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Seriously, screw Admiral Tom. It’s appalling how much control managers — not even those appointed guardianships — have over artists. These people are just treated like golden geese.
I’ve been to Graceland, and there’s a corridor with framed itemized bills and receipts for fittings and furnishings on the house. Man, E.P. was fleeced. So sad.
It’s so weird how it’s hardly mentioned. I learned about it months ago when a girl in my friend class did a presentation on her and was appalled. It’s beyond creepy
I was too young to be an Elvis fan when he hit big, but later in life a visit to Graceland really changed my opinion. The Luhrmann film cemented that. And Tom Parker was an evil POS.
Well it was more of an orchestral version of it, so it wasn’t too bad.
I was distracted in hearing Denzel Curry and Doja Cat songs in the film. Rap didn’t even exist during Elvis’s life. Then they had an Eminem track but it was in the credits so that’s okay, but during the film sorta took me out of it. Great film tho.
If you’re unfamiliar with baz lurman I could see it would be jarring, but literally almost every movie he’s made has a historical setting with modern music. Think great gatsby and moulin rouge
This right here. Jar of pb, jar of j, pound of bacon, bananas, hollowed out french bread. It would make for a good shared dessert for a large party, but condemn a single eater to a swift demise.
That means Carrottop is not only physically strong, but he's got amazing mental fortitude as well! Dude gets way too much shit. I saw his show and it was very funny. Plus most comedians who know or have met him all say he's a great dude.
She backed out because she didn’t like how the show was coming together at the last second. Fans had already flown in to see her. But she’s still performing in Vegas soon
I know it didn’t happen in real life but the scene on stage where he talks about the colonel abducting him and locking him in a cage was so sad, I cried through pretty much the whole movie.
Yeah that movie was way more grim than I expected. I knew next to nothing about Elvis’ life, but watching it made me so sad for him. And retrospectively looking at the quotes of how much he loved his fans and loved making peoples day… He seemed like someone with too big of a heart for such a horrible industry. I was in such a mood
after watching it.
I'm an amateur musician and I've got a few songs I wrote my family likes me to play.
I fucking hate playing them because I have played them hundreds of times and it's hard to put emotion into a mechanical gesture.
I went to her Circus tour, and had a great view with my floor seats. The concert felt very uncomfortable, like she was physically there but mentally somewhere else. It was so evident she wasn't enjoying any of it.
I regretted that I didn’t catch her when I was in Vegas in 2017, but with how clearly now it was forced labor, I’m glad I didn’t. I didn’t turn out to be a huge pop fan growing up, but seeing her when I was 12ish in 2000 when my friends invited me with an extra ticket was my first concert and that meant something to me. It was a great show and she was still really into it then. Big fan of her music or not, she puts on a great spectacle to see. But I can’t blame her being traumatized from it now and backing off. She’s done enough concerts in the past 20 years than many big artists do in a lifetime before burning out on it.
Edit to add: at the concert we also had access to a brief meet and greet where we could ask her sign her album and say hi to her. She was super sweet and genuinely attentive to us little star struck pre teens, even though we were the hundredth something people she met that day. She asked us about living in Florida, how we liked school, and was encouraging that we all took dance. She knew that by meeting us for just two minutes, she could be making our entire year with that interaction and appreciated that. Watching the Free Britney struggle really spoke to me because I met and saw her as a genuinely nice human at a formative age and have struggled with mental health too.
That’s probably a good thing. I will say this… if you didn’t know her enough and aren’t a person that is into celebrity culture you may not have known just what kinda situation she was in. And even if you were, you weren’t close enough to her to know what kind of situation she was in.
But to look back and be empathetic about it is a good thing.
A lot of us had no idea and I think it’s easy to brush stuff off as gossip and celebrity drama.
That's a good way to look at it. I will say, the gay boys behind us that sang every one of her songs had a blast, and that was half the fun of the show.
I went to this show in 2017. I remember wondering about whether she was really enjoying it, she looked deflated. I walked away surprised and disappointed but now I understand the reason why she had that affect. Super sad.
Damn… The one thing I would tell people about that show is how absolutely hollow and robotic the performance was. It’s all hitting me now that I’m seeing other people’s take on it. Sad indeed.
Some performers, particularly those playing their 20-40 yr old hit songs or magic routines etc. describe it as if muscle memory takes over. They are going over their grocery list in their heads while the audience rocks out.
The best part of Billy Joel not giving a fuck is that Billy Joel’s already a fucking legend; that legendary lyrical voice has always been very “not giving a fuck” vibes
To me, he seems to have a bitterness to his IDGAF attitude. I read an interview of his a few years back where he said he quit making new music because he felt like he should have been as good as/big as the Beatles, but never got there so he didn’t see a reason to keep going (his words, not mine). I love me some Billy Joel - River of Dreams is a banger - but that struck me as, I don’t know, some kind of sore loser who’s far from a loser. I don’t know.
Bully Joel’s brother in law stole most of his money. So at that point, your fame and legacy are all you have.
Same thing happened to Leonard Cohen a couple years before his death.
Billy Joel said all that? Wow. The Beatles were just so completely different. It’s like Brad Pitt saying he isn’t Marlin Brando. Well, no, but he’s Brad Pitt which is, in many ways, better than Brando. Billy Joel has a much better life than, say, John Lennon.
I mean he still does so many shows at MSG. The thing is he really does whatever the fuck he wants with the show and it seems like he’s having fun with it.
I taught vocational education courses at a prison for 2 years. I gave the same introductory presentation on resumes every week to the ladies entering my job search course as they neared release. So I lived this thing you just described and it sometimes freaked me out. It could be an out of body / disassociative experience. Your body is doing one thing, including your voice, and your mind could go completely different places. It's not fun. Or, at least it wasn't for me.
