Framing Britney Spears (TV Program)

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    Takeaways from Britney Spears’s Memoir ‘The Woman in Me’

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    The pop star’s new book, “The Woman in Me,” recounts her rise to fame, struggles that became tabloid fodder and her efforts to escape a conservatorship that long governed her life.There came a point during the 13 years that a conservatorship strictly governed Britney Spears’s life and career that she gave up fighting it, the singer recalls in her memoir, “The Woman in Me,” which is being released on Tuesday.Her father, James P. Spears, had been put in charge of her affairs in 2008 after she was twice hospitalized for involuntary psychological assessments. At times over the years that followed, she pushed back privately, but ultimately her exhaustion and fear of losing access to her two young sons won out, she recalls in the book.“After being held down on a gurney,” the memoir reads, “I knew they could restrain my body any time they wanted to. And so I went along with it.” Spears adds, “My freedom in exchange for naps with my children — it was a trade I was willing to make.”In the much-awaited 275-page memoir, which The New York Times obtained from a retail store in advance of its authorized release, Spears writes about her career as a teen idol, her struggles that became tabloid fodder, her time under the conservatorship and her eventual push for its termination in 2021, when she regained the right to make her own decisions.Throughout, she describes the feeling of being too much in the public eye, too scrutinized, whether by her parents or the paparazzi, or even by the doctors who she says “took me away from my kids and my dogs and my house.” But the story is, by nature, incomplete, referring cheerily to Spears’s post-conservatorship marriage to Hesam Asghari, known as Sam, who filed for divorce in August after a little more than a year.Below are other notable moments from the book.Rise to fameFrom performing her first solo — the Christmas carol “What Child Is This?” — at her mother’s local day care to auditioning with Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing” in rooms full of record executives, Spears tracks her rapid ascent to fame as a child and teenager.When she was 10 years old, she recalls, she was on the show “Star Search,” where the host, Ed McMahon, asked her if she had a boyfriend. After she replied that she didn’t, because they were “mean,” McMahon responded, “I’m not mean! How about me?” She “kept it together” until she left the stage, Spears writes, “But then I burst into tears.”After appearing on “The Mickey Mouse Club,” Spears writes, she decided that she wanted to live a “normal life” back in Kentwood, La., until Larry Rudolph, a lawyer whom her mother met on the audition circuit, suggested that she record a demo. She won a record deal at 15, and Rudolph became her longtime manager.Spears performing in 1999 during her … Baby One More Time Tour.Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesMounting fame, and attentionSpears quickly rose from a teenager performing at malls to a 16-year-old pop princess with a hit single: “ … Baby One More Time.” She went on tour with the boy band ’N Sync, and had a high-profile romance with Justin Timberlake.She writes that she “couldn’t help but notice” that talk show hosts asked Timberlake different kinds of questions from the ones that she was asked: “Everyone kept making strange comments about my breasts,” the book says, “wanting to know whether or not I’d had plastic surgery.” The pressure only grew as she became a fixture on MTV, and the public criticism ultimately led her to start taking Prozac, she recalls.Spears describes a loving relationship with Justin Timberlake but says she was pained by what she describes as his unwillingness to have a child together when she became pregnant. She had an abortion, she writes.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressBreaking up with TimberlakeSpears recounts her connection with Timberlake as magnetic and describes their breakup — which she said he initiated over text message — as leaving her “devastated” and fantasizing about quitting show business.She recalls her reaction to the release of Timberlake’s music video “Cry Me a River,” in which, as she describes it, “a woman who looks like me cheats on him and he wanders around sad in the rain.” She viewed the media as portraying her as a “harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy,” she writes, when in reality: “I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.”As first revealed in excerpts released by People magazine earlier this week, Spears recounts in detail the decision to get an abortion after she became pregnant while in the relationship with Timberlake. She said she didn’t view the pregnancy as “a tragedy,” but that he thought they were too young, leading her to agree “not to have the baby.”After the breakup, Spears says, she felt forced by her father and her management team to participate in an interview with Diane Sawyer, during which Sawyer pressed her on what she did to Timberlake that caused him “so much pain.” (In the book, Spears confirms a longtime rumor when she says she kissed the choreographer Wade Robson during her relationship with Timberlake, but she suggests that her behavior was related to rumors of Timberlake’s unfaithfulness.) Spears recalls that interview as a “breaking point” for her. “I felt like I had been exploited,” she writes, “set up in front of the whole world.”Relationship to drugs and alcoholTackling the peak years of her notorious stint as a paparazzi and tabloid fixture, Spears writes about her early adulthood forays into partying and nightlife with a sense of disbelief about how they were portrayed in the media.Of her time being photographed alongside celebrity peers like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, Spears writes, “It was never as wild as the press made it out to be,” saying that she had no interest in hard drugs and “never had a drinking problem.” Instead, Spears describes her “drug of choice” as the ADHD medication Adderall, which “made me high, yes, but what I found far more appealing was that it gave me a few hours of feeling less depressed.”Spears writes that during some of her most widely known public episodes — shaving her head and attacking a paparazzo’s car — she was “out of my mind with grief” following