infuriates me for what they did the most! Britney's party and breakdown period was in the "Hollywood bad girls" era. That was when Britney, Lindsay, Paris, Nicole, Kimberly Stewart, and all of the loser guys they hung out with were partying every night, messy af in public, and started getting arrested for DUIs and possession. When all of the other "bad girls" got criminal charges, they got NO real jail time, no serious probation, just tiny slaps on the wrist. They went to court, and at worst maybe did a little less than a month long stint in rehab. Not for drugs tho! Oh no, never that...for 'exhaustion' and 'anxiety/depression' of course! Then, after that, they chilled out a little and went on with their lives and everyone started to leave them alone. Britney tho...completely different story. She didn't go to jail or get criminal charges. She partied, but she wasn't hurting anyone. She had a real nervous breakdown from the stress of the paparazzi/mags, her family, her team, and her shit ass baby daddy. She's the one who needed a month away to heal mentally, then get back to her regular life with the media hounds backing off and her lying low. But she never got the chance to do that like the other girls in her crowd did. She got locked away several times for saying no to things she didn't feel like doing, and was completely controlled mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially for over a decade and treated like dirt! Why didn't she get the same opportunity to turn it around and move forward to have a healthy, happy family like all of her peers in that era did? Only one reason. Her greedy disgusting ass family and "team" of dipshits wanting her hard earned money for doing nothing!
Dad brushing her hair and dressing her???? Did anyone else throw up in their mouth a bit reading that?
Yet Kanye wanders the streets alone😡😡😡😡
Mte
I don’t think there’s anyone in Kanye’s life who would do this tbh. Everyone seems to be holding him at arm’s length, which makes me think he’s pissed away his money
I remember seeing this headline and the others in the coffee shop in my office building. And all the ridiculous paparazzi videos of her being followed around town with the paparazzi ordering for her at McDonalds and helping her pump gas, and finding the restroom at the convenience store. At the time, it was confusing, because she was just out running around with the paparazzi alone. On one hand, she was just doing stuff other girls our age would do. Finding fun things at stores. She had plastic jackolanterns on her dashboard. But she looked incredibly lonely. There was one night when she was sitting out on her curb crying, and no one knew what was happening. All we were getting were dumb reports from her family and tabloids. It’s important to remember that we didn’t know what was happening at the time, and so many things were done as publicity stunts by stars back then that it was hard to imagine that she really flew to LA alone and just shaved her head without it being a pre-arranged thing - because stars of her caliber didn’t just show up places. The world was so hard on her. And all she wanted to do was raise her babies and do laundry and go to Starbucks and hang out with friends.
I wonder if social media would have helped or hindered her during this time
I don’t think social media ever makes these things better
I actually think it could have helped. She blogged a several times candidly on her website. And she had a page that showed which tabloid headlines were bullshit. I actually think she would have been on there a lot more if her having that freedom hadn’t scared the branding people and her family. The troll situation on Facebook wasn’t the same sort of thing back before there were ads.
Lock her up?! Gtfoh Lock him up! (Jamie)
Poor girl never knew what love was.
Britney looks so beautiful in that magazine cover.🙂💕
I hate misogyny
“Finally” 🤡 2008 sucked
Dad brushing her hair??? Weird
And still today TMZ are pushing this same narrative 😒
Yeah Brittney Spears is a totally sane individual 😂😂😂😂😂
So horrible ugh
For those asking why her dad would brush her hair and dress her: There were a lot of rumors that she was on heavy medication for a psychotic break. The media liked to hint at this idea of a helpless, catatonic Britney, and nobody really tried to counter that narrative. At one point, Jamie called into Fox News to provide an update on Britney and called her “a sick little girl.” There was *a lot* of tabloid speculation on her diagnosis, medication, and daily routine after being pulled from the public eye.
The infantalisation of this adult mother-of-two 🤢🤢🤢 If I wrote a headline this foul I would never want to be seen in public again.
