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Originally written April 10, 2005. They call Britney Spears a star, but she's more like the moon, mysterious, erotic, luminous, a symbol of love, and, as Shakespeare said, inconstant. Waxing and waning, continually becoming the old and then the new, sometimes barely visible, at other times a huge, unavoidable presence. And maybe also with a dark side.
How can she swear like a trooper one day and talk like a saint the next? Is she sweet, like everyone says, or is she Bitchney Sneers, the star who refuses to sign autographs and hates her fans? Is she naive about her sexualized image or is she a sly, ruthless manipulator? Is she an airhead pop puppet or a very smart cookie acting dumb? Is she a good girl pretending to be bad, or a bad girl pretending to be good? We may never get the answers to all our questions. The only thing we can be sure of is that with Britney we can never be sure of anything.
There is one constantly recurring theme. Almost every celebrity who has met her and talked about it seems to agree on how nice she is. Journalists researching the Britney Spears story have remarked that one word always used by people who know her or have worked with her is "sweet". Justin Timberlake's biographer Sean Smith covered many miles talking to Justin's friends and relatives, and, despite her presumed role in the break-up, they all said the same thing. Old pal J.C. Chasez says she hasn't a mean bone in her body.
Skye Sweetnam, who opened some shows for Britney on the Onyx tour, said "The time that Britney and I spent together is definitely something I will remember for ever...she is really nice". And Britney doesn't just turn on the niceness for people in the business. Remember Brittany Kelly's moving account of meeting her? "My Mom started to explain to Brit about my life. Britney started to cry. I looked into her eyes. Since I met her I didn't think that she was a huge icon, as I used to. Britney is such a warm, sensitive, and loving person. I wanted to soak up every moment with her."
Another thing everyone seems agree on is that she has absolutely no airs and graces. "She's a down-to-earth, fun girl." - Melissa Joan Hart. "She's very professional, totally unaffected by her fame - really a great girl, down to earth" - Lauren Christy of The Matrix. "She's a down-to-earth, humble, Southern girl, that likes to have a good time just like anybody else. You would think she's probably, like, stuck up, having so much money, but she's so not that." - dancer Leo Moctezuma. Skye Sweetnam confirmed that Britney was not at all big-headed and although "everybody wants a piece of her", she tried to make time for everyone.
Many big stars act in an outlandishly regal manner. Mariah recently insisted on entering a London hotel on a red carpet with huge white candles at both sides - at 3 in the morning! Xtina walks with an arrogant swagger where every step gives big-time attitude. Anastacia talks about herself in the third person like she's talking about the Queen. Britney knows what she wants, and is determined to get it, but there's no sign of an ego that requires constant massaging.
For a huge star, her ambitions for herself are remarkably modest. Her love of her own family and emotional closeness to all its members have given her a longing for traditional family life that seems to have survived all the pressures and experiences of stardom. Far from the jet-set lifestyle dreams of many young stars, private yacht, partying with royalty, skiing in Switzerland, surrounded by an entourage of flunkeys, Britney's dream is to build a house next to her Mom's in Kentwood, and raise a family close to her childhood friends.
Being grounded and establishing a sustainable work/life balance has been a constant theme in Britney's career, right from the beginning - as has the need to protect and nurture the real Britney. "Madonna and Faith Hill give me hope," she once said. "You've got to find a balance. You do what you've got to do, but you look at it as your job. That's not what life is all about. I definitely think that you can stay home for six months, go on tour for three months, you can work it out." And now that she's not being pushed into doing anything she doesn't want to, that's exactly how she's managing things.
"When I'm on stage and I'm singing, that's my time to perform and be an actress. But when I'm off stage, I'm just like everybody else. You need to separate your career and your life. This is not my life, this doesn't mean everything to me. I'm happiest when I'm with my family, chillin', watching TV and cutting up. My rule is, every three weeks, I go home." She said that early in her career. During her wild years, she broke that rule, but now she makes sure her family ties stay strong.
