All My Thoughts on Britney Spears New Memoir

Lots of spoilers, lots of tea, lots of apologies.....

I have a complicated relationship with Britney Spears. Between 2007 and 2008 I had no choice but to write at least one and sometimes as many as five stories about Britney Spears a week while I worked as a gossip columnist and features reporter at the New York Daily News and an on-air talking head for CNN. Things really started heating up in early January of 2008 when Britney locked herself in her house, holding her two young sons hostage and subsequently had to be hospitalized for a complete mental breakdown. I was on a plane the next morning. 

And thus began my adventures with Britney Spears and a continual dance over that fine line between journalist and paparazzi to continually find new ways to invade Ms. Spears privacy. It was nine months of Britney ups and Britney downs. Of rehab and hospitalizations, head shaving and attacks on the paparazzi. But by the fall something miraculous happened. Somehow, Britney had ceased to be crazy and industry insiders began flipping the script. Britney was releasing a new single, Britney had lost weight, Britney had a new album, Britney was no longer a train wreck. Britney Spears was making a comeback.

In December of 2008 I found myself back in New York at Britney's birthday party. It was an over the top, circus themed bash at one of those New York City nightclubs that charge $800 just to sit at their table with a bottle of vodka. The party was less of a celebration for Britney than it was a celebration for the team of managers, agent, publicists and record producers who had spent the previous summer trying to figure out a strategy to get this girl back on top, to rebuild her brand and try to salvage her tarnished image. 

As I grabbed a drink at the bar I came face to face with Miss. Spears, mother of two kids, divorcee, international pop star and cautionary tale for what can happen when fame and money comes too quickly to a girl from Louisiana who isn't ready to become the kind of person regular people talk about using just one name. Britney wasn't drinking at her birthday party this year. Her people had told her to stay sober, or else and she wasn't about to disobey. The personal stakes for Britney were high. There was Britney celebrating what should have been the 12th year of her superstardom (and nearly her 20th performing for people), stone cold sober, surrounded by people she barely knew, all drunk off free drinks from the open bar, having a great time and dancing to old Britney hits like "Hit Me Baby One More Time and "Oops I Did It Again" and she just looked sad. We made eye contact for a minute and all I could think was 'here is this woman I have been writing about for the past two years. She doesn't even seem like a human.' All of the stories about her had turned her into this thing; a thing that did bad things and got into trouble; a thing that had the power to make and lose a lot of people a lot of money.

I kept thinking about that birthday party as I read her new memoir this week. I kept thinking about that moment where her team propped her up like Bernie in Weekend at Bernies to keep her brand alive. I’m happy Britney is telling her own story in her own words now, but I’m also so sorry for what she went through and the many ways the things I wrote contributed to creating a more and more toxic world for her.