the death of her aunt and a custody fight with her ex-husband, Kevin Federline. “With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom,” she writes. “Flailing those weeks without my children, I lost it, over and over again. I didn’t even really know how to take care of myself.”Spears adds: “I am willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my adored aunt Sandra, and the constant drumbeat of pressure from paparazzi, I’d begin to think in some ways like a child.”Spears with her parents. She says in her book that her father, Jamie, became so controlling of her career while running her conservatorship that at one point he declared, “I’m Britney Spears now.”Denise Truscello/WireImage, via Getty ImagesThe conservatorshipIn early 2008, amid her public struggles, the singer’s father, known as Jamie, was appointed conservator of her finances and personal life by the state of California, an arrangement that lasted in various forms until 2021. Even as she returned to work as an entertainer, Spears writes that her every action was monitored, including who she could date or spend time with.“I know I had been acting wild, but there was nothing I’d done that justified their treating me like I was a bank robber,” Spears writes in her memoir. “Nothing that justified upending my entire life.” She describes the decision as being made by her father along with support from her mother and a business manager, Louise Taylor, known as Lou, who has denied being an architect of the conservatorship. (Jamie Spears has long defended his involvement as an effort to protect his daughter from financial exploitation.)“Too sick to choose my own boyfriend and yet somehow healthy enough to appear on sitcoms and morning shows, and to perform for thousands of people in a different part of the world every week,” Spears writes, adding of her father: “From that point on, I began to think that he saw me as put on the earth for no other reason than to help their cash flow.” Elsewhere, Spears recalls her father saying, “I’m Britney Spears now.”“I went from partying a lot to being a total monk,” Spears writes. “Security guards handed me prepackaged envelopes of meds and watched me take them. They put parental controls on my iPhone. Everything was scrutinized and controlled. Everything.”Any pushback by Spears was frowned upon, ignored or minimized, she writes: “I even mentioned the conservatorship on a talk show in 2016, but somehow that part of the interview didn’t make it to the air. Huh. How interesting.”Fans in the #FreeBritney movement often showed up outside court proceedings where they urged that she be released from the conservatorship. Spears writes of how much that lifted her spirits. Chloe Pang for The New York TimesFighting back and #FreeBritneyWhile Spears had intermittently pushed back against the conservatorship behind closed doors to no avail, she traces the beginning of the end of the arrangement to disputes with her father near the end of 2018, when she was made to undergo further mental health evaluations and then spend more than three months in rehab.“My father said that if I didn’t go, then I’d have to go to court, and I’d be embarrassed,” Spears writes, adding that he threatened to make her look like an “idiot.”In addition to being prescribed lithium at the facility, Spears says, she was allowed only an hour of television before a 9 p.m. bedtime. “They kept me locked up against my will for months,” she writes. “I couldn’t go outside. I couldn’t drive a car. I had to give blood weekly. I couldn’t take a bath in private. I couldn’t shut the door to my room.”It was there, in a $60,000-per-month Beverly Hills rehab, that Spears says a nurse showed her clips of fans representing the viral #FreeBritney movement that was questioning the need for the singer’s conservatorship. “That was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life,” Spears writes. “I don’t think people knew how much the #FreeBritney movement meant to me, especially in the beginning.”She writes that “it felt like every day there was another documentary about me on yet another streaming service” (including one, “Framing Britney Spears,” by The New York Times). “Seeing the documentaries about me was rough,” she writes. “I understand that everyone’s heart was in the right place, but I was hurt that some old friend spoke to filmmakers without consulting me first.” She adds, “There was so much guessing about what I must have thought or felt.”When her father was removed as her conservator, not long before the arrangement was ended entirely, “I felt relief sweep over me,” Spears writes. “The man who had scared me as a child and ruled over me as an adult, who had done more than anyone to undermine my self-confidence, was no longer in control of my life.” When she received the call from her new lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, that the conservatorship was officially over, Spears writes, she was at a resort in Tahiti.But Spears remains raw about the aftermath of the conservatorship, writing of her continued estrangement from much of her family. “Migraines are just one part of the physical and emotional damage I have now that I’m out of the conservatorship,” she writes. “I don’t think my family understands the real damage that they did.”The memoir is scheduled to be released on Tuesday.Gallery Books, via Associated PressA return to music?While some say the conservatorship saved Spears’s life, she writes, “No, not really. My music was my life, and the conservatorship was deadly for that; it crushed my soul.”Throughout her time performing a revue in Las Vegas, Spears writes, she was not allowed to update the show. “When I wanted to perform my favorite songs, like ‘Change Your Mind’ or ‘Get Naked,’ they wouldn’t let me,” she writes. “It felt like they wanted to embarrass me rather than let me give my fans the best possible performance.”Now that she has the opportunity to create freely again, the singer writes, she does not feel motivated to do so, although she mentions a one-off collaboration with one of her musical heroes, Elton John, released last year. “Pushing forward in my music career is not my focus at the moment,” Spears says. “It’s time for me not to be someone who other people want; it’s time to actually find myself.”Sarah Maslin Nir and Chris Kuo contributed reporting. More

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      Britney Spears Conservatorship Hearing: What’s at Stake Now?

