Image from Britney Spears' Instagram.In a recent interview with UK paper Metro, singer LeAnn Rimes spoke about Britney Spears and her super public, super poignant mental health issues. LeAnn said she had ābeen in those shoes too,ā and that while she didnāt shave her head surrounded by a mob of drooling paparazzi, and have the images plastered on the cover of every single tabloid ever, she did have her moments.āI totally understand it,ā she said. āI didnāt go there, but I definitely had the feeling of it Iām sure at some point.āOf course, this has provoked a number of articles with headlines like āLeAnn Rimes Almost Had a Breakdown Like Britney Spears.ā Because people can be, um, the worst.Itāll be ten years next February since Britney reached her breaking point in a salon in Tarzana, California, before taking to a photographerās car with an umbrella. All in full view of an hysterical crowd.At the time, reports said she was complaining of her hair extensions being too tight, and that when asked by one of the salonās employees why sheād done it, she'd responded: āI donāt want anyone touching me. Iām tired of everybody touching me.āIt doesnāt exactly take a hyperactive imagination to appreciate why, after a lifetime of controlled environments, rigorous and demanding schedules, and a frightening lack of privacy, a person might flip. Itās not ācrazyā or āinsaneā for somebody in Britneyās position to eventually say āfuck this, I canāt do it.ā If anything, itās kind of strange that it didnāt happen sooner, or more often. Perhaps because she was the first of her kind.Britneyās struggles with mental health, which eventually came to a head in 2007 and 2008, were the most public the world, and pop culture, had ever seen. At the height of her fame, Britney couldnāt even go to the bathroom without being followed. Her every move was pulled apart in telephoto-lense snaps, Perez Hilton proto-think pieces, and endless tabloid covers. Everywhere you looked, youād see Britney robbed of her privacy. Mocked, chased, insulted, embarrassed, harassed, and defamed. A violating upskirt photograph of her crotch made worldwide news for weeks.She was 26. And a mother of two.The world watched, and fed off her instability. They egged the madness on. What could be more salacious than the worldās biggest pop star buckling under the pressure? What could sell more copies of People than Britney Spears losing her goddamn mind?Nothing. Because juicy and perverse makes money. In Vanessa Grigoriadisā 2008 Rolling Stone feature piece āThe Tragedy of Britney Spears,ā we were invited to meet The Real Britney. "The Tragedy of Britney Spears." As if she were a play, not a nuanced and complex human being.āShe is not a good girlā Grigoriadis wrote. āShe is not America's sweetheart. She is an inbred swamp thing who chain-smokes, doesn't do her nails, tells reporters to āeat it, snort it, lick it, fuck itā and screams at people who want pictures for their little sisters.āBuried between Grigoriadisā petty reductions, and accounts of Britney's many unusual business relationships that seemed nothing if not manipulative and toxic, the profile unearthed stories of Britney being forced to work when she was unfit, and told of her fatherās emotional abuse and drug addiction that Britney witnessed as a young woman. Yet Grigoriadisā piece failed to find any empathy for her.Instead, Britney was the scathing, indignant fame whore, who took advantage of us for her own gain. We were the victim, and she had failed us.Britney on the cover of V Magazine.The Rolling Stone cover story did give us something, though: a record of red flags. We see obvious signs Britney was losing her ability to cope with her own super-sized fame. Accounts of her behaviour changing over time, from the All-American āgood girl,ā who was endlessly polite and a joy to work with, to a snappy, cagey, and increasingly paranoid woman who wouldnāt even give a fan the time of day. She, understandably, felt like nobody could be trusted.Still, in Grigoriadisā closing paragraphāless than a hundred words after the part about her possible attempted suicide, when she'd overdosed on prescription drugs in 2007āwe were told that āafter blaming everyone else for her problems, Britney's finally starting to realize the degree to which she's messed up, but her sense of entitlement keeps her from admitting it to herself, or to anyone who is trying to help her.