The question isn’t, ‘What’s wrong with Britney?’ The question, I guess, is, “What’s the matter with us?”
Most of us have by now seen the video where Britney Spears appears to be having a mental crisis in a restaurant.
Her husband has since denied that Spears had any type of meltdown. Spears was clear enough to spot another diner secretly recording them and was hiding behind a menu. In fact, one restaurant worker said, “The disruptor wasn’t Britney — it was the diner who taunted her by recording video without consent.”
So much of Britney’s life revolved around the issue of consent. It laid the groundwork for the #FreeBritney movement, which evolved from grassroots online activism in 2021 to a New York Times documentary to an in-depth New York investigation into Spears’ own harrowing testimony in 2021, in who described her life under the conservator in detail.
That was the start of what we thought was a nuanced and necessary conversation about mental health in America. When Britney Spears was first placed under conservatoire, it seemed necessary: She was clearly in a crisis, had shaved her head, attacked a paparazzi’s car with an umbrella, and suffered so much that she was temporarily involuntarily placed in psychiatric in Los Angeles had been arrested in 2008.
However, as Spears testified in 2021, she became healthy enough to release multiple studio albums, go on world tours, appear on television and have a hugely successful residency in Las Vegas. She employed thousands of people.
“I don’t know why she’s still a conservator,” one of her psychiatrists told the New Yorker.
Neither does the judge. Everyone, it seemed, was cheering for Britney and her freedom.
Most of us have by now seen the video where Britney Spears appears to be having a mental crisis in a restaurant. Her husband has since denied that Spears had any type of meltdown.
But now that she has it, we all seem to be questioning her.
Does that feel fair? Just because Spears was found by a judge to be capable of making her own decisions doesn’t mean her story ends with a nice little bow. That doesn’t mean she isn’t still suffering or struggling.
And really, after the trauma of being under such oppressive control for thirteen years, who wouldn’t fight?
Britney Spears was under this involuntary conservatorship for thirteen years. In testifying before a judge in 2021 — testimony she believes should be made public — she spoke of not being allowed to make a single decision for herself, whether it be replacing her kitchen cabinets or having her own cell phone or removed her spiral.
“I truly believe that conservatorship is abusive,” she told the judge, in part. “I want to be able to get married or have a baby. I was just told in conservatory that I was not fit to get married or have a baby. I have an IUD in me right now so I’m not getting pregnant. I wanted to remove the IUD so I could try to have another baby. But this so called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don’t want me to have children – no more children.
When it comes to women and mental illness, we still have a long way to go. The twentieth century is littered with examples of complicated women dismissed as insane and institutionalized against their will, from Rosemary Kennedy (violently lobotomized) to Frances Farmer to Gene Tierney and Marilyn Monroe. The etymology of “hysterical” comes from the Greek “husterikos” – “from the womb”.
We should know better, but “crazy” still looks different for women. women are hysterical. Men are complicated or have demons, but their individual autonomy is rarely questioned.
What happened to Britney Spears was terrifying. As reported by The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino, it took a judge ten minutes to grant her conservatorship. Spears spent the next thirteen years trying to get out of it, and as we’ve learned, conservators are notoriously hard to undo.
Spears said she was forced to perform against her will after once suffering from a 104-degree fever. She said she was forced to take drugs that turned her into a zombie. She said her father, who had a history of addiction and who she claimed was abusive, should never have been responsible for her conservatorship. She didn’t understand why she was being forced to pay a court-appointed attorney over $500,000 a year when her own annual living expenses were less, or why her father could limit her to $2,000 a week when she had signed a 15- Million-dollar deal as a judge on “X-Factor”.
So much of Britney’s life revolved around the issue of consent. It was the basis for the #FreeBritney movement
The mystery remained: how could this woman make so much money, work in high-profile jobs, but be completely unable to support herself?
Spears also had enough confidence to tell the judge that she knew she needed therapy and wanted to continue with it. She said she was confused as to why she couldn’t see the friends she made in Alcoholics Anonymous.
“I can’t see my friends who live eight minutes away from me, which I find very strange,” she testified. ‘ . . . This conservatory does me more harm than good. I – I deserve to have a life.”
Britney Spears testified about feeling alone during the COVID lockdown. Who among us has not felt sympathy?
Even Elizabeth Warren and Matt Goetz have joined forces to #FreeBritney in a bipartisan effort. So have many other legislators.
“Reproductive coercion is wrong – period,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) tweeted at the time. “Everyone should have the freedom to make decisions about their own body and reproductive care.”
Ted Cruz agreed, calling the conservatory “damn ridiculous” and something that “needs to end.”
Now that it’s happened, culture has turned against Britney Spears. Why? Is it her exhibitionism on Instagram? Is it a discomfort with their sexuality? Not for nothing, but this is a woman who was heavily sexualized at just 16 years old. Do you think today’s culture would stand it if a 16-year-old posed seductively in bed wearing a bra and panties and holding a stuffed animal like a teenage Britney did for Rolling Stone in 1999? Or does Diane Sawyer think it’s okay to bother Spears with her virginity and sex life, like Sawyer did in a 2003 television interview? Or that Britney will be blamed for her high-profile breakup with Justin Timberlake, who will be castigated as a slut who cheated?
Just because Spears was found by a judge to be capable of making her own decisions doesn’t mean her story ends with a nice little bow. That doesn’t mean she isn’t still suffering or struggling.
Britney Spears may never be completely okay. A childhood spent in the limelight, with her parents on her payroll — not to mention a family history of addiction, mental illness, and suicide — all pretty much ensured that.
There is perhaps no more prominent, poignant example of how complicated mental illness is than Britney Spears. Her case is a stark reminder of how far we must go to understand its causes, its multiple manifestations, its misdiagnosis, and its over- and under-correction.
Britney may be free, but she still needs our support.