The Many Faces of Britney

Nicole Jeffords (2021)

I must be one of the least tuned-in people when it comes to pop culture. In fact, it’s shocking how little I know. This is probably because I’m not much of a TV watcher. So to me, the acclaimed Britney Spears was a young, beautiful performer whose music rocked the charts, who was a truly talented singer and dancer, whose fame brought her emotional problems, who received much publicity for going a little crazy and shaving her head, who lost control of her independence and got locked into a conservatorship controlled by her father. I never followed her closely, so my knowledge has been vague. Drawing her from reference photos, I saw a youngish woman with a troubled face, a face that looked older than her nearly forty years, that was distorted, even a little baggy. In another reference photo, the face was far more youthful and pliable.

But it didn’t tell me much other than that this was a young woman eager to please. I guess celebrity at such an early age has its deficits. One lives in a glass house. One’s life isn’t one’s own. Everything one does is viewed under a microscope. Ugh. I totally get the thrill of being in front of those hot lights, performing for millions of people. But I wouldn’t want that life, and were it me, I would have gone nuts and attempted crazy acts of self-sabotage far sooner. The moral of this tale? Too much publicity too soon can equal burnout, despair, and loss of freedom.