āIn November of 2008 the world was invited to go deeper still, with the intimate documentary Britney: For the Record. A collection of interviews and behind the scenes footage, For the Record showed us a side of Britneyās fame that we werenāt really ready to see.This is what it was actually like to be Britney. Not the girl next door, the āā¦Baby One More Timeā Britney. But the Britney who was going through a heartbreaking divorce. The Britney who was attempting to rehabilitate after a major mental health crisis. The Britney whoād had her child knocked out of her arms by unrelenting photographers, trying to get to her car to escape them, only to have the photo of her ādropping her babyā spread like wildfire, on every front page, and used as an example of her incompetence.In one particular scene (the one that everyone always talks about) we watched Britney try to make sense of the recent monthsāher marriage to Federline, her custody battle, the hair thing. She breaks down, cries, and says āIām sad.ā This was meant to be her comeback film.In the documentaryās deleted scenes, we saw an even more disturbed Britney. āIf I wasnāt under the restraints that Iām under right now,ā sheād said, referring to the strict confines of her day-to-day life, āI would feel so liberated. And when I tell them how I feel itās like, they hear meā¦ but theyāre really not listening.āāEven when you go to jail, thereās always the time that you know youāre going to get out. But in this situation,ā she starts to cry, āitās never-ending.āSince then, reports have smattered the pages of papers and have popped up online, claiming that all manner of indecencies were plaguing Britney and her camp during this time, including her being drugged and controlled by her former manager Osamah āSamā Lufti. Following a popular trope of inexperienced right-hand-man to an impressionable superstar a la Brian Wilson and Anna Nicole Smith, the moment they met, Britney's life spiralled further out of control.Britney met Lufti in a club through a mutual friend. He was a āconsultantā at a gas company at the time. Lufti told Britney heād manage her affairs for an extremely casual 15% of her $800k a month salary. Thatās a paycheck of $120,000 a month. He apparently printed their contract off the internet.Britneyās father eventually took out a restraining order against him, fearful that he was trying to control her assets, her timetable, her music: basically, her life. He moved into her house, he cut the phone lines. Several people close to Britney believe to this day that Lufti was slipping prescription drugs into her food. Sam Lufti has had three other restraining orders taken out against him.To this day he is still trying to take Britney to court, claiming financial retribution and labelling her as a āmeth addict.āLooking back on what happened to Britneyāwhat still happens to Britney, if youāre in the habit of Googling her and coming across articles that say things like āit's hard to remember when she was famous for making music and not for being crazyāāyouād think weād have learnt our lesson. But if Amanda Bynes and Lindsay Lohan are anything to go by, weāre still as predatory as ever. And that is a pretty depressing thing.Image from Britney's Instagram.LeAnn Rimes also said in her interview with Metro that she admired Britney. āI look at her and think itās really amazing what sheās overcome. Itās nice to see someone come out the other side and be successful again.āThatās the quote that deserves follow-up articles. Thatās the quote. Because Britney Spears is still one of the most successful women in pop.If you have to, forget the guts it took for her to step back into the spotlight, back out on stage, knowing full well the ridicule and speculation that would come with itāthat some people were probably expecting her to fail. That kind of strength is pretty incredible, but that's not even the story here.Since 2008, we have seen three full-length albums from Britney Spears, and there's another, Glory, on the way. She has toured the world twiceāpause on that for a moment. The world. Twiceāand has performed her Piece of Me stage show, AKA her residency in Vegas, fifty times a year for the last three years. That is insane.She also appeared as aāmind-blowingly screencap-ableājudge on season two of U.S. X Factor, and was the highest-earning judge on a singing competition series in history. She was also named musicās top-earning woman in 2012 by Forbes Magazine.Most importantly, she told People magazine that sheās the āhappiest [sheās] ever been.ā No matter how much the world wanted this woman to fail, she didnāt.Follow Issy on Twitter.
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