Was Britney Spears Involved In The Creation Of Her Lifetime Movie?
The #FreeBritney movement and the popstar's controversial conservatorship have caused media consumers to reexamine Western culture's treatment of female celebrities. Britney Spears and other early 2000s stars were huge victims of misogynistic and invasive media treatment, something the public ate up through magazine headlines and paparazzi photos (per The Daily Fandom).
Throughout the publicized battle to end Britney's conservatorship, more of the singer's perspective has been revealed through her court testimonies and social media posts. Since much of her narrative has been controlled and skewed by the media and those close to her, the importance of listening to Britney herself has become increasingly obvious.
It's through this lens that dramatized media like Lifetime's "Britney Ever After" should also be viewed. As mentioned in The Guardian, the Lifetime biopic chronicles Spears' life from her teenage years through her conservatorship, featuring many headline-making moments that the media originally disparaged her for.
With this in mind, was Spears involved in the making of her Lifetime movie?
Britney Spears never signed off on Britney Ever After
Although Britney Spears has never personally spoken out about Lifetime's 2017 movie "Britney Ever After," she never approved of the film either. According to Entertainment Weekly, shortly after the announcement of the film, Spears' representative explained that the pop star wasn't involved in the movie's production and it didn't have the celeb's consent either.
The lack of Spears' involvement and approval can be seen in the sparsity of the movie's soundtrack. Unable to secure the copyright to the singer's music, Lifetime was only able to feature her covers in the movie, leaving out a large part of Spears' story (per USA Today).
Because Spears was under the control of her conservatorship during the making of the film and has never personally commented on it, it's difficult to know her true feelings about the Lifetime biopic. However, the star has spoken about another project made about her life, providing fans with some insight into how she might feel about "Britney Ever After," too.
Britney Spears has spoken out against a more recent film
Whereas "Britney Ever After" was made in 2017 when Britney Spears was still under the full control of her conservatorship, the media has since greenlit projects centered around the #FreeBritney movement and her subsequent court battles.
"Framing Britney Spears" is one project that the star has publicly spoken about. The Spears documentary is a 2021 installment in "The New York Times Presents" series on FX and Hulu (via Insider). The film examines Britney Spears' past court battle, allegedly bringing more attention to the #FreeBritney movement. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the same team produced a follow-up documentary titled "Controlling Britney Spears" in September 2021.
As mentioned in Harper's BAZAAR, Spears took to Instagram in the weeks following the film's premiere to share her thoughts on it. The post, which has since been deleted, mentioned how her life has been consistently speculated about by the public and how much strength it takes to deal with that.
"I didn't watch the documentary, 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," the star wrote.
Based on this negative reaction and her past under others' control, it's clearly time we let Spears tell her story her own way.