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      A judge may take up whether her father should be ousted as her conservator, and whether the arrangement should be ended entirely.[Follow live updates on Britney Spears’s conservatorship hearing.]Some changes have come quickly in the three months since Britney Spears spoke up publicly for the first time about the conservatorship that has overseen her life for more than 13 years, calling the arrangement abusive and exploitative at a hearing on June 23.For the first time in the case, Ms. Spears, 39, was allowed to hire her own lawyer, replacing a court-appointed one. A bank that was set to begin managing the singer’s money, alongside her father, resigned, as did her longtime manager. And Ms. Spears, who said she believed the conservatorship would prevent her from getting married or having a baby, got engaged to her boyfriend, Sam Asghari.But other changes Ms. Spears has been seeking to the conservatorship — in some cases for many years — remain open questions as the case returns to a Los Angeles courtroom for its latest status hearing.Ms. Spears’s new lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, doubled down in recent weeks on his attempts to remove the singer’s father, James P. Spears, as the conservator of her estate, calling him actively harmful to her well-being and asking for further investigation into Mr. Spears’s conduct. Mr. Rosengart has said in court documents that he will move to terminate the conservatorship entirely this fall.Yet even as Mr. Spears, 69, reversed course this summer, agreeing to step aside eventually before filing to end the conservatorship altogether earlier this month, he has continued to push back against his immediate suspension or removal.These are some of the questions that could be decided by the probate judge in the case, Brenda Penny, on Wednesday. The hearing is set to begin at 4:30 p.m. ET.Will the Conservatorship Be Terminated Altogether?At this point, Ms. Spears has not officially filed to end the conservatorship. In a twist this month, lawyers for Mr. Spears, who had long maintained that the conservatorship was voluntary and necessary, did file to end it, citing the singer’s stated wishes and recent shows of independence. But experts have said that terminating a conservatorship without a medical evaluation — as Ms. Spears and now her father have asked for — is unlikely, and there is no public record of the judge calling for a psychiatric evaluation recently. (In 2016, according to confidential documents obtained by The New York Times, a court investigator said the conservatorship remained in Ms. Spears’s best interest despite her requests to end it, but called for a path to independence.)Mr. Rosengart has called Mr. Spears’s attempt to terminate the arrangement “vindication” for Ms. Spears, but suggested that the singer’s father was attempting to “avoid accountability and justice, including sitting for a sworn deposition and answering other discovery under oath” by filing to end it.In a filing last week, Mr. Rosengart said that Ms. Spears “fully consents” to terminating the conservatorship and said that Ms. Spears’s personal conservator since 2019, Jodi Montgomery, backed it as well, “subject to proper transition and asset protection.” But he called for “a temporary, short-term conservator to replace Mr. Spears’s until the conservatorship is completely and inevitably terminated this fall.”Will Jamie Spears Be Removed as Conservator?“While the entire conservatorship is promptly wound down and formally terminated, it is clear that Mr. Spears cannot be permitted to hold a position of control over his daughter for another day,” Mr. Rosengart wrote in his filing last week. “Every day Mr. Spears clings to his post is another day of anguish and harm to his daughter.”Ms. Spears’s lawyer has moved to replace her father on a temporary basis with John Zabel, a certified public accountant in California who has worked in Hollywood.Yet Mr. Spears maintained in filings this week that while there is “no adequate basis” for his suspension or removal as conservator of the estate, the court should instead focus on terminating the conservatorship — something that is “opposed by no one” and should take priority. (Lawyers for Mr. Spears contend that in 13 years, “not a single medical professional nor the report of a single probate investigator has recommended that Mr. Spears’ presence as Conservator was harming Ms. Spears.”) Ending the conservatorship, Mr. Spears’s lawyers wrote, “would render some of the other pending matters moot” and “would provide an incentive for the resolution of all other matters.”At the same time, Mr. Spears’s lawyers also argued that Mr. Zabel “does not appear to have the background and experience required to take over a complex, $60 million” estate immediately, pointing to Mr. Zabel’s personal losses in a real estate investment. Mr. Rosengart countered on Tuesday that Mr. Spears has “zero financial background,” a previous bankruptcy and faces allegations of abuse.Will Mr. Spears and Others Be Investigated Further?Following Ms. Spears’s comments in June — in which she said she had been forced to take medication and was unable to remove a birth-control device — her father asked the court to investigate the claims, denying his own culpability and instead calling into question the actions of Ms. Montgomery, the singer’s current personal conservator, and others.Mr. Rosengart has since asked for a future hearing on outstanding financial issues involving the conservatorship, calling mismanagement of Ms. Spears’s estate by her father “evident and ongoing.” He said that Mr. Spears had been served a request for discovery and a sworn deposition in August, before he filed to end the conservatorship.So far, the judge has not addressed potential investigations, and additional financial matters — including disputed fees for various lawyers in the case and accounting for the conservatorship covering 2019 — remain outstanding. In their filing this week, lawyers for Mr. Spears said that “all pending issues could be resolved” if the judge called for a mandatory settlement conference of private mediation.