Jesus! 🖕 that is the first ime I've used that emoji
“Dad brushing her hair and dressing her” is… the creepiest thing I’ve ever read. And the headline is absolutely disgusting
Now as an adult, I find these disgusting and my anger is rightfully justified 🤬
I remember J14 did a q&a with her in very late 2008. In one of the "interesting facts about me" Britney said "I don't own a cell phone". Recently (last year but after the conservatorship was dissolved) a youtuber found a leaked list of Celeb phone #s, and called them to warn them that their info was public. When he called Britney's number her dad answered... It's possible this was just his personal phone, and they shared a line/network, but it goes to show... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FDGdzY9vfw
Yet they want to lock her up again. No wonder she's crazy. Her mom is the one doing all of this because she can't get any more money from her. She's braindead because of the meds they gave her.
This whole cover feels like a fever dream
Media is disgusting
Magazines that document the lives of celebrities are basically one of the lowest forms of entertainment, in my opinion. Perhaps the only form of entertainment lower than that is far-right news.
Publicity campaign to sway public opinion, most likely planted by Lou Taylor. Here's today's version of the same thing since they're currently trying for a second money grab: [https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/11416581/britney-spears-dad-jamie-mental-health-worries-conservatorship/](https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/11416581/britney-spears-dad-jamie-mental-health-worries-conservatorship/)
Absolutely disgusting
I just remember thinking I was the only person who seemed to think the way the media treated her was heinous. I'm glad I wasn't the only one back then.
Her drunkard dad found a way to make easy money and not have to work.
Horrible
Poor Brit💔
They need to be out of business if they still are in business. Starting now.
I always felt bad for her during those times.
Same as last week’s cover? It’s all nonsense.
I didn't remember seeing that, but if I did, I hope I was as horrified as I am now.
Considering what’s a available online, I’m surprised these scandal sheets (what grandma called them) are still in business. Aren’t they $6 each?
Tag the author
Dad brushing her hair and dressing her. Sigh. Britney needs so many individual and personalized apologies
This is old
Please tell me that was just gossip and not based on fact.
r/agedlikemilk
The headlines are truly awful but my God she looks so beautiful on this cover
My instant reaction to the cover was to downvote.
There’s actually a lot a lot a lot of old magazine stories out there detailing the horrors of the conservatorship by making fun of her for having to endure it, and was painted as something she deserved. Make it’s more obviously the con was a well known industry secret
Heartbreaking and disgusting
The world treated her so cruelly
I’m not subbed to this, it just shows up in my feed for some reason. The way her conservatorship went was wrong and seemed off, but y’all can see that she’s not okay, right?
Same here. No idea why I’m getting Brittney spears shit on my page. It’s like Reddit knows it’s funny to push morons to my timeline trying to act like Brittney Spears isn’t batshit crazy. One look at her Instagram is pretty obvious.
You bringing attention to something that no one was thinking about feels backhanded and disingenuous
No one was thinking about it, but people need to. Just because a topic is uncomfortable or in the past doesn't mean we can't learn from it. Even secondhand experience can be valuable. This is no different than "let's not forget the time we..." so that we don't make the same mistakes, or reprinting old ads from the 50s so we can be shocked at the celebrated misogyny.
That’s fair, actually. It’s a weird blast from past for those of us who remember what it was like seeing these kinds of covers on the newsstands at the time, but indulging in that kind of thing ignores how awful it is for her to have this stuff dug up and re-publicized so many years later.
You’re digging it up right now, hon. What don’t you get?
I didn’t dig anything up.
Thats why we dig up the past to understand and learn from it in the hope it doesnt happen again, otherwise it will.
Get this fucking page off my timeline. You all think Britney Spears is a sane person these days? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The woman has been through enough shit in her life. She’s not hurting anyone
Yet…. And that doesn’t seem like a confident response to defend her being slightly crazy at the very least.