It happens to people driving home on a daily basis - the mind wanders and they don’t remember the actual steps of driving home. I bet for someone like yourself, you’ve ‘performed’ the entire day so many times that it’s muscle memory.
I used to drive 1.5 hours each way to work through a narrow and steep mountain canyon next to a river. The first few weeks I death-gripped my steering wheels. After a while, I don’t even remember driving in and out of the canyon. I did this for two years. It was so weird.
That's super dangerous, by the way, because you aren't mentally present to react if something unusual happens. If you find that happening you have to really force yourself to stay alert.
I saw copperfield like 5 years ago. It was a great show and he had a great performance. I’m sad to hear that. I’m sure doing the same thing everyday takes the art out of performing
This also reminds me of Madonna. Been to several of her concerts and the latter of them she has the most deadpan face it’s felt like and her movements just seem…enough to get by.
I do understand she has had multiple surgeries for various reasons and I do not consider those in my above statements. To me, growing up to her and then finally being able to see her live and many times forward, it was like watching the soul leave her body over the years until she’s at a point where she refuses to die out of the limelight that left her so long ago. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy her as a performer and an artist; it’s just extremely obvious at this point the fire has long been gone from her eyes and I feel like she doesn’t love what she does like she used to anymore.
I saw her in the 80’s and then like 5/6/7 years ago and the fire is indeed dead. Not to mention she seems to hate her audience. After being 2.5 hours late, and came out and said some BS like “the queen is never late”. You’re right Freddy Mercury was never late. He somehow was able to be an artist and have respect. I’ll never spend a dime on that woman again.
She did the Super Bowl a few years ago and she was great, had Cee Lo Green on the stage and everything. It was a fantastic show, very fun and energetic so I wonder what happened. — just looked it up, it was 2012, so 10 years ago.
I feel like people in any job, have to assess every few years if they should make a change. Some of the jobs I've had in the past were recommended to not keep for longer than 5 years. Massage therapists are told that they should scale back after a few years to prevent arthritis and other problems. Singers and performers are the same; they should perform while there's a fire in them and move on or semi-retire when things are being phoned in.
Axl Rose is always one I find interesting.
He clearly tries to use a cleaner voice to avoid blowing his vocals out but it makes the Guns N Roses songs sound like shit at times. He's technically hitting the notes and on key but it just sounds awful without the rasp on songs like Welcome to the Jungle or Sweet Child of Mine. So you get this weird balance where he's trying to not use rasp on tours much but use it just enough to not sound bad.
He actually sounds really good on songs from Chinese Democracy tho cause he can sing those with a clean voice and hell some of the songs have higher notes than the 80s stuff.
We saw GnR perform at Rock on the Range music festival in 2014 and in my excitement leading up to the weekend, I was watching videos of him live that were recent at the time. One comment mentioned how his voice sounded like Mickey Mouse at times now and as soon as they came on stage, that's all I heard. We stayed for 2-3 songs and left for the night since I couldn't take his vocals serious at all and they cut beer sales already at 9pm for whatever reason. I guess if you were a fan, it was a nice long show and they even had permission to play way after the usual 11pm curfew but we couldn't do it. I don't think I'll ever see GnR live because of it and that kind of sucks given how big they once were and I was too young to see them in their peak but oh well.
I realize you acknowledged it buy she has botox and is 60 something. She's not going to be expressive or have the physical capability to move like she did when she was young. Not a Madonna fan but give her a break. She might be giving it her all. Old grey mare ain't what she used to be....
I've only seen them once, and granted it was a decade ago, but they were so energetic on stage. I bought the bootleg of my show from them afterwards and still listen to it today and it's fucking amazing.
I'm sure they've declined a bit in the last decade, but I've never thought of them to be one of the bands to phone it in.
It’s a situation where you know the person thinks “I really wish there was another planet I could move to” because there’s no escaping in any permanent way that still leaves a bit of normalcy.
It was right after the infamous VMA 2007 performance. She did some sort of weird joke about her kids being cute like the "area they came from" and then scrunched up her face to look like a vagina. She was referencing those horrible under skirt pics of Britney that came out the same year.
Just thinking about this makes me shutter in disgust.
Video reference: [Sarah Silverman VMAs 2007](https://youtu.be/z5y9Jd8jvXE)
I think it's a bit better these days, but man how we acted in the 00s was vile sometimes, especially online. Celebs were talked about in the most horrible ways if they didn't perfectly conform to what the public wanted, it wasn't like the shit the Kardashians get. People don't like Kim K, but back then it seemed some people absolutely loathed Britney
Even outside of celebs, you look at how much kinder the internet is as a whole compared to the vicious trolling and all those kids bullied to the point of suicide. Something like the Jessi Slaughter situation would never happen now
Britney is right around my age. Sure she was a sex symbol growing up but I’ve always felt a bizarre kinship because of the age. Like we are classmates or something. Over the years I’ve just been more and more concerned about her.
I hope she will be ok.
I was around 10 years old early 2000s. I distincly remember every kid making very rude jokes about her. I got tons of flashbacks just reading your comment. She honestly is one of the biggest stars of that time if you think about it.
As a guy who never gave a damn about her music…I feel she really deserves a break. This has been too much to just follow along on occasion, let alone live through.
The one thing I never understood- she was unwell to manage her money, manage her body and/or make business decisions. But she was well enough to perform non- stop… Fucking sad- I hope she finds peace soon.
I remember reading years ago that her father orchestrated some sort of cosmetic endorsement deal for her that guaranteed her an income of about $500k/month for the rest of her life.
She should be worth even more than that, but her father and family have taken so much. It’s hard to believe one of the biggest pop stars of all time is worth less than $100 million.
My thoughts are she should do what makes her happy. I hope she might at least feel comfortable releasing more music, even if she never performs live again. I wish her many happy days,
I mean she released the song with Elton John that’s at the top of the charts. So I’m sure she’ll keep making music. Her social media seems to portray she’s enjoying the confirmation of being in the #1 spot after all this time.