“The last thing this Court or this Conservatee needs or wants would be extended and expensive litigation over pending or final accounts and fee petitions,” they wrote.Will Recent Revelations Be Addressed?Since the last hearing in July, three documentaries about the Spears conservatorship have been released, in addition to related reporting on the case. “Controlling Britney Spears,” the second documentary on the subject by The New York Times, revealed that an intense surveillance apparatus monitored the singer, including secretly capturing audio recordings from her bedroom and accessing material from her phone.Recording conversations in a private place and mirroring text messages without the consent of both parties can be a violation of the law. It is unclear if the court overseeing Ms. Spears’s conservatorship approved the surveillance or knew of its existence. Ms. Spears’s lawyer called for an investigation, writing in a court filing on Tuesday that Mr. Spears “crossed unfathomable lines,” further supporting the need to suspend him immediately.A Netflix film, “Britney Vs. Spears,” reported that Ms. Spears sought to end the conservatorship beginning in 2008 and 2009, raising concerns about her father’s fitness for the role, the money she was making for others and threats involving custody of her children. Documents obtained by the filmmakers also showed that Ms. Spears’s access to medication she liked increased when she worked, including during a stint as a judge on “The X-Factor” in 2012. More

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      ‘Controlling Britney Spears’ Reveals New Details of Her Life Under Conservatorship

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      A new documentary by The New York Times features interviews with key insiders and people with firsthand information about how the conservatorship controlled the pop star’s life.The New York Times Presents/FX/Hulu‘Controlling Britney Spears’Producer/Director Samantha StarkSupervising Producer Liz DayWatch on Friday, Sept. 24, at 10 p.m. on FX or stream it on Hulu.Britney Spears expressed strong objections in June to the court-sanctioned conservatorship, which was largely led by her father, that controlled her life. But how the conservatorship worked had never been fully understood.Now, after her impassioned speech to a Los Angeles court over the summer, key insiders have come forward to talk publicly for the first time about what they saw. They provide the most detailed account yet of Spears’s life under the unusual legal arrangement that, for the past 13 years, stripped away many of her rights.A new documentary by The New York Times, “Controlling Britney Spears,” reveals a portrait of an intense surveillance apparatus that monitored every move the pop star made. This new film, by the makers of the Emmy-nominated “Framing Britney Spears,” features exclusive interviews with members of Spears’s inner circle who had intimate knowledge of her life under the conservatorship.“It really reminded me of somebody that was in prison,” said a former employee of the security firm hired by Spears’s father to protect her. “And security was put in a position to be the prison guards essentially.”Watch our documentary on Friday, Sept. 24, at 10 p.m. ET on FX or stream it on Hulu.Courtesy of Felicia CulottaSenior Producer Rachel AbramsProducer Timothy MoranDirector of Photography Victor Tadashi SuarezVideo Editors Lousine Shamamian, Pierre Takal, Diana DeCilio, Geoff O’Brien“The New York Times Presents” is a series of documentaries representing the unparalleled journalism and insight of The New York Times, bringing viewers close to the essential stories of our time. More

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      Britney Spears’s Father Says He Hopes She Won’t Need a Conservatorship

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s Estate‘We’re Sorry, Britney’Justin Timberlake ApologizesWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBritney Spears’s Father Says He Hopes She Won’t Need a ConservatorshipThe father’s lawyer shared his opinions on the conservatorship on CNN and NBC News recently, almost a month after a documentary examining the arrangement was released.Jamie Spears, left, Britney Spears’s father, has been one of her conservators for more than a decade. He’s telling his side of the story, through a lawyer, on television.Credit…Associated PressMarch 3, 2021Updated 2:48 p.m. ETAs the legal battle and public fallout over Britney Spears’s finances and personal life continue, a lawyer for her father, Jamie Spears, has told CNN that Jamie “would love nothing more than to see Britney not need a conservatorship.”The comments came not long after “Framing Britney Spears,” a TV documentary by The New York Times, released last month, revisited the details of the conservatorship that has shaped this pop singer’s life. Since it aired, Jamie Spears’s lawyer has sought to tell her client’s side of the story on national television programs, including “Good Morning America” last week and NBC News this week.The #FreeBritney campaign, which was also explored in the documentary, has for years campaigned to portray the conservatorship arrangement as an unjust means to control Spears’s life and finances.On Tuesday night, Vivian Lee Thoreen, Jamie Spears’s lawyer, defended the singer’s conservatorship to NBC News.