Britney spears

Monday

The Spectator

Biden is the real turkey this Thanksgiving

President Joe Biden participated in the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardon from the White House on Monday, appearing for fewer than ten minutes for what should have been a gravy — or, perhaps, easy as pie — public event. Instead, the brief appearance reminded us all of what we already know: Biden is not capable of handling the basic duties required to be president and would probably be better served handing out smiley face stickers to Walmart shoppers. Coincidentally, today’s pardon took place on Biden’s eighty-first birthday. White House staff were apparently eager to get ahead of chatter about the president’s age and included several jokes about it in his script.

Tuesday

Mitchell Jackson

Britney Spears’s much-anticipated memoir is a desperate cry for help

Biological differences exist between men and women. Hamas lacks a justifiable reason to kill Israelis. Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square. Vaccines work. These are truths which, depending on the political class you’re speaking to, you can no longer say in public. Reading Britney Spears’s memoir, The Woman in Me, I thought, “We should add ‘the Free Britney Movement was wrong’ to the unspeakable truths list.” Two years into her freedom, Spears should celebrate her memoir as her umpteenth comeback. She should be sitting down with Oprah, confessing what really led to her 2007 breakdown, and releasing a new album pegged to The Woman in Me.

britney spears

Wednesday

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

Once Upon a One More Time is pat, prepackaged feminism

Britney Spears has always been mired in narrative, created by her managers, fans and the media as much as by herself. She has been, at different times, a virgin pop princess; a mega-stadium pop queen; a “cheating” girlfriend (on Justin Timberlake, no less — a falsehood drummed up by the tabloids); a girl gone off the rails; a mother; a “bad” mother suffering a mental health crisis. More recently, as interest in Spears has grown following her emergence from a thirteen-year legal conservatorship, the story is simpler: she was lost and now she is found. A victim and a hero. This summer another label got added to the list: feminist cultural icon with a legacy to protect.

spears

Tuesday

Cockburn

Christina Aguilera is the real winner of the 2003 VMAs kiss

It is nearly twenty years since the most iconic moment in modern music history: when Madonna, aged forty-five, made out with two women nearly half her age on the MTV Video Music Awards stage. Britney Spears, who was twenty-one, and Christina Aguilera, twenty-two, were pounced on in front of millions of television viewers, along with an uncomfortable looking Justin Timberlake and Guy Ritchie.  Two decades later and Madonna would likely be canceled for sexual harassment, with Britney and Xtina offered therapy and a book deal to “speak their truth.” But in August 2003, Madonna pulling off a garter from Aguilera's leg, frenching Spears and then giving Aguilera a smacker on the lips was a standard Saturday night watch.

christina aguilera 2003 vmas britney madonna

Sunday

Mitchell Jackson

The history of a Britney Spears masterpiece

The year was 2007. The Bush administration was launching bombs in the Middle East, the economy was collapsing and pop songstress Britney Spears was standing in a recording booth at Sony’s New York City office. As Spears waited to lay down vocals, producers Ezekiel Lewis and Christian “Bloodshy” Karlsson discussed the latter’s condo in Bangkok, Thailand. “Oh, Thailand,” Spears said, according to Lewis’s recollection. “Why don’t we go and do the songs in Thailand? Let’s go to Thailand. I have the plane coming tonight.” Lewis looked across the studio at Karlsson and mouthed, “What the fuck? Is she serious?” She was dead serious. “Well, why don’t we get this one down first, and then maybe let’s think about it tomorrow?” he said.

spears

Monday

Teresa Mull

I feel sorry for Dylan Mulvaney

When it comes to using trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote the iconic Bud Light brand — a favorite beer here in the backwoods — my first impulse was in line with that of Kid Rock, who used cases of the stuff for target practice. It’s a reaction many Americans, insulted by what they perceive to be an attack on their traditional values and gender stereotypes, are having to varying degrees as they boycott the beer giant, reportedly to the tune of billions of dollars. Progressives, meanwhile, can’t get enough of Mulvaney.

dylan mulvaney

Friday

Cockburn

Former Spectator deputy editor turns government censor

Biden’s pornbrained FCC nominee One of President Joe Biden’s most embattled nominees for the powerful Federal Communications Commission was a staunch supporter of Ugly George, New York City’s “Cult Porno King,” and his right to showcase naked women on cable channels he leased, Cockburn has learned. Gigi Sohn is a lawyer by trade — and her past legal activism suggests that she’ll take a lax approach towards the never-ending influx of sexually explicit content on TV. Back in 1995, the Associated Press reported that Sohn “lamented” a court decision that upheld a law designed to limit people like Ugly George’s ability to air sexually explicit content during daytime hours.

