12. What next for Britney?
Better to make your own mistakes than live as your father's racehorse
A big week in Upskirt Decade developments (I nearly wrote “a big week in upskirting”, which, no), because Britney is now free. On Friday, an LA court released her from the conservatorship which has allowed others (most of all her father) to control her entire life — how she worked, who she saw, her medication, her contraception, whether she could marry, how much of her own money she had access to, what she could buy down to the last Starbucks — since 2008. What she does next is, as her lawyer Matthew Rosengart says, “up to her”.
What a situation to be in. For thirteen years, she hasn’t been able to make a single decision of her own. Now, anything is possible. If she wants to perform, promoters would be beating door her down: imagine the take on the first #FreedBritney residency or world tour. If she wants to record, it’s hard to think of any of her former collaborators who wouldn’t be thrilled to work with her again. (It’s not just a question of the money, but also reputation. Getting into the studio with the emancipated Britney would be a way to show the world that she wasn’t working under duress before.)
If she wants to tell her own story to the world — and not just via Instagram videos of her dancing in bikinis — Oprah’s people have probably been hitting redial for months. And she’ll be weighing up her legal options for redress against her father, mother and sister, all of whom she’s declared belong “in prison”. She might not be able to make that happen, but she can definitely make their lives wildly unpleasant.
But those aren’t the things she’s actually talked about doing. She’s talked, instead, about the joy of holding her own car keys and bank cards. Of being able to buy candles. In her representations to the conservatorship hearings, one of her saddest complaints was that she couldn’t paint her kitchen the colour she wanted. She wants to have a baby, and at 39, she’s got time for that. The first thing on the agenda is probably to marry her fiance Sam Asghari — another thing forbidden to her under the conservatorship.
The things she’s excited to do are devastatingly normal. This is an adult woman who’s been kept in a state of forced infantilisation for well over a decade. So the question isn’t just one of what she wants to do — it’s also of what other people might want to do with her. Rich, unworldly and traumatised, she would be any grifter’s perfect mark. It’s extremely sensible that her legal team has arranged a “transition process” for ending the conservatorship, rather than landing everything on her all at once.
The NYT quoted a number of legal experts who were surprised that Britney had not had to under a psychiatric evaluation before the conservatorship was dissolved. On the one hand, it would have been pretty insulting after all this to put her through that — and in any case, with her father removing himself from the picture, there was no one left who wanted to run the Britney show anyway. (Imagine being the attorney who volunteered for that gig…)
But it’s worth remembering that Britney c. 2004-2008 was clearly not OK. I don’t mean the Meltdown™ — she cut her hair, freaked out at some paparazzi who were stalking her, and lost it when she lost custody of her children, which (all things considered) doesn’t strike me as the most insane list of things to have done. Not anyone’s best day, but not all that irrational. More alarming is the 52-hour marriage to Jason Alexander, which, without the hasty dissolution, would have been a grade-A way to lose a bunch of her assets to some guy on the make. The fact she started dating paparazzi Adnan Ghalib in 2007. These do not seem like the actions of someone who knew how to look out for her own interests.
The Britney story is not the story of someone who was basically fine, who was taken advantage of by her greedy, coercive father. It’s more likely the story of someone who was not fine, whose greedy, coercive father was given the power to turn her into a “hybrid business model” thanks to the monstrous nature of conservatorships. Even so, better to make your own mistakes than live as your father’s race horse. Her freedom isn’t the happy ending a narrative like this demands, but it’s the beginning of the hardest arc, towards the place where her happy ending might be.
Is she fine now? I hope so. Am I worried? Well, I’m not not worried, and I don’t think I’m alone. The general response to her freedom so far has seemed happy, but muted. The positive take on that is that fans are waiting to see what she chooses to do. The cynical take is that some people are crossing their fingers and hoping for her next collapse. Everybody wants something from Britney and I’m no different.
If I could decide for her, it would be this. No shows for a while. Have a nice, small wedding. Hand off the legal business to her lawyer and the accounts to the accountants. And then call up some songwriters who know how to write a ballad: call Sia (“Perfume”, from the mostly not-very-good Britney Jean album, is one of Britney’s greatest songs), call Cathy Dennis, call Dolly Parton. Heck, give Father John Misty a shout. Then put them all to work on a Britney country album.
Obviously I want the EDM bangers too, but they could come later. What a statement she’d be making: she could own her much-derided southern roots, prove that she can still sing after all these autotuned years, and it would give people something to talk about. It’s not a very likely project (Britney has used “Work Bitch” as backing to some of her recent videos, so it’s fair to say she isn’t distancing herself from her previous output), but it’s possible now at least. Anything’s possible for her now. And she should buy lots and lots of candles.
What do you think Britney should do next? Reply or comment to let me know!
Gimme, gimme more…
Paris Hilton got married! And she wore four different gowns.
Taylor Swift released her new version of Red, and it’s great, especially the new ten-minute version of “All Too Well”! Sucks to be you, Gyllenhaal.
Adele got Oprah-ised, and I wrote about it for the Telegraph! The only way to retain some normality when you’re that famous is to live a very not-normal life, which is a problem for a star whose persona is so vested in the idea of normality.