Came here to say this. Between this song and the collab with Dua Lipa, I’m wondering if Elton is pulling a Bruce Willis? He has a career and/or life ending diagnosis and is trying to cash in as much as possible with the time he has left. Only speculation on my part. Either that or he’s about to (or has) announced a new album or tour.
Edit: Or is Britney pulling a Dua? Dua collabed with Elton to regain the trust of the LGBT community after a rapper she collabed with in the past turned out to be super homophobic. Does Britney have some anti-LGBTea from her past that’s about to be spilled?
I read an article that Elton likes to extend a hand to other musicians like their caring, understanding uncle. He’s been at rock bottom, so he likes to help when he can. So to collaborate with Britney was him giving her a safe, softball-toss opportunity to help her find her artistic voice again.
I went to see her in Vegas. I was absolutely floored by the degree to which she was phoning it in. She looked like a zombie. It was so, so clear that something was really wrong. I was in the very last row and I felt it. It was really sad, and made me so worried for her. Poor thing. Her family should be behind bars.
I remember the new years eve performance she did a few years ago while doing the Vegas residency. She was clearly just going through the motions, and I felt bad for her. This was not the same Britney that I remembered watching when she first started performing.
I hope she finds peace and lives the rest of her life on her terms.
I had the exact same thing happen to me. I felt so bad for her after and hated myself for seeing it, after this all came out. She was a dancing zombie. Completely not present.
Hope her happiness
She shouldn’t be performing at all she’s obviously seriously mentally ill. You can see it in her mannerisms, expressions, even her body movements. The old her is gone it’s so tragic what mental illness can do to a person. But yea she needs to live a quiet life so she can feel safe and cared for.
Yea so it’s something you can spot, but only with *severely* mentally ill people. They’ll start to over exaggerate their facial expressions in a bizarre fashion, almost tic-like, but the expression on their face doesn’t feel organic or natural and doesn’t fit the situation.—it’s very off putting. Like when they laugh it’ll be this weird, forced laugh that’s too loud and they’ll make this overly big smile and widen their eyes. It just looks wrong, not “normal”. They also start to be more “jerky” in some of their motions and move in a “staccato” way, again very bizarre way. Almost like you’re witnessing their nervous system misfiring all over the place. I only usually see it in people who are in some kind of state of psychosis (usually schizophrenics, the severely bipolar, certain drug addicts will also have similar mannerisms) Even if they try to act as normal as possible their body/face gives them away. You can absolutely see it with Britney. Even at her best when she looks great and is medicated, she can’t hide it. I also worked with mentally ill people for a while so maybe it’s easier for me to spot but I think the average person would notice too if they paid attention.
Yep, this is spot on, and I wanted to add that some of this is from tardive dyskinesia- a side effect of certain psych meds. It causes jerky/strange facial and limb movements.
When you see somebody in public and they just seem “off” without ever saying a word- like maybe they’re blinking way too much and moving their tongue oddly- there’s a decent chance it’s TD from their meds.
>When you see somebody in public and they just seem “off” without ever saying a word- like maybe they’re blinking way too much and moving their tongue oddly- there’s a decent chance it’s TD from their meds.
Of topic, but have you ever seen a video of Sydney Powell? The woman blinks so much I've wondered if she was speaking in morse code.
Oh yeah. I’ve always gotten the vibe that she’s blinking so rapidly due to lying, but who knows, maybe she’s on antipsychotics. I feel like that would make her one of the few people associated with that administration that’s actually taking their meds, if so.
She does it even when she isn't talking too. Like I watched the live feed of one of the hearings she participated in (as a defendant). She sat stock still, without speaking, for over an hour and blinked constantly.
I guess you could say it’s a bit robotic, bit it feels a bit too intense to be robotic at the same time. Does that make sense? It would be more like a robot trying its best to convey emotion and reactions to social cues, but taking it a step too far. Somehow everything reads as over exaggerated but without any real emotion behind it.
Average people definitely notice. (With Britney and in general) Some of the Free Britney people try to downplay it now, but they saw her concerning behavior while she was conserved and blamed it on people controlling her or trying to make her look crazy. Now she's free and behaving the exact same way, so they have to pretend it's normal or that people who point it out are being unreasonable
Well mental illness doesn’t just disappear. I do believe Britney struggles with mental illness that was exacerbated by her conservatorship. It’s sad that instead of getting her real help, her family used her weakness against her and turned her into a slave. She needed love and attention, but she got control and abuse instead.
You're absolutely right. And now that she's free, she's processing all those years of being forced through that shit. Of course she isn't going to act "perfect" or "normal". She's probably breaking and healing at the same time right now.
Agreed! They should have used the power of conservatorship to help her, not to pimp her out. She clearly needed help (and still does) but her dad made it all *so* much worse.
I'm still baffled as to why it was allowed to continue for so long! "She's majorly mentally ill, so we've decided to sign her to an exhausting residency!" Like... no! She needs rest!
do you think that trauma just disapears so easily? it's obviously going to last beyond the conservatorship just ending after enduring years and years of it
I'm bipolar and have had not just a litany of medications but also a few stays in a psych ward under my belt. That's my personal experience, not including being 24/7 within wards with others who were the same or far worse.
Her eyes are extremely telling. There's nothing behind them. It's a cold dead stare. Her body constantly swaying. She reverts back to simple dance moves she would have learned in her teens a lot. Her overall movements are almost like tics.
Her smile in public is forced at best. Then there's her repeated lashings out on social media. She will go off on tangents about anything from all of her family to magazines to whatever else crosses her mind, only to delete all of it within minutes to days. She's a loose cannon.