anne applebaum

Saturday

Cockburn

TikTok sleuths are convinced Britney Spears is dead

Cockburn understands that the period between Christmas and the new year is a weird time. His own days have been spent knocking back the bourbon and hiding behind the couch when family members come to check in. But it seems that others have been spending the festive period glued to TikTok and convincing the world that Britney Spears is dead. Remember the conspiracy that Avril Lavigne committed suicide and was replaced by a look-alike named Melissa? This is pretty similar. Spears’s fans — which Cockburn should mention aren’t exactly the most sane of people — have alleged that the singer is either missing, in trouble or dead, and have started the hashtag, #WheresBritney.

britney spears

Saturday

Kara Kennedy

The rise of the celebrity oversharer 

Bella Hadid ate burritos today, in case anyone was wondering. Kourtney Kardashian had a smoothie and Paris Hilton had a facial. These snippets of celebrity lives have become so accessible through social media that many of us see these characters more than our family members. But lately, along with recipes and promotions of their new album, fans are increasingly seeing too much. Just this month we’ve witnessed Kanye West’s chaotic downfall, which has now — thankfully — resulted in him vowing to take a month of silence after spurting antisemitic hate for the past few weeks. Lately I’ve seen Madonna’s breasts more than my own — though thankfully I've not yet taken to licking water out of a dog bowl.

celebrity oversharer

Monday

Matt McDonald

Di another day

I was reprimanded by my parents for talking during the minute’s silence at Princess Diana’s funeral. In my defense, I was six years old at the time. Almost twenty-five years have passed since that fateful night in Paris, when the People’s Princess was pursued by the press one last time. In the years since, Diana’s legacy has hung over not just the British royal family, but the relationship between society and celebrity. Her death marked one of the first real moments of global introspection: was our paparazzi too invasive, our press too dogged? We now look back at the media’s treatment of Britney Spears, Whitney Houston and Lindsay Lohan and ask the same questions. But it all goes back to Di.

princess diana

Monday

Amber Duke

#FreeBritney is redemption for toxic celebrity fan culture

After thirteen years, the queen of pop is free. Britney Spears is liberated from a court-ordered conservatorship that gave her father immense control over her personal life and finances. This is a victory for Spears, for the fans who have campaigned for her — and for other, less famous Americans who are trapped in conservatorships. Spears recently requested a court remove her father, Jamie, as conservator, testifying in March that the conservatorship was “abusive” and that she was “depressed” by the lack of power she had over her own life. The court ruled to remove Jamie in September and dissolved the conservatorship in full on Friday. For Britney’s fans, the ruling couldn’t have come soon enough.

freebritney

Friday

Cockburn

Britney is Catholic — but you shouldn’t be shocked

Pop sensation and slave-4-her-father Britney Spears sent papists into a frenzy on Thursday night by mentioning her Catholic faith to her nearly 33 million Instagram followers in a photo caption. 'I just got back from mass...I’m Catholic now...let us pray,' the 39-year-old star wrote. 'huge draft get,' tweeted the Atlantic's Elizabeth Bruenig. Cockburn thinks the signs have been there all along. Not only did Britney grow up in Louisiana, where Catholicism is far more widespread than elsewhere in the South due to its former status as a French colony, she's been dropping subtle hints in her art. Take the music video for her breakout single '...Baby One More Time'. How different the schoolgirl chic she adopted looks in the light of her newly announced faith.

britney spears catholic

Sunday

Daryl Austin

The true cost of celebrity inauthenticity

First, Britney Spears was caught trying to pass off a 'Food Network' meal as her own cooking, then James Corden was caught on camera not driving the car on 'Carpool Karaoke', and now I find out ghostwriters are behind the acceptance speeches we just saw this awards season? Say it ain't so! After watching Brad Pitt’s acceptance speech at the Academy Awards last week, I commented to my wife how funny he was all awards season long and she showed me a Vulture article that suggests that Pitt doesn't write his speeches himself. The piece claims his 'representatives contacted at least one outside speechwriting agency to consult about engaging their services'.

phoenix, zellweger, pitt celebrity celebrities