“Britney being safe and not being taken advantage of is his No. 1 priority,” Thoreen said about Jamie Spears as Britney Spears’s co-conservator.Spears has been in a conservatorship, or guardianship, since 2008, after a series of public meltdowns captured by paparazzi. The complicated arrangement designates a representative to manage someone’s personal affairs and their estate if they are unable to care for themselves or if they are vulnerable to outside manipulation.Thoreen told CNN that Jamie Spears “would love nothing more than to see Britney not need a conservatorship.”“Whether or not there is an end to the conservatorship really depends on Britney,” Thoreen added. “If she wants to end her conservatorship, she can file a petition to end it.”Thoreen, who once represented Jamie Spears before the documentary, has rejoined his legal team. She did not return calls seeking comment on Tuesday.In the documentary, though, she told The Times: “Of the cases I’ve been involved in, I have not seen a conservatee who has successfully terminated a conservatorship.”Jamie Spears has been one of his daughter’s conservators for more than a decade, controlling crucial aspects of her life such as her finances and her mental health care. In 2019, citing health problems, he walked back his role, and a professional conservator filled in temporarily.Britney Spears’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, made clear for the first time in a court filing in August that the singer “strongly opposed” having her father as the conservator. Spears had rarely commented on her conservatorship. Ingham, who declined to comment on Tuesday, said at that hearing that Britney Spears believed that the conservatorship “must be changed substantially in order to reflect the major changes in her current lifestyle and her stated wishes.”Then, at a hearing in November, Ingham said that Britney Spears would not perform again as long as her father was in charge of her career. “My client has informed me that she is afraid of her father,” he told the judge.The judge, Brenda Penny, fulfilled a request by Britney Spears that Bessemer Trust, a corporate fiduciary, be added as a co-conservator. But Judge Penny did not remove Jamie Spears as a conservator of Spears’s estate. Britney Spears and her father were back in court on Feb. 11, but the judge did not order any substantive changes.In the week after the release of The Times’s documentary, some media outlets responded with apologies for their past coverage of Spears’s mental health, mothering skills and sexuality. Spears’s former boyfriend Justin Timberlake also apologized to her after the documentary re-examined their breakup.Joe Coscarelli and Julia Jacobs contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      5 Questions About Britney Spears, Answered

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      5 Questions About Britney Spears, AnsweredMario Anzuoni/ReutersFollowing the release of the documentary “Framing Britney Spears,” there’s been renewed attention on the pop star’s battle with her father, Jamie Spears, over control of her personal well-being and finances.I’ve been following the case closely. Here’s what you should know → More

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      ‘Sorry, Britney’: Media Is Criticized for Past Coverage, and Some Own Up

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s Estate‘We’re Sorry, Britney’Justin Timberlake ApologizesWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Sorry, Britney’: Media Is Criticized for Past Coverage, and Some Own UpConversations about the relentless focus on the pop star’s mental health, mothering and sexuality have begun anew following The New York Times documentary “Framing Britney Spears.”Media outlets and fans are re-examining how Britney Spears was questioned and written about during the years leading up to her personal crises.Credit…Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 12, 2021Updated 1:50 p.m. ET“Help Me,” the cover of Us Weekly blared in all caps, below a photo of Britney Spears with her hair partly buzzed off. People Magazine promised to take readers “Inside Britney’s Breakdown,” teasing details of “wild partying, sobbing in public, shaving her head.” OK! Weekly tempted potential buyers with a firsthand account of an “emotional cry for help.”In 2007, the celebrity magazines stacked up in dentists’ waiting rooms or on the racks by supermarket checkout lines had a favorite cover story: the trials and tribulations of a 25-year-old Britney Spears. That breathless, wall-to-wall coverage of her travails by glossy magazines, supermarket tabloids, mainstream newspapers and television shows alike is now being re-examined in the wake of a new documentary about Spears and her troubles by The New York Times.Fourteen years after Spears’s most publicized crises, some see the hypercritical fixation on her mental health, mothering and sexuality as a broad public failing.“We’re sorry, Britney,” read a post on Glamour’s Instagram this week. “We are all to blame for what happened to Britney Spears.”Spears was a frequent cover star on celebrity weeklies in the mid-2000s.The tabloids had been obsessed with Spears since her days as a teenage bubble-gum pop sensation, but the coverage reached a new level of intensity during her mid-20s. There seemed to be a vicious cycle at play: The relentless paparazzi that followed Spears nearly everywhere left her exasperated and helped fuel public displays of frustration, which magazines then covered aggressively, interviewing a host of tangential characters, including the owner of the hair salon where she shaved her head and a psychologist who had never treated her.