Britney Spears has finally addressed the Framing Britney Spears doc (or has she?)
Human beings are wired to find patterns, connect dots, and make meanings out of all kinds of crap, which is how we wind up with batshit-bananas conspiracy theories—but it’s also how #FreeBritney gained so much media traction in recent years. Following the release of the New York Times’ Framing Britney Spears doc on Hulu, it’s even easier to believe (or want to believe) that Britney Spears is not always behind her own social media posts, like the one below, in which the pop icon appears to finally break her silence on the documentary:
Accompanying a video that’s been posted to her account on multiple occasions (this alone is worthy of an eyebrow raise) is a fairly lengthy caption, dotted with emojis, in which Spears addresses Framing Britney Spears. “It takes 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,” the caption reads. Spears says that she did not actually watch the doc, “but from what I did see of it I was embarrassed by the light they put me in … I cried for two weeks and well …. I still cry sometimes !!!!”
Numerous comments decry the post as a fake, written by someone who is not Britney Spears. Her (alleged) response to the doc vaguely contradicts part of its central thesis and the entire basis for the #FreeBritney movement—that Spears has no control over her life and never did—and it certainly isn’t how fans imagine she would feel after all of their protests and virtual support. And while it’s plausible that Spears honestly conveyed her feelings in this Instagram post (who doesn’t feel embarrassed about things in their past?), it seems just as plausible that someone else wrote it. And this isn’t some new development in the saga or anything—it has long been suspected that Spears doesn’t (or doesn’t always) control her own social media posts. But some people also believe that she’s sending secret messages through her posts, like communicating with her fans by wearing certain colors to indicate she’s in distress (the gossip rags are all over this one).
Taylor Swift is at least partially to blame for all of this, right?