Now, on to Britney Spears. I originally felt her situation was sad, but, after remembering Forbes magazine had her ranked 12th in their recent "The 20 Richest Women in Entertainment," estimating her worth at $100 million, I'll instead use my proletariat fingers to suggest that this is a lesson on (a lack of) substance.
Britney was a "star" from childhood, appearing on the Mickey Mouse Club with people either more grounded or talented than she. Spears acquired worldwide fame as a singer with absolutely no artistic vision beyond letting the public, particularly little girls and dirty men, see her "discovering" her sexuality. Music was never the point- she released exactly one good song ("Oops! I Did it Again!") and, as the excellent New York Daily News music critic pointed out, she has plenty of taped help in her concerts. So, she cannot immerse herself in her "music" as a means of self-expression, etc, because she has no music.
Who can she turn to for honesty, that she is self-destructing? Friends and hangers-on who mooch off of her and encourage the wrong behavior? Industry types? Her parents divorced, and she has no solid foundation at home. Her younger sister, Jaime-Lynn (another great talent), has strictly been M.I.A. Religion was obviously not a thought, much less an afterthought. Perhaps she should turn to President George W. Bush, of whom she once said after the start of Operation Oil: "we should trust our president in every decision that he makes, and we should just support that and be faithful in what happens," but, presumably, he'd be too busy, not even having had time to read intelligence briefings predicting 9/11.
Maybe I am being presumptuous in assuming that people around her can recognize that she is going downhill faster than poll numbers for a politican who says he hates the troops. As a service, I'll now list some of her recent public behaviors, and you the reader should select which occasion calls for an intervention from, say, a parent or a true friend. You can choose more than one. If not even one of these merit an intervention, I stand corrected:
1) Cheating on Justin Timberlake
2) In 2004, marrying one man in Las Vegas on the spur of the moment, only to have the marriage quickly annulled.
3) The excessive binging, abusing alcohol and pills in mass quantities.
4) The excessive partying, which reportedly led many times to spontaneous sexual encounters or odd behavior, such as Britney and a female partner stripping down to their undergarments on the dance floor and then putting on each other's clothes.
5) Befriending Paris Hilton
6) Driving with a baby in her lap.
7) Being an absentee mother.
8) Marrying Kevin Federline
9) Being in a stage of life where Kevin Federline is the far more admirable person (Kevin gets it, being funny on WWE's Raw, and even funnier still on the Nationwide Super Bowl ad).
(I was tempted to add Crossroads to this list, but I figured I gave the reader enough choices.)
Well, now Britney has shaved her head and checked in and out of rehab twice within a week. Did it need to come to this?
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