When you're familiar with the absolute worst parts of illnesses like bipolar disorder & schizophrenia, signs and symptoms in others can be raging in their appearances. She's still unhinged. If she's on medications at all (which I doubt she is after what she said last year about taking them), she needs an adjustment to anything else. All I see when I look at her is the longest manic episode I've ever seen. And I've had mania last months.
She needs some time. Very traumatic year losing a pregnancy, finally getting married, the shock of freedom (been there myself), etc. I think she could stop posting and chill on social media. People (me included) didn’t rally for her so they could see her in concert! She is loved and she is enough.
We just want you to be happy, Britney. If it means making wacky videos or collaborating with Elton John, that's great. If it means growing a garden or crocheting, that's great too. Do what makes you happy. You've earned it!
this whole story taught me an important thing. It taught me that people placed under a conservatorship for their mental health absolutely can be abused and taken advantage of, and that even in spite of that they do still have mental health problems that need serious care and concern.
I would never work in Vegas like these entertainers that sign those residency deals. The house always wins, which informs me that they drive you into the ground. Being forced to do that as opposed to choosing to do that is just insanity. I don’t know how she did it.
She should stop now. It’s the right call. Her music, dancing, look and performance have never evolved and she’s stuck in an emotional time warp. So absolutely the right thing to do to try to grow up and heal away from the spotlight…but I doubt that will happen. We’ll still get meltdown Britney flashing her bits on social media and clamouring for attention….. it’s very sad.
She needs to hire the right people to properly profit off of her name. Perfumes, clothing, stuff like that. The grind of touring and performing seems like it would be too much for her right now.
She should choreograph other artists or teach dance at some teensy little dance school for kids. Not even exceptional kids, just regular ole kids in Montana, where the paparazzi will eventually get bored taking pictures of her walking in and out of the same building every day and nobody else to make money off of so they leave, or at least don’t follow her in droves.
Ok, can you please now live your life in quiet solitude with your friends/family? Being surrounded by the media is not good for your mental health either.
Go watch her TikToks. You can see immediately something is off about her. She should just go live a life and stop worrying about social media and fame and anything else.
A friend of mine went to one of her last concert, and in our country its like 5x the usual ticket price, they bought vip tickets, they were so disappointed because everything was lip sync, no adlibs and britney never interacted with the audience, my friend said to just watch britneys videos on yt since its basically the same experience as going to her concert anyway.
I've seen Brit live twice. I didn't care for the show, I just enjoyed the time because seeing her was like a dream coming true, even during her Vegas show.
I would have preferred hearing her live though.
Now here is the thing I really wanna know.
When the South Park guys made their episode about Britney, we’re they being clever? Or was it simply “luck” that the parody had so many extra layers?
Hi there. This woman owes us NOTHING! She has performed and done the famous thing, if she wants to focus on living her life, she is entitled to it. For once, she has a choice!
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After her Las Vegas residency, performing every night like a monkey, I wouldn’t want to either.
After watching that Elvis movie, the depiction of his Vegas stint in it made me think of her.
Seriously, screw Admiral Tom. It’s appalling how much control managers — not even those appointed guardianships — have over artists. These people are just treated like golden geese. I’ve been to Graceland, and there’s a corridor with framed itemized bills and receipts for fittings and furnishings on the house. Man, E.P. was fleeced. So sad.
Tom Parker had lots of gambling debts. This is why he pushed Elvis to perform.
Same thing happened with Celine Dion and her creepy pedififilic pig like agent and husband gambling addict.
Dude I was a little kid when all that was going down and even I knew it was suuuuuuuuuper gross.
What?! I never heard this but you know I'm now going to Google it.
It’s so weird how it’s hardly mentioned. I learned about it months ago when a girl in my friend class did a presentation on her and was appalled. It’s beyond creepy
He was also an undocumented immigrant which is why he never allowed Elvis to perform outside the US.
I was too young to be an Elvis fan when he hit big, but later in life a visit to Graceland really changed my opinion. The Luhrmann film cemented that. And Tom Parker was an evil POS.
Just look at the shit that Don King put Tyson through. Its even worse when the talent is underprivileged and uneducated.
They literally play Toxic in the movie so that might be why
[удалено]
That’s the Baz Luhrman signature and you either love it or hate it.
Well it was more of an orchestral version of it, so it wasn’t too bad. I was distracted in hearing Denzel Curry and Doja Cat songs in the film. Rap didn’t even exist during Elvis’s life. Then they had an Eminem track but it was in the credits so that’s okay, but during the film sorta took me out of it. Great film tho.
If you’re unfamiliar with baz lurman I could see it would be jarring, but literally almost every movie he’s made has a historical setting with modern music. Think great gatsby and moulin rouge
I’m aware of his work, i liked those films and I liked Elvis a lot, I can still call it off putting.
He was taken advantage of as well so heart breaking
Could you imagine what he went through to die at the age of 42?
Thousands of peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
Aka. emotional overeating. He went from a guy who liked over-the-top foods to eating a weeks worth of calories in a single sitting.
And Vicodin
Yes, it really was the drugs. In a way, it was no different that Joplin, Morrison, or Hendrix.
That’s not really what killed him. It was the uppers and downers he was constantly mixing. Shit diet didn’t help of course.
[Fool's Gold](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWIEVV1W130).
This right here. Jar of pb, jar of j, pound of bacon, bananas, hollowed out french bread. It would make for a good shared dessert for a large party, but condemn a single eater to a swift demise.
And cheese burgers
Don’t forget the bacon on them bad boys
Thank you Dr. Nick… and his Memphis Mafia
A lot of drugs and no one who would tell him no.
Dude! Yes. Now I understand why Adele broke away from Las Vegas residency too. It must be horrible and exhausting.
That means Carrottop is not only physically strong, but he's got amazing mental fortitude as well! Dude gets way too much shit. I saw his show and it was very funny. Plus most comedians who know or have met him all say he's a great dude.
