Britney: Inside the Dream

‘It is so weird how stories are told. There is your side, my side, and the truth. Somebody has to figure it out. I guess we will never really understand or figure out life completely. That’s God’s job. I can’t wait to meet him—or her.’

–Britney, 2007

‘You’re wanting to do what?’

‘Understand the real Britney…the human behind the brand,’ I repeated.

The music-industry man seated opposite eyed me curiously, and his cynical smile suggested he’d already viewed some greenness behind my intentions.

‘Like pulling back the curtain to reveal the true Wizard of Oz?’ he said, ‘As easy as that, right?’

He’s among the few who truly know Britney Spears, and was an integral part of her set-up long before the conservatorship became an issue, and long before Sam Lutfi, Adnan Ghalib et al. arrived on the scene. That, perhaps, also explains why he viewed me with suspicion as I fished for co-operation, and he fished for motive.

We’re at the Mondrian, an all-white boutique hotel where, apparently, it’s hip to be seen off the Sunset Strip in LA. And the sun is indeed setting, dunked by the sky into the Pacific Ocean, 17 miles away, tinting the skyline orange. This used to be a favourite haunt of Britney, with the glass-backed patio of the ‘Sky Bar’ providing a commanding view from the foot of the Hollywood Hills, overlooking a metropolis fading into night; a darkness that helps mask the ordinariness of the concrete basin which falls away down the hill and stretches to the 10 Freeway and beyond. That same view provided a distraction during an awkward silence, which I broke by saying: ‘I want to know her reality.’

Now, he really did scoff.

‘Reality as defined by you is incomprehensible to Britney. An artificial world is her normal. Outside of that, she is lost—completely and totally lost. Great kid, great girl—but lost.’

This meeting has taken weeks to set up and the door into Britney’s world is merely ajar, with the chain still on. And this is just the outer-ring to an understandably cagey group of people who guard Britney Corporation Inc as if it were the one bank that can never be allowed to fail. But I’m determined to keep my foot in the door in this attempt to get closer to understanding a fragile colossus within the music industry. Her image might well be a parade of many revitalised masks, and the headlines may have echoed the management’s talk of ‘comebacks’, but the smoke and mirrors of show business shouldn’t lull anyone into a false sense of believing everything is suddenly okay again. The act may be back, the persona rescued, but the human being inside remains as brittle and vulnerable as ever. Behind the hype is a woman who is searching for direction, screaming to be understood, listened to and allowed to breathe as someone other than Britney Spears the Performer.

There is a barely concealed fragility to this free spirit, who finds herself encased within a micro-managed structure built by her own dreams. To all intents and purposes, she is a robotic brand functioning on remote control; steered by managers Larry Rudolph and Adam Leber in consultation with Jive Records, controlled as a person—and by order of the courts—by her father, Jamie Spears.

This is her recent reality, cocooned within a legal ‘conservatorship’—a guardianship where responsibility for all corners of her life and decision-making rest with her father, in consultation with others. It is, of course, the consequence of a very public meltdown, effectively being made a ward of court under the guardianship of adults who ‘know best’ because Britney was not deemed to have the mental capacity to make compos mentis choices in life, according to a judge. In her 28th year, she seems to enjoy all the rights and freedoms of a twelve-year-old; an adult woman forced into a child-like situation, policed by her own father. In 2008, she was granted ‘pocket-money’ and ‘allowed’ a credit card of her own. Dad Jamie was even permitted to comb her mobile telephone bills, checking who she’s called or texted. He still does.

In any other life, these would be the traits of a possessive controller. But under a court-appointed conservatorship, this is the permitted interventionist control exercised to ensure the life of an iconic figure remains on track. Its juxtaposition is hard to fathom alongside the pop superstar who has sold 84 million records worldwide, and has been crying ‘freedom’ since 2004.