Spirituality is another key dimension of the Spears persona. "You've gotta have that time for yourself," she says, "There are times when I have to check myself and I'm like 'Britney! Go outside, look at the stars! Go freakin' take a walk down the park.' You have to do it for your wellbeing. I'm a Baptist. I grew up going to church, but I think you can have spiritual experiences without going to church." In fact, she often speaks of the direct influence and interventions of God in her life, and acknowledges the value of Kabbalah in reestablishing her spiritual pathway and combatting the obstacles and barriers that she felt had arisen between herself and the Holy Spirit.
"God, my boyfriend and my family - that's my life", she once said. How could you NOT love a girl who espouses such pure and simple values. And unlike many young celebs, she means every word. But if being sweet, humble, spiritual and down-to-earth was all there was to Britney Spears, she wouldn't be a megastar and one of the most fascinating celebrities ever to have walked the Earth.
One journalist who interviewed Britney a while ago described her as a strange mixture of the childlike teenager and the self-assured woman. But she reckoned both of these personalities had plenty of willpower and the overall impression was of someone who was very much in charge. "She's the antithesis of being a puppet," says Lauren Christy of the Matrix songwriting trio, "She tells everyone what she will do."
Back-up singer on In The Zone Penelope Magnet told a tale that confirmed that Britneys very un-diva-like nature was allied to strength of character. While MATM was being recorded, she said, the recording studio's air-conditioning died for three days, but Britney refused to abandon the increasingly sultry session. "The equipment made the room so hot that it was unbearable, but she worked through that. She didn't complain or anything, and for me that shows she's where she is for a reason.''
Looking at a recent set of photos of Britney in LA with her Mom and sister, it occurred to me that there was quite a difference in the demeanour of the three ladies. Lynne Spears looked alert and happy, yet also contented, serene and fulfilled. Young Jamie Lynn seemed reserved, calm and serious. By contrast, Britney appeared volatile and animated. She was the one waving her arms around and showing every emotion that crossed her incredibly mobile and expressive face. Here was a powerhouse of nervous energy and creativity, the woman whose mental radiation froze phrenologist Allan Wicombe's fingers.
Calming measures have never really worked with Britney, though she has tried plenty of them down the years and still seems to be searching. At one time she dabbled in yoga, but sitting still for long periods of time didn't suit her at all. Her mind was not freed. She gave Zen a go too, but once more, she confesses, her attempts at meditation failed. "I wasnt very good at it. I tried that but I'm a very hyperactive person. I'm like 'Can we leave now?' I couldnt just sit there and go 'ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm', it's not me."
All this hyperactivity must make her hell to live with for anyone of a more chilled-out nature. Maybe this is the real source of the many reported rows between Britney and her laid-back husband Kevin Federline. There seemed to be times in the last year when she was doing nothing but sitting or lying around, enjoying Kevin's company, but the last few weeks have produced signs of an increasingly active private life. The Spears volcano may soon be about to end its dormant phase.
Throughout every waking hour, one senses, idea after idea rockets into her mind. But it's like she's a radio receiver auto-tuning over a hundred wavebands. There's no real consistency or continuity or logic. The same idea may occur more than once, or many times, but it's like finding the same song playing on several stations. There doesn't seem to be a central, co-ordinating mechanism that pulls everything together and turns it into one coherent history or story or personality. She changes her mind with breathtaking frequency, and sometimes she tries too hard to make harsh reality fit her fairy tale.
Nevertheless, being honest means a lot to Britney. I can hear gasps of amazement among that group of teenage truth-seekers who constantly accuse her of lying. But here's what's really going on. Being truly honest means that Britney says exactly what's in her mind without the slightest thought for whether she's being consistent or not. She would never succeed as a politician or career diplomat. But think about it - if, for the sake of consistency, you say something OTHER than what you're actually thinking at the time you say it, that's not being honest, either to yourself or to anyone listening.