“Her story hit at a time when print magazines were hunting for the story of the week,” said Jen Peros, a former Us Weekly editor, “and when you found a celebrity — I hate to say it — spiraling or acting abnormally, that was the story. And we knew it would sell magazines.”A new episode of The New York Times Presents, on FX and Hulu, coming Friday, Feb. 5, at 10 p.m.CreditCredit…Ting-Li Wang/The New York TimesSome are now asking for direct apologies from people who made jokes at Spears’s expense or interviewed her in ways now viewed as insensitive, sexist or simply unfair. On social media, there have been calls for apologies from prominent media figures, including Diane Sawyer, who, in a 2003 interview grilled Spears on what she might have done to upset her ex, Justin Timberlake; Matt Lauer, who pointed to questions about whether she was a “bad mom”; and the comedian Sarah Silverman, who made off-color jokes about Spears at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.These demands are encapsulated in another phrase spreading on social media: “Apologize to Britney.”Silverman, who had joked on MTV that Spears’s children were “the most adorable mistakes,” did just that on an episode of her podcast that was released on Thursday, saying that, at the time, she had not understood that big-time celebrities could have their feelings hurt.“Britney, I am so sorry. I feel terribly if I hurt you,” Silverman said. “I could say I was just doing my job but that feels very Nuremberg Trial-y, and I am responsible for what comes out of my mouth.”And on Friday Timberlake issued an apology to Spears on Instagram, writing that he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.” (He also apologized to Janet Jackson, with whom he appeared in 2004 at the Super Bowl halftime show.) The new documentary, “Framing Britney Spears,” which premiered on Hulu and FX last Friday, traces the origins of Spears’s conservatorship, the legal arrangement that has mandated that other individuals — primarily her father — have had control over her personal life and finances for the past 13 years, following her 2008 hospitalization after a three-hour standoff involving her two toddler sons and her ex-husband Kevin Federline.It wasn’t just the paparazzi and the tabloids that reported — sometimes breathlessly — on Spears’s marriages, children, substance abuse issues and mental health challenges: So did The New York Times, as well as other newspapers, television news outlets and late-night comedy programs. Even the game show “Family Feud” found a way to work Spears in, asking contestants to list things that she had lost in the past year (“her hair,” “her husband”).In an interview, Samantha Barry, the editor in chief of Glamour, said of society’s treatment of Spears, “Hopefully we’re in a place where we won’t do that again, where we won’t lift up these celebrities — in particular women — and then proceed to rip them down.”Spears onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2016. In 2007, the comedian Sarah Silverman joked about the singer’s children at the awards show; this week, she apologized in a podcast.Credit…Charles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressPeros, who started as a reporter for Us Weekly in 2006 and ultimately became editor in chief, believes that with a decade and a half of hindsight, the media would treat Spears differently now. Weekly magazines are “much more sensitive and handle stories like this more delicately,” she said, pointing to coverage of celebrities like Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, who have spoken more openly about mental health and substance abuse. Part of the evolution stems from the fact that these subjects are less stigmatized, but it’s also the result of journalists and editors understanding that aggressive media coverage would inevitably receive backlash now, Peros said.Us Weekly was one of the magazines that poured resources into relentlessly covering Spears. In a March 2007 cover story that read like a play-by-play of a natural disaster and its aftermath, the magazine interviewed a diner at a sushi restaurant that Spears’s mother visited, a clubgoer at a karaoke party Spears dropped in on, and cited an anonymous source in Antigua, where Spears briefly checked into a rehab clinic.“That was a time when she was making so much money for these magazines that we had the money to send a reporter to Antigua,” Peros said.Back then, it was Peros’s job in New York to search for nuggets of insight into Spears’s life by interviewing dancers or lighting assistants on her tour, searching through the Yellow Pages for their contact information and typically granting them anonymity to share things that they probably shouldn’t. If the reporters had the same awareness about mental health that they have today, they might not have dug so aggressively, she said.The main difference between then and now is the rise of social media, which has diluted the power of weekly magazines as the primary way to learn about celebrities’ personal lives. In some ways, social media can give celebrities more control over what people see: For Spears, her Instagram account is a repository for improvisational dancing, photos of her and her boyfriend, silly skits and random curiosities — all blasted out to an audience of 27.7 million followers.There may be fewer professional photographers following celebrities like Spears around now, but at the same time, almost everyone is armed with a smartphone and has the potential to become an amateur paparazzi. Instead of sending a reporter to go to Antigua to find out what Spears was up to, Us Weekly would now be scouring social media for photos of her there walking around town or eating at restaurants.Dax Holt, who was a producer at TMZ for over a decade and now co-hosts a podcast about Hollywood, said that he doesn’t necessarily blame the media for Spears’s breakdown but rather an American public that had an incessant curiosity for all things Britney. Still, Holt, who used to sift through paparazzi photos of Spears in his time at TMZ, said it made him sad to watch the documentary and see all that Spears had to endure.