At one time the world was her oyster, most red blooded men, and quite a few women, would have loved to get up close and comfy with her, she had it all going for her. She’d been dealt a royal flush in spades.
Then it all went tits up.
Allegations, true or not, of drug and alcohol abuse, lesbian overtures to her maids were among the shots fired at her.
Two divorces, she loses her kids, the vultures burgle her home and steal personal items including a sex tape which will no doubt eventually appear on the web.
Maybe she caused some of these problems herself because of her stupidity and believing everthing that her “minders” told her but surely to God nobody deserves all this shit.
The newspapers never leave her alone, photographers follow her day and night, never allowing her a moments peace
All she gets now are busted flushes, one after another.
Although I hope Britney sorts herself out (especially over her family), I think you miss the point about celebrity.
Britney made huge amounts of money by being a famous musician. This involved lots of publicity to sell her records.
Once you start down that road, it’s hard to get off.
Also she had plenty of opportunity to set up a fantastic life. No money worries, invitations to go to all sorts of interesting places and adoring fans.
Undoubtedly she had bad advice and did stupid things (like drugs). But it was all her choice.
So I feel much sorrier for people who don’t have her massive advantages. People who have serious diseases. People who get their pension fund ripped off. People who are in a natural disaster.
These people did nothing to bring it on themselves, yet are far worse off than Britney.
Agreed to some extent ** glee** yes she made the choice of her own free will but as you say she had bad advice and you have to bear in mind that she is/was a very young and immature girl.
Easily swayed and lead by the nose by the very people she employed to look after both her and her interests, financial and otherwise.
These same people shat on her from a great height, I still maintain that she does not deserve all the flak she’s getting.
FWIW I also feel more for the persons mentioned in your closing para. than I do for M/s Spears
[mild nitpick]
She is not, and never was, any kind of ‘musician’. She’s a pop star at best, and a publicity whore at worst. Hopefully someone will successfully set her on the straight and narrow and she’ll get her life together. Until then, she deserves what she gets.
[/nitpick]
Britney did not become famous because of her music. She became famous by doing videos one step removed from cheesecake.
Her entire career has been formed around exhibitionism. So from her point of view, she’s doing the same shit she always has. She’s probably wondering why we’ve changed so much that we’re villifying her for doing what we loved her for in the first place.
I’m convinced from everything I read about her that she truly has the mentality of a 15 year-old girl and if you talked to her that’s what it would be like.
She’s spent her life performing and when she hit it big around 15 I seriously doubt she ever even finished high school.
The only thing she has done over the past decade is lay down vocals that are mixed and remixed onto songs other people write and produce, learn dance moves that other people created, and pose for pictures. Most of this while riding around on a tour bus.
She hasn’t a clue what paying rent, balancing a checkbook, taking SATs, interviewing for a job, etc. is like.
Like a lot of child stars say they never got to experience their childhood, she never got to experience ages 15 through 25. The crucial time when you go from dumb kid to responsible adult. She’s still just a dumb kid.
And I wouldn’t cry for her too much about the paparazzi never leaving her alone. She craves that attention and can’t live without it. She lives in LA and frequents the hot nightclubs and trendy restaurants for a reason, to be seen.
If she really didn’t want the attention she could hang out in her house in Louisiana and never be bothered. But she wouldn’t be able to handle it. She’s addicted to the spotlight. And who wan’t to be a regular old nobody living in the middle of nowhere when you can be in LA and on the cover of the rags every week?
Ditto Hampshire. Don’t you believe for a second that Britney is some poor soul mercilessly hounded by the paparrazzi. She actually notifies the paps when she’s going out for Starbucks/Red Bulls/bags of cheetos so they can follow her around. This is not a girl who wants privacy. When you don’t have talent, you have to get media attention in other ways.
I don’t know. I’ve seen the rraw video footage of how the paparazzi was hounding as it lead up to the “umbrella bashing car” incident, and to be honest, had I been present I would have been going all Sean Penn on them myself.
She was asking in a wavering, crying voice; “PLease guys, that’s enough. You don’t hove to do this, okay? Please, guys. Just leave me alone right now…” etc. etc.
This wa right after she’d shaved her head, so she was clearly a “vulnerable person” and you could tell be the creakiness in her voice that she was trying to hold it together. She just wanted to put gas in her car, and her mom (it was a middle aged woman with her) was looking frightened and powerless.
That was totally uncalled for.
When she’s less vulnerable however, she’s got to grow up! When a judge spells out exactly what you have to do and you ignore it. That goes beyond emotional immaturity to a whole new level of iresponsibility. I’ll buy that she has the maturity level of a 15-year-old, but most ninth graders know that if a judge says “You’re grounded!” then you don’t go out partying.
Aw, bullcrap. She can’t have it both ways. She can’t be begging for attention (and leaking her whereabouts to ensure she gets it) all the time and then expect them to back off just because she says so. She brought it all on herself, IMO.
She gets no sympathy from me when it comes to the way she’s reportedly handling her kids and the judge’s orders. Fuck her. Stupid bitch. Her parents are no better than she is for letting her fuck up her life and/or contributing to it.
How is she earning that much? I didn’t think she wrote her songs so no royalties there, the albums sales can’t be generating anywhere near that much anyway, can they, in 2007? What else is there?
The only thing that pisses me off about this whole thing is that evrybody seems to think the children are doomed because they have to go live with their terrible father!
Sometimes the publishing deals are set up so that the performers (if they are huge big starts) earn a portion of the royalties, even though they didn’t write the song. Celine Dion often takes a cut of the publishing royalites for example, simply because she can.
Say you’re a struggling songwriter. A famous singer who is guaranteed to go platinum wants to record your song. You just have to be willing to give up 10% of the royalities… OR… you can turn down the deal and get ZERO dollars. It’s sort of like extorsion, really. You don’t make $100,000 that year, but at least you make $90,000 off that one song.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the contracts were set up so that she gets a cut of the publishing, and probably a hefty one. If she got a business manager to invest before she stupidly blew it all, she may have all kinds of income-generating assets.