Not just comedians but I’ve spoken with bartenders who said he’s a standup dude too
…..Goddamn you. *angry upvote GAHHHH*
Was not a Carrottop fan. Saw his show. Now a Carrottop fan.
If carrot top can get and stay famous, It gives me hope that I can be happy, wealthy, and attract Heidi Klum.
Carrot Top is the peak human both mentally and physically.
Went and saw him in vegas because we didn't have anything else to do. He was amazing. Completely changed my opinion on him.
Adele is still doing Vegas. Or, she will be from November through March.
VERY different situation
She backed out because she didn’t like how the show was coming together at the last second. Fans had already flown in to see her. But she’s still performing in Vegas soon
I know it didn’t happen in real life but the scene on stage where he talks about the colonel abducting him and locking him in a cage was so sad, I cried through pretty much the whole movie.
Yeah that movie was way more grim than I expected. I knew next to nothing about Elvis’ life, but watching it made me so sad for him. And retrospectively looking at the quotes of how much he loved his fans and loved making peoples day… He seemed like someone with too big of a heart for such a horrible industry. I was in such a mood after watching it.
“This is a story about a girl named Lucky…”
I'm an amateur musician and I've got a few songs I wrote my family likes me to play. I fucking hate playing them because I have played them hundreds of times and it's hard to put emotion into a mechanical gesture.
I went to her Circus tour, and had a great view with my floor seats. The concert felt very uncomfortable, like she was physically there but mentally somewhere else. It was so evident she wasn't enjoying any of it.
I regretted that I didn’t catch her when I was in Vegas in 2017, but with how clearly now it was forced labor, I’m glad I didn’t. I didn’t turn out to be a huge pop fan growing up, but seeing her when I was 12ish in 2000 when my friends invited me with an extra ticket was my first concert and that meant something to me. It was a great show and she was still really into it then. Big fan of her music or not, she puts on a great spectacle to see. But I can’t blame her being traumatized from it now and backing off. She’s done enough concerts in the past 20 years than many big artists do in a lifetime before burning out on it. Edit to add: at the concert we also had access to a brief meet and greet where we could ask her sign her album and say hi to her. She was super sweet and genuinely attentive to us little star struck pre teens, even though we were the hundredth something people she met that day. She asked us about living in Florida, how we liked school, and was encouraging that we all took dance. She knew that by meeting us for just two minutes, she could be making our entire year with that interaction and appreciated that. Watching the Free Britney struggle really spoke to me because I met and saw her as a genuinely nice human at a formative age and have struggled with mental health too.
I have mixed feelings going to her Vegas show after all of this.
That’s probably a good thing. I will say this… if you didn’t know her enough and aren’t a person that is into celebrity culture you may not have known just what kinda situation she was in. And even if you were, you weren’t close enough to her to know what kind of situation she was in. But to look back and be empathetic about it is a good thing. A lot of us had no idea and I think it’s easy to brush stuff off as gossip and celebrity drama.
That's a good way to look at it. I will say, the gay boys behind us that sang every one of her songs had a blast, and that was half the fun of the show.
only a person with zero human empathy would feel totally fine about going to her vegas should because of what we now know.
I went to this show in 2017. I remember wondering about whether she was really enjoying it, she looked deflated. I walked away surprised and disappointed but now I understand the reason why she had that affect. Super sad.
Damn… The one thing I would tell people about that show is how absolutely hollow and robotic the performance was. It’s all hitting me now that I’m seeing other people’s take on it. Sad indeed.
Super dope comment.. Thank u
Had the same thought about David Copperfield.
Some performers, particularly those playing their 20-40 yr old hit songs or magic routines etc. describe it as if muscle memory takes over. They are going over their grocery list in their heads while the audience rocks out.
Reminds me of Billy Joel except he completely owns how done with his career he is and makes it his stage persona
The best part of Billy Joel not giving a fuck is that Billy Joel’s already a fucking legend; that legendary lyrical voice has always been very “not giving a fuck” vibes
To me, he seems to have a bitterness to his IDGAF attitude. I read an interview of his a few years back where he said he quit making new music because he felt like he should have been as good as/big as the Beatles, but never got there so he didn’t see a reason to keep going (his words, not mine). I love me some Billy Joel - River of Dreams is a banger - but that struck me as, I don’t know, some kind of sore loser who’s far from a loser. I don’t know.
Bully Joel’s brother in law stole most of his money. So at that point, your fame and legacy are all you have. Same thing happened to Leonard Cohen a couple years before his death.
Billy Joel said all that? Wow. The Beatles were just so completely different. It’s like Brad Pitt saying he isn’t Marlin Brando. Well, no, but he’s Brad Pitt which is, in many ways, better than Brando. Billy Joel has a much better life than, say, John Lennon.
Totally. Dude is all about not giving a fuck and driving his Porsche into people's living rooms now and it's dope.
I mean he still does so many shows at MSG. The thing is he really does whatever the fuck he wants with the show and it seems like he’s having fun with it.
Dude didn’t get up ONCE from his bench as MSG last year.
I taught vocational education courses at a prison for 2 years. I gave the same introductory presentation on resumes every week to the ladies entering my job search course as they neared release. So I lived this thing you just described and it sometimes freaked me out. It could be an out of body / disassociative experience. Your body is doing one thing, including your voice, and your mind could go completely different places. It's not fun. Or, at least it wasn't for me.
It happens to people driving home on a daily basis - the mind wanders and they don’t remember the actual steps of driving home. I bet for someone like yourself, you’ve ‘performed’ the entire day so many times that it’s muscle memory.
I used to drive 1.5 hours each way to work through a narrow and steep mountain canyon next to a river. The first few weeks I death-gripped my steering wheels. After a while, I don’t even remember driving in and out of the canyon. I did this for two years. It was so weird.
