Britney Spears, the American singer and songwriter, wrote on Wednesday that she was “embarrassed” after watching The New York Times documentary titled Framing Britney streaming on Hulu.
According to The New York Times, Framing Britney is an “examination of the Free Britney movement by the fans of the pop singer”. The documentary is part of an episode of a series of documentaries titled The New York Times Presents and was released on February 5 on OTT platforms FX and Hulu.
The documentary featured interviews of a long-term family friend who said people couldn’t put a tag on their relation. Confused between elder sister, best friend, and mother; they fixed at “assistant” as she travelled with Spears for a major part of her career. The marketing executive who originally created Spears’ image, her lawyer who was working on the conservatorship at the time and another lawyer who Spears wanted to fight her case conservatorship to challenge her father during the early days, among others.
Besides her rise from a child singer to one of the biggest pop singers during the era of boy bands and her consequent downfall, the documentary also focuses on her struggles, the media coverage scrutinising and judging her life decisions, her fans’ initialising #FreeBritney movement and her conservatorship case against her father.
What is conservatorship?
The documentary defined conservatorship at the beginning of the video as “one that preserves from injury or violation, protector” and “a person, official, or institution designated to take over and protect the interests of an incompetent”.
In 2008, at the age of 26, Spears entered into a temporary conservatorship or guardianship with her father following several media meltdowns. It gave her father, Jamie Spears, control over her financial affairs, estate and her personal life. After over a decade, she filed a petition to detach herself from her father and entered into a legal battle against the conservatorship accusing him of several issues, especially financial independence and mental health.
Following the release of Framing Britney, Hollywood actor and singer Justin Timberlake apologised to her and singer Janet Jackson in the wake of accusations of sexism and misogyny against him through an Instagram post as “the first step”.
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Spears took to Instagram on Wednesday to share a dance with a long caption that began with: “My life has always been very speculated” and moved on to pen down how she was “watched” and “judged” her entire life. She wrote about how dancing kept her sane and how it took “a lot of strength to TRUST the universe with your real vulnerability cause I’ve always been so judged… insulted… and embarrassed by the media… and I still am till this day! As the world keeps on turning and life goes on we still remain so fragile and sensitive as people!”
Mentioning the documentary, Spears wrote that though she did not watch the documentary, from what she saw of it, she was “embarrassed by the light they put me in”.
“I cried for two weeks and well. I still cry sometimes! I do what I can in my own spirituality with myself to try and keep my own joy. love. and happiness! Every day dancing brings me joy! I’m not here to be perfect… perfect is boring. I’m here to pass on kindness,” she wrote.