To Britney, facts and the truth are whatever is in front of her consciousness at the moment she's speaking. As she describes the ever-changing succession of images and objects, notions and resolutions that flit across her mind, things don't necessarily add up and what she says today will not be what she's thinking tomorrow. No wonder her messages to her fans are now called her "stream of consciousness".
And so her fans have to deal with this mercurial, exciteable, emotional, changeable, capricious, wilful, frustrating girl. We can't limit her, we can't control her, we can't even truly understand her. Like people have said throughout her life, she's a force of nature. Complaining about Britney is like complaining about the wind. An act of Britney is like an Act of God - you couldn't insure against it. And it's like pure energy - it may lay waste to all before it, but, like the wind, it does so without malice. Get revenge for "Cry me a river"? It would never have entered her mind.
But it's this restless drive that we always rely on to get her back on track. Ideas of other things she could do and other things she could be are among her many distractions. Many times she has seemed worn out, beaten down, depressed, and totally out of love with her gilded career, yet that powerful life force has got her up and going again. No matter what she may say about breaks and babies, Britney Spears was apparently put on this Earth to perform and entertain, and she just can't stop herself.
At one time you could put it down to ambition. But it wasn't the selfish, arrogant ambition to be famous that fuels many a showbiz dream. It was purely an ambition to perform before the biggest possible audiences and get her music heard by the largest numbers of people. It was an ambition from which egotism and conceit have always been strangely absent. Indeed, to some of her fans this is in itself a source of frustration - if she had a bigger ego she might have a greater awareness of just how trashy her image has become.
Of course no one is saying she's a saint. Right from the outset, articles about the "phenomenon" that was Britney Spears remarked that she was highly strung and far from immune to stroppy behaviour and temper tantrums. In her current search for her true personality, Britney seems to have identified that side of herself - and so the character of "Mona Lisa" was born. Mona Lisa, "I'm NOT a diva", but demanding, obsessive, driven, impatient, perfectionistic and hard to please.
It's almost as if she is creating a direction for that side of herself to go, an avenue for excess, a stage for role-play by that part of herself that she doesn't like, perhaps in the hope that Mona Lisa can do her thing without damaging the fragile Britney whose transition to adulthood is still a work in progress, and which has proven so difficult for her.
Us Weekly has its own patent negative angle on Britney. Its managing editor claims that whatever she does, she always has an eye on the money. They claim that her determination to deceive the press over the time and place of her wedding had nothing to do with a desire for privacy and all to do with her contract to sell exclusive picture rights to People mag and the UK Express Group. They insinuate that the reason she was so angry over the leaking of her honeymoon pictures was that she wanted to sell them herself. They even claim that she won't announce her pregnancy until a lucrative photoshoot deal has been set up. That all sounds like sour grapes. However, some fans were a little disgruntled that the only times she has sprung into action in the last 9 months have been to promote her perfume line; and others have complained that she can't be bothered working as long as the money keeps rolling in.
Something about that line of attack doesn't ring true, though. She has had many work-free money-making opportunities in the last year and hasn't taken them. Her extreme reluctance to sign a pre-nup doesn't suggest someone who is particularly money-minded. And it's also well-known that she's extraordinarily generous to everyone around her. She is said to have given millions of dollars to Kevin Federline and she once spent $100,000 on presents for Justin Timberlake in a single afternoon! But even if she does worry about money it would be understandable, given the poverty in which she was brought up, and her parents eventual bankruptcy.
Although she is a warm and endearing person to meet, even for a few minutes (hotel staff and shopkeepers in Dublin said she was "a dote"), she is not particularly outgoing with her friendship. She feels inhibited with strangers ("People think because of what I do I'm like 'Da-Na!!' but at heart I'm very shy") and says she's "not the kind of person who's close friends with everybody". She has hardly any big name showbiz pals and says that her closest friends are still her three long-term girlfriends from back in Kentwood. She also once said that like her character Lucy in Crossroads, she was somewhat introverted and liked to spend time on her own.