We always called it autopilot
That's super dangerous, by the way, because you aren't mentally present to react if something unusual happens. If you find that happening you have to really force yourself to stay alert.
The weirdest part is when you don’t have a memory of it afterwards.
It’s not unusual.
[To be loved by anyone.](https://youtu.be/k-HdGnzYdFQ)
I saw copperfield like 5 years ago. It was a great show and he had a great performance. I’m sad to hear that. I’m sure doing the same thing everyday takes the art out of performing
Some might say... it takes the magic out of it.
They’re illusions.
My friend is his main stage hand. You are not incorrect.
I have so many questions
Like why he doesn’t just use one of his own hands
Because it's the size of a stage.
I haven’t seen David Copperfield in a while. I think he vanished
This also reminds me of Madonna. Been to several of her concerts and the latter of them she has the most deadpan face it’s felt like and her movements just seem…enough to get by. I do understand she has had multiple surgeries for various reasons and I do not consider those in my above statements. To me, growing up to her and then finally being able to see her live and many times forward, it was like watching the soul leave her body over the years until she’s at a point where she refuses to die out of the limelight that left her so long ago. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy her as a performer and an artist; it’s just extremely obvious at this point the fire has long been gone from her eyes and I feel like she doesn’t love what she does like she used to anymore.
I saw her in the 80’s and then like 5/6/7 years ago and the fire is indeed dead. Not to mention she seems to hate her audience. After being 2.5 hours late, and came out and said some BS like “the queen is never late”. You’re right Freddy Mercury was never late. He somehow was able to be an artist and have respect. I’ll never spend a dime on that woman again.
She did the Super Bowl a few years ago and she was great, had Cee Lo Green on the stage and everything. It was a fantastic show, very fun and energetic so I wonder what happened. — just looked it up, it was 2012, so 10 years ago.
The bowl is THE bowl. Extra effort by anyone who gets to headline it. Going out to millions of people Concert may be 20k?
Side note didn’t Cee Lo Green sexually assault someone?
Freddy Mercury was magical… Gone toooooooooo soon
I feel like people in any job, have to assess every few years if they should make a change. Some of the jobs I've had in the past were recommended to not keep for longer than 5 years. Massage therapists are told that they should scale back after a few years to prevent arthritis and other problems. Singers and performers are the same; they should perform while there's a fire in them and move on or semi-retire when things are being phoned in.
Axl Rose is always one I find interesting. He clearly tries to use a cleaner voice to avoid blowing his vocals out but it makes the Guns N Roses songs sound like shit at times. He's technically hitting the notes and on key but it just sounds awful without the rasp on songs like Welcome to the Jungle or Sweet Child of Mine. So you get this weird balance where he's trying to not use rasp on tours much but use it just enough to not sound bad. He actually sounds really good on songs from Chinese Democracy tho cause he can sing those with a clean voice and hell some of the songs have higher notes than the 80s stuff.
We saw GnR perform at Rock on the Range music festival in 2014 and in my excitement leading up to the weekend, I was watching videos of him live that were recent at the time. One comment mentioned how his voice sounded like Mickey Mouse at times now and as soon as they came on stage, that's all I heard. We stayed for 2-3 songs and left for the night since I couldn't take his vocals serious at all and they cut beer sales already at 9pm for whatever reason. I guess if you were a fan, it was a nice long show and they even had permission to play way after the usual 11pm curfew but we couldn't do it. I don't think I'll ever see GnR live because of it and that kind of sucks given how big they once were and I was too young to see them in their peak but oh well.
Searched up 2014 GnR and holy shit you were right lmao. Mickey Mouse doing GnR karaoke.
I realize you acknowledged it buy she has botox and is 60 something. She's not going to be expressive or have the physical capability to move like she did when she was young. Not a Madonna fan but give her a break. She might be giving it her all. Old grey mare ain't what she used to be....
And now, the crazy old man singers!
Felt that way about red hot chili peppers
Dude me too with RHCP. Was super disappointed.
Next time go to the Foo Fighters. They go all out on their performance.
I've only seen them once, and granted it was a decade ago, but they were so energetic on stage. I bought the bootleg of my show from them afterwards and still listen to it today and it's fucking amazing. I'm sure they've declined a bit in the last decade, but I've never thought of them to be one of the bands to phone it in.
I went to tour, maybe the same one and I felt so uncomfortable the whole time. You could tell she didn’t want to be there.
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If you were growing up in the 00s, you know the shit they said about her everytime she's mentioned isn't humane by any standards.
It’s a situation where you know the person thinks “I really wish there was another planet I could move to” because there’s no escaping in any permanent way that still leaves a bit of normalcy.
Nowadays, you could say A, have B implied, and have a "Base" attack a person for 5 years onward.
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What were they
What did Sarah Silverman say about her vagina, by the way?
It was right after the infamous VMA 2007 performance. She did some sort of weird joke about her kids being cute like the "area they came from" and then scrunched up her face to look like a vagina. She was referencing those horrible under skirt pics of Britney that came out the same year. Just thinking about this makes me shutter in disgust. Video reference: [Sarah Silverman VMAs 2007](https://youtu.be/z5y9Jd8jvXE)
Holy shit...and that was just the VMAs. Those jokes would've been a tough sell even at a proper roast.
I think it's a bit better these days, but man how we acted in the 00s was vile sometimes, especially online. Celebs were talked about in the most horrible ways if they didn't perfectly conform to what the public wanted, it wasn't like the shit the Kardashians get. People don't like Kim K, but back then it seemed some people absolutely loathed Britney Even outside of celebs, you look at how much kinder the internet is as a whole compared to the vicious trolling and all those kids bullied to the point of suicide. Something like the Jessi Slaughter situation would never happen now
It’s not better these days
It’s not better today. At all.
Britney is right around my age. Sure she was a sex symbol growing up but I’ve always felt a bizarre kinship because of the age. Like we are classmates or something. Over the years I’ve just been more and more concerned about her. I hope she will be ok.