“I can’t even imagine what it would be like being a focal point of the world’s attention for so many years,” he said. “One little misstep and the whole world is laughing at you.”So far, the public has heard little from Spears herself about the documentary and the reactions to it. On Tuesday, she seemed to indirectly address the film in social media posts when she wrote, “I’ll always love being on stage …. but I am taking the time to learn and be a normal person.”This time, more people seem to be accepting that she is one.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Control of Britney Spears’s Estate Debated at Court Hearing

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s Estate‘We’re Sorry, Britney’Justin Timberlake ApologizesWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyControl of Britney Spears’s Estate Debated at Court HearingLawyers for the pop star and her father, from whom she is estranged, discussed how he would share management of her finances with a corporate fiduciary.Fans of Britney Spears returned to a courthouse in Los Angeles on Thursday to argue in favor of ending the conservatorship that now directs her life and finances. Credit…Mike Blake/ReutersJoe Coscarelli and Published More

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      Justin Timberlake Apologizes to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s Estate‘We’re Sorry, Britney’Justin Timberlake ApologizesWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJustin Timberlake Apologizes to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson“I understand that I fell short,” he said on Instagram, adding that he “benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism.”A week after the release of a Britney Spears documentary, Justin Timberlake said he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.”Credit…Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressFeb. 12, 2021, 1:10 p.m. ETThe singer and actor Justin Timberlake apologized to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson on Friday in a vague but earnest Instagram post, a week after a New York Times documentary on Spears set off a wave of criticism of Timberlake for how he treated the pop star after their breakup.The apology to Jackson seemed to stem from the infamous Super Bowl halftime performance in 2004, when a closing duet between Timberlake and Jackson ended with Timberlake singing “Bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song” as he tore away more of her costume than had been planned, to reveal — live and televised worldwide — her uncovered breast. In the aftermath, Jackson was the subject of most of the backlash, and Timberlake later conceded that he should have defended her more.Without specifying what exactly he was apologizing for, Timberlake wrote that he had seen all the messages, tags and comments on social media in recent days and that he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.”“I understand that I fell short in these moments and in many others and benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism,” he said in the post.The documentary, “Framing Britney Spears,” which premiered on Hulu and FX on Feb. 5, included a re-examination of the world’s reaction to Timberlake and Spears’s breakup, which was framed in the media as being Spears’s fault — partly because a music video by Timberlake implied that Spears had cheated on him. It included a clip from a radio interview with Timberlake in which he was asked whether he had sex with Spears and he replied, “OK, yeah, I did it,” evoking cheers.The documentary prompted calls on social media for direct apologies from many people who made jokes at Spears’s expense or interviewed her in ways now viewed as insensitive, sexist or simply unfair. But one of the most prominent apologies sought by fans was from Timberlake; others piped up to ask, “What about Janet Jackson?”The mea culpa eventually landed.“I specifically want to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson both individually, because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed,” the post from Timberlake said. “Because of my ignorance, I didn’t recognize it for all that it was while it was happening in my own life but I do not want to ever benefit from others being pulled down again.”In the aftermath of the Super Bowl halftime show, Timberlake apologized to the program’s audience as well as “anyone offended.” At the Grammy Awards, which that year followed the Super Bowl, he won two awards, while apologizing for the “unintentional” incident. Years later, he said in an interview with MTV, “There could have been ways that I could have gone about it, handled it better.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      'Framing Britney Spears' Filmmakers Talk About Their Process