You would even get a challenge on her friendliness and politeness from certain media-types and journalists who have crossed her path. In interviews she can slip into celeb mode and treat them mean. Former UK-based morning-TV presenter Eamonn Holmes thought her rude and uncommunicative. Indeed, many journalists who spoke to her in 2002-3 said she was prickly and defensive, but there were usually reasons for that. For example, the Daily Mail's correspondent spoke of the "day she fell out with Britney" - but what happened was that, despite specific warnings not to, she tackled Britney on her break-up with Justin at a time when she was still feeling raw and damaged, and Britney's PR people stepped in to call a halt.
Throughout her career, it could be argued, Britney has had every reason to be suspicious of the press. As she told GQ editor Dylan Jones "I did an interview for a magazine the other day, and it made me sound such a dumbass. I read the interview and I was like I would never say that, you know what I mean? So you just go with it and be yourself - and they say what they want to say, the motherf~ckers!" Journalists usually try to belittle her intelligence, usually talk about her in that amused, patronising way one might normally reserve for a kitten or puppy.
But it's worth pointing out that, even during her prickly period, many journalists who did in-depth interviews and spent some quality time with her were deeply impressed. Dylan Jones wrote "She turned out to be delightful: fantastically sexy, funny and smart. Pop princesses are obviously not meant to be like this, and several of my lady friends were mortified when I told them what she was like."
When asked to describe Britney, one of the words used by her assistant Felicia Culotta was "stubborn" and the girl herself doesn't disagree. "If someone says, I think you should do this and this, I'm like OK, but that's not how I feel right now." She knows she has a streak of rebelliousness that makes her want to disagree with people, take her own position and defend it like hell - for the rest of that day anyway. Unfortunately, along with this goes unwillingness to take advice, even when it would be wiser to do so. But that's when people come up and give her advice she didn't ask for. When she actually asks for advice, she takes it all in with a disarming seriousness.
Felicia also noted that Britney was insecure at times. Only a short time into her showbiz career, some of her smalltown illusions about the basic decency of people were shattered, and she said "In this business, you don't know who you can trust". She knew she was too open and trusting by nature, and she became aware that people were taking advantage of her, without her ever really knowing what was going on. Part of her innocent daydream of stardom was already in ruins, and for a time her sunny nature deserted her and she began to come over as guarded, suspicious and paranoid.
Eventually, she also began to lose confidence in herself. From Day One, all the drive for stardom had come from Britney. "It was totally me. I was always pushing my mom for dancing and singing lessons. I had a completely normal childhood; my mom just wanted to cook for me and take me shopping. I was always determined to do what I wanted to do and I was so thankful that she was there to support me." And she told Dylan Jones "When I was at high school I was a very confident person. I look back now and I'm like Boy, I really believed in myself."
But then she went on to say, "If I had to do everything I did back then today, I'd be really nervous because I think you become more insecure the more famous you get." And, she revealed, "I had an uncomfortable period about six months ago when I didn't really feel myself", by which she meant that she began to really question her own ability. She added that you have to be confident to be a performer. She managed to drag herself out of that particular crisis with a renewed appetite to continue, but we may wonder if she's suffering from those same doubts now. She seems to be prepared to do almost anything to avoid getting on a stage and performing in public. No wonder she said she probably wouldn't do another tour for a couple of years.
This is one of the paradoxes Britney's mother learnt to deal with. Although Britney is usually pretty cheerful, optimistic and upbeat, her confidence is easily shattered, and, while she has no false modesty about the things she knows she's good at, she is excessively self-critical about everything else. And when she's down, she's a nervy, anxious, nail-biting, needy worrier. Her Mom says there is a constant need for those around her to build her up and convince her of her own worth. She may come over as a strong woman, but she's no Madonna. She will give up and crack under strain.
