It’s not even halfway into 2021, and — despite us already being given a comprehensive Britney Spears documentary by the New York Times — there are another two Britney-centric features in the works. It seems that the world is obsessed with the star’s legal battles, and her ongoing lawsuit to remove the 13-year-long conservatorship that has given her father control over her finances and career. We’ve heard from journalists, lawyers, pundits, fans, and Britney’s friends and family about the furore, but the one voice absent from the conversation, until now, was Britney’s own. Now, she’s speaking out for herself.
In an Instagram post last night, Britney at last opened up about her year so far, criticising the media attention surrounding her legal troubles as “hypocritical”. In a caption to one of her famous dancing videos, the Womanizer singer wrote: “2021 is definitely way better than 2020 but I never knew it was gonna be like THIS”.
Going on to joke that she was “flattered” by the scrutiny and attention, Britney criticised the media for highlighting “the most negative and traumatising times in [her] life from forever ago”. While recent documentaries like Framing Britney Spears ostensibly bill themselves as giving the singer a voice, their laser focus on her mental health struggles, custody battles and conservatorship have led to comparisons to the obsessive paparazzi attention Britney endured in the mid-2000s, something Britney herself seems to acknowledge.
“These documentaries are so hypocritical … they criticize the media and then do the same thing,” the singer posted last night. She then went on to celebrate her own weirdness with a dancing video, and spoke positively about her summer plans, in classic Brit fashion.
“I don’t know y’all but I’m thrilled to remind you all that although I’ve had some pretty tough times in my life … I’ve had waaaayyyy more amazing times in my life,” she went on to say. In a later Instagram last night, the singer posted a picture of a little girl holding up the middle finger, with a caption that said that being straightforward is one of Britney’s “strongest gifts”.
This, it seems, is what much of the recent coverage and attention around Britney forgets. While her level of celebrity is such that she’s been a household name for the majority of the time most of us have been alive, that level of familiarity can sometimes make us forget that we don’t know her. In the same period that documentaries and column inches are being devoted to speculating about the star’s loneliness, financial issues and lack of control over her own life, she is telling fans how happy she is on social media, and reminding the world that — however well-intentioned — we need to take a step back and let Brit handle things herself. Boundaries, everyone.