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s EstateThe ‘Free Britney’ MovementWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.Making the DocumentaryAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderBehind the Making of ‘Framing Britney Spears’The director and a senior editor of the Times documentary answered viewer questions about the media response, the star’s mother and searching for clues on Instagram.A new documentary from The New York Times examines the so-called Free Britney movement made up of fans of the pop star Britney Spears.CreditCredit…G. Paul Burnett/The New York TimesFeb. 11, 2021Updated 2:22 p.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.The premiere last week of the film “Framing Britney Spears,” part of the TV documentary series “The New York Times Presents,” looked closely at Ms. Spears’s legal battle with her father, Jamie Spears, over control of her finances. For more than a decade, that control has been held largely by Mr. Spears in a conservatorship, a complex legal arrangement typically used for the sick or elderly.Since the film’s release on FX and Hulu, celebrities and fans have expressed their support for Ms. Spears on social media. The latest court hearing in the fight was scheduled for Thursday in Los Angeles. On Wednesday, Samantha Stark, the director, and Liz Day, a senior editor on the film, answered questions from readers in an “Ask Me Anything” session on the website Reddit. The following are edited excerpts.Were there any legal hurdles you faced in making the film?LIZ DAY We did not receive any direct legal threats while making the documentary. Reporting any investigative story requires extreme attention to factual accuracy and fairness, and this project was no different, though it was made even more difficult by an ongoing court case, attorney-client privilege, medical privacy, celebrity nondisclosure agreements, distrust of the press and other factors.What is the involvement of Lynne Spears, Britney’s mother, in all of this?SAMANTHA STARK So what we know about Lynne Spears is that she is not legally a part of Britney’s conservatorship team. We know she recently petitioned to be included to have access to more information and to be able to have her lawyer speak during the hearings, and that she filed as an “interested party” to do that.It’s unclear what involvement Lynne had related to the conservatorship up until recently. In a Nov. 10 hearing, Lynne said, through her lawyer (and I’m paraphrasing) that she thanked Jamie for the work he had been doing but that she wanted Britney to wake up to see brighter days. It’s very hard to understand what role Jamie, Lynne or a number of other people have played throughout the conservatorship because so many of the court records are sealed.What’s your view on the media response to the documentary? It feels as if many of the outlets that disparaged Britney years ago are now doing thinkpieces about how the media destroyed her.STARK There’s one thing I noticed in the past week doing interviews with media outlets that I never even thought of before the film came out. When Britney was being shamed for her sexuality as a teenager and stalked as a young adult, the gatekeepers to all these media outlets — the ones doing the shaming — were in their 30s, 40s, 50s. We as teenagers watched that happen. Now that my/our generation are a lot of the gatekeepers, we’re saying “no more.”How should those media outlets respond after playing a part in all the derision that Britney endured?STARK I think they should respond by not ever doing anything like it ever again. I think they should take a note from Britney’s book and be kindhearted, open and nonjudgmental.Did you contact any of Britney’s ex-husbands or boyfriends, like Jason Alexander, Kevin Federline, Jason Trawick or Charlie Ebersol, or some of her photographers/videographers, like David LaChappelle and Nigel Dick?DAY Yes, at the end of the doc we listed the members of Ms. Spears’s family who we requested on-camera interviews with but who did not respond or declined. But we reached out to a lot more people than just that list, including the ex-husbands/boyfriends mentioned. We spoke with Nigel Dick and reached out to David LaChappelle too. There were many people we spoke with on background who did not appear on camera. There were also a few people whose on-camera interviews we did not include because of time.Britney Spears hasn’t been able to fully control her career for 13 years under a court-sanctioned conservatorship. A New York Times documentary, now streaming on FX and Hulu, examines the pop star’s court battle with her father for control of her estate.CreditCredit…Ting-Li Wang/The New York TimesWhat are your thoughts on the obsessive Britney fans who question and dissect her social media posts?STARK There’s such a tight circle around Ms. Spears, seemingly enabled by the conservatorship, that it’s really hard to ask her how she is or what she thinks. We know that she hasn’t done interviews in a long time and that when she did for many years she was likely under very careful watch. So I honestly think it makes sense for people to look to her Instagram to try and parse how she might be doing. It’s the only place we’ve been able to see or hear from her for quite some time.Did you look at the financial records? Forbes has estimated her wealth at $60 million. Shouldn’t it be higher?DAY Excellent question. Britney’s true net worth is a mystery, and there’s speculation that there may be a lot more money beyond $60 million outside of her estate, in trusts or elsewhere as royalties, intellectual property and more. There are lots of companies set up as private LLCs, of which records are scant. One thing I would add is that often when you hear big Hollywood paychecks, you have to consider everyone who is taking a cut — managers, lawyers and government taxes, for example.Did you expect this film would result in a big resurgence of the #FreeBritney movement?STARK When making a film, I never know what parts of the piece will hit people in the emotional gut. I really had no idea this would happen.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More