According to ace celebrity biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, she suffers from sexual insecurity too. He argues that Britney's capers with unsuitable men, her overtly raunchy stage show and her apparent need to appear in skimpy underwear whenever possible all stem from the fact that she doesn't feel sexy or beautiful or desirable and is always searching for validation. She throws all of herself into her relationships, losing all sense of proportion and detachment and risking emotional disaster if anything goes wrong. She's always so proud of her men, but strangely, and rather touchingly, she also seems so pleased with herself for actually having a man. It's amazing that a rich, talented, beautiful woman can be so unsure that anyone would want her. It could be that she knows at heart that few men can give her the amount of love she needs. If anything threatens her relationships it's that she loves too much, commits too much, and is desperately possessive.
Britney's strength - her lifelong, unshakeable vision of everything she wanted for herself - is also her weakness, since it makes her whole conception of her life a fairytale of unrealisable perfection, and she is totally unprepared for any deviation from it. Most of us make our lives up as we go along, constantly trimming and adapting to circumstance, but not Britney. And so, when faced with the disastrous demolition of her dreams over several turbulent years, she fractured completely. We should never underestimate the size of the reconstruction project. It will take years to complete, and the key to it is the support, love and blessing of her family.
When I first began thinking about this article, it occurred to me that most of Britney's problems probably lay in this area. Her Mother had been concentrating on her younger daughter for quite a while, and Britney had been missing her support and guidance a lot more than we may have realised. As a middle-child myself, I know how much it hurts when you're no longer your Mom's centre of attention, and when Britney announced that she would write her own updates on her website because her Mom was too busy with Jamie Lynn it was like a dagger in my heart. Months later came the Allure interview and what she said about the notorious Vegas wedding confirmed that her sense of loss and abandonment was very real.
For most of the last 3 years, Britney has felt disorientated, no longer firmly rooted in her family's life in Kentwood, but unable to settle into any viable alternative. She doesn't embrace the celebrity lifestyle. She doesn't surround herself with stylists, beauticians, PAs and PRs. Unlike Jamie-Lynn, Britney wasn't built for the big-time. She is still what she always was, a small-town girl, playing at being a Big Star and usually failing. Even now, after all these years, the celebrity world is clearly alien to her and she still feels that while she may be in it, she is most definitely not of it.
However, there have been recent signs that Britney is learning to cope with her insecurities in her own way. Over years of answering the repeated question "What do you hate most about your body?" she has nominated almost everything at one time or another, and she admitted "I get insecure sometimes when I go places because people expect celebrities to look a certain way." It would be hard to recognise the maker of that statement in the girl we see now, strolling in front of the paparazzi and clearly not giving a damn what anyone expects her to look like.
There have also been a few hints that Britney is developing a sense of her own celebrity status. She takes pride in the achievements of her superstar alter ego, and happily compares her to icons like Madonna and Janet Jackson. She reckons this "Britney Spears" character is probably an icon too. And in the wake of her decision to write her own updates on her website has come her realisation that every word she writes is echoing around the globe within minutes of publication. It must give her a tremendous sense of power, and, for the first time in the career of the world's most unassuming superstar, we have to hope it won't go to her head.
The nutty pronouncements, with their curious mixture of innocence and grandeur, do give an impression of someone gradually losing touch with reality and perhaps about to begin a descent into a Mariah-like abyss. At times she talks like someone in therapy, desperately trying to remember the tricks the analyst taught her for keeping on top of things. So we ought to cherish those images of Britney playing innocently with Kori, walking hand-in-hand with her kid sister, making herself a milkshake at her Dad's fast-food joint, clubbing with her brother while wearing a grossly-oversized man's shirt, terrorising the paparazzi with her model car.....and hope she still doesn't take the business of being Britney Spears too seriously; that she still firmly believes what she once said: "If I could do this and not be famous, that'd be cool. When I come off stage, I wish it would stop".
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