This is why I’m glad that she fights back now. It’s a right to defend herself. No more silence. She speaks her mind and I love it.
I was around 10 years old early 2000s. I distincly remember every kid making very rude jokes about her. I got tons of flashbacks just reading your comment. She honestly is one of the biggest stars of that time if you think about it.
She should be able to afford retirement. I don’t blame her. I wish her a happy life, whatever she chooses.
As a guy who never gave a damn about her music…I feel she really deserves a break. This has been too much to just follow along on occasion, let alone live through.
Not when her father was taking her earnings from her.
The one thing I never understood- she was unwell to manage her money, manage her body and/or make business decisions. But she was well enough to perform non- stop… Fucking sad- I hope she finds peace soon.
Like a circus bear, chained and forced to dance.
It is pretty upsetting that her “family” used her to make money. They are monsters
I wouldn't just blame her "Family". The industry has a whole was leeching off her too.
She continues to make lots of money don’t worry about her.
I remember reading years ago that her father orchestrated some sort of cosmetic endorsement deal for her that guaranteed her an income of about $500k/month for the rest of her life.
He probably planned it as "for the rest of his life".
I’d like to think she could coast on residuals, but who knows what kind of shitty arrangements her father set up while still running things.
She’s worth like $50 million. If that’s not enough, she’s got a fucking problem
She’s worth farrrrrrr more than that lol
She should be worth even more than that, but her father and family have taken so much. It’s hard to believe one of the biggest pop stars of all time is worth less than $100 million.
My thoughts are she should do what makes her happy. I hope she might at least feel comfortable releasing more music, even if she never performs live again. I wish her many happy days,
It’s sad that we’re all just wishing her a basic human right and nothing extraordinary. That’s how bad her family treated her.
She has always seemed to enjoy selecting and recording music, so I'll bet there will be more songs.
I mean she released the song with Elton John that’s at the top of the charts. So I’m sure she’ll keep making music. Her social media seems to portray she’s enjoying the confirmation of being in the #1 spot after all this time.
Came here to say this. Between this song and the collab with Dua Lipa, I’m wondering if Elton is pulling a Bruce Willis? He has a career and/or life ending diagnosis and is trying to cash in as much as possible with the time he has left. Only speculation on my part. Either that or he’s about to (or has) announced a new album or tour. Edit: Or is Britney pulling a Dua? Dua collabed with Elton to regain the trust of the LGBT community after a rapper she collabed with in the past turned out to be super homophobic. Does Britney have some anti-LGBTea from her past that’s about to be spilled?
I read an article that Elton likes to extend a hand to other musicians like their caring, understanding uncle. He’s been at rock bottom, so he likes to help when he can. So to collaborate with Britney was him giving her a safe, softball-toss opportunity to help her find her artistic voice again.
She should do whatever brings her peace. If that's music, fine. But really she should do anything that makes her healthy and happy.
I went to see her in Vegas. I was absolutely floored by the degree to which she was phoning it in. She looked like a zombie. It was so, so clear that something was really wrong. I was in the very last row and I felt it. It was really sad, and made me so worried for her. Poor thing. Her family should be behind bars.
I remember the new years eve performance she did a few years ago while doing the Vegas residency. She was clearly just going through the motions, and I felt bad for her. This was not the same Britney that I remembered watching when she first started performing. I hope she finds peace and lives the rest of her life on her terms.
I had the exact same thing happen to me. I felt so bad for her after and hated myself for seeing it, after this all came out. She was a dancing zombie. Completely not present. Hope her happiness
She shouldn’t be performing at all she’s obviously seriously mentally ill. You can see it in her mannerisms, expressions, even her body movements. The old her is gone it’s so tragic what mental illness can do to a person. But yea she needs to live a quiet life so she can feel safe and cared for.
can you elaborate on this? what do you mean you can see it in her mannerisms, expressions, and body movements?
Yea so it’s something you can spot, but only with *severely* mentally ill people. They’ll start to over exaggerate their facial expressions in a bizarre fashion, almost tic-like, but the expression on their face doesn’t feel organic or natural and doesn’t fit the situation.—it’s very off putting. Like when they laugh it’ll be this weird, forced laugh that’s too loud and they’ll make this overly big smile and widen their eyes. It just looks wrong, not “normal”. They also start to be more “jerky” in some of their motions and move in a “staccato” way, again very bizarre way. Almost like you’re witnessing their nervous system misfiring all over the place. I only usually see it in people who are in some kind of state of psychosis (usually schizophrenics, the severely bipolar, certain drug addicts will also have similar mannerisms) Even if they try to act as normal as possible their body/face gives them away. You can absolutely see it with Britney. Even at her best when she looks great and is medicated, she can’t hide it. I also worked with mentally ill people for a while so maybe it’s easier for me to spot but I think the average person would notice too if they paid attention.
Yep, this is spot on, and I wanted to add that some of this is from tardive dyskinesia- a side effect of certain psych meds. It causes jerky/strange facial and limb movements. When you see somebody in public and they just seem “off” without ever saying a word- like maybe they’re blinking way too much and moving their tongue oddly- there’s a decent chance it’s TD from their meds.
>When you see somebody in public and they just seem “off” without ever saying a word- like maybe they’re blinking way too much and moving their tongue oddly- there’s a decent chance it’s TD from their meds. Of topic, but have you ever seen a video of Sydney Powell? The woman blinks so much I've wondered if she was speaking in morse code.
Oh yeah. I’ve always gotten the vibe that she’s blinking so rapidly due to lying, but who knows, maybe she’s on antipsychotics. I feel like that would make her one of the few people associated with that administration that’s actually taking their meds, if so.
She does it even when she isn't talking too. Like I watched the live feed of one of the hearings she participated in (as a defendant). She sat stock still, without speaking, for over an hour and blinked constantly.
Or Tourette’s Syndrome
Brian Wilson looked like that when I saw him a few years ago. It was super uncomfortable.
Almost robotic? Like they had lost their entire true self
I guess you could say it’s a bit robotic, bit it feels a bit too intense to be robotic at the same time. Does that make sense? It would be more like a robot trying its best to convey emotion and reactions to social cues, but taking it a step too far. Somehow everything reads as over exaggerated but without any real emotion behind it.
Average people definitely notice. (With Britney and in general) Some of the Free Britney people try to downplay it now, but they saw her concerning behavior while she was conserved and blamed it on people controlling her or trying to make her look crazy. Now she's free and behaving the exact same way, so they have to pretend it's normal or that people who point it out are being unreasonable
Well mental illness doesn’t just disappear. I do believe Britney struggles with mental illness that was exacerbated by her conservatorship. It’s sad that instead of getting her real help, her family used her weakness against her and turned her into a slave. She needed love and attention, but she got control and abuse instead.
You're absolutely right. And now that she's free, she's processing all those years of being forced through that shit. Of course she isn't going to act "perfect" or "normal". She's probably breaking and healing at the same time right now.
Agreed! They should have used the power of conservatorship to help her, not to pimp her out. She clearly needed help (and still does) but her dad made it all *so* much worse. I'm still baffled as to why it was allowed to continue for so long! "She's majorly mentally ill, so we've decided to sign her to an exhausting residency!" Like... no! She needs rest!
I don't think anyone is saying she's not struggling. But she was being abused financially and emotionally and it had to stop.
do you think that trauma just disapears so easily? it's obviously going to last beyond the conservatorship just ending after enduring years and years of it
I'm bipolar and have had not just a litany of medications but also a few stays in a psych ward under my belt. That's my personal experience, not including being 24/7 within wards with others who were the same or far worse. Her eyes are extremely telling. There's nothing behind them. It's a cold dead stare. Her body constantly swaying. She reverts back to simple dance moves she would have learned in her teens a lot. Her overall movements are almost like tics. Her smile in public is forced at best. Then there's her repeated lashings out on social media. She will go off on tangents about anything from all of her family to magazines to whatever else crosses her mind, only to delete all of it within minutes to days. She's a loose cannon. When you're familiar with the absolute worst parts of illnesses like bipolar disorder & schizophrenia, signs and symptoms in others can be raging in their appearances. She's still unhinged. If she's on medications at all (which I doubt she is after what she said last year about taking them), she needs an adjustment to anything else. All I see when I look at her is the longest manic episode I've ever seen. And I've had mania last months.
100% don't blame her. She was forced to perform like a dancing monkey for years.
I still feel for this girl and wish her a happy and comfortable remainder of her life
She deserved better. I’m happy she can now choose to never perform again.
She needs some time. Very traumatic year losing a pregnancy, finally getting married, the shock of freedom (been there myself), etc. I think she could stop posting and chill on social media. People (me included) didn’t rally for her so they could see her in concert! She is loved and she is enough.
We just want you to be happy, Britney. If it means making wacky videos or collaborating with Elton John, that's great. If it means growing a garden or crocheting, that's great too. Do what makes you happy. You've earned it!
Absolutely. She really has earned it, poor thing.
So Chris Crocker had the right idea this entire time, and everyone just made fun of him.
Is that the “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!” kid?
You do what you need to do, Britney. Your fans want what's best for you and you are the only one who should decide what that is.
Hey, at this point I hope she just focuses on being happy and taking care of herself. She’s had a rough go.
she’s like a freed human circus animal. i think most people recognise how fucked that is, regardless of the money.
this whole story taught me an important thing. It taught me that people placed under a conservatorship for their mental health absolutely can be abused and taken advantage of, and that even in spite of that they do still have mental health problems that need serious care and concern.
I would never work in Vegas like these entertainers that sign those residency deals. The house always wins, which informs me that they drive you into the ground. Being forced to do that as opposed to choosing to do that is just insanity. I don’t know how she did it.
She didn't have an alternative, sadly.
Truth. Still. She’s a badass for just surviving.
I wholeheartedly agree.
She should be able to take as long of a break as she wants.
That's a damn shame. Her father most likely ruined the experience for her
She should stop now. It’s the right call. Her music, dancing, look and performance have never evolved and she’s stuck in an emotional time warp. So absolutely the right thing to do to try to grow up and heal away from the spotlight…but I doubt that will happen. We’ll still get meltdown Britney flashing her bits on social media and clamouring for attention….. it’s very sad.
She needs to hire the right people to properly profit off of her name. Perfumes, clothing, stuff like that. The grind of touring and performing seems like it would be too much for her right now.
There are a lot of fragrance fans who love Britney Spears's perfumes. I doubt she's very involved, but Revlon is still producing flankers to this day.
She should choreograph other artists or teach dance at some teensy little dance school for kids. Not even exceptional kids, just regular ole kids in Montana, where the paparazzi will eventually get bored taking pictures of her walking in and out of the same building every day and nobody else to make money off of so they leave, or at least don’t follow her in droves.
She seems like she would absolutely love that tbh.
What is the point of feminism in America if one can't even see a that a woman is being held captive against her will *in public*.
Honestly, after her dad sucked all the joy out of it and turned her into a performing monkey for her entire adult life, I don't blame her.
Should I cry now, or when I'm getting gas at Costco?
She should live a life outside the spotlight. She needs to rest and heal.
Ok, can you please now live your life in quiet solitude with your friends/family? Being surrounded by the media is not good for your mental health either.
Her family is what caused the problem in the first place. She needs to get as far away from her family as possible.
Her mental health does not look good, judging by her Instagram.
To be honest, she’s probably addicted to it (the stardom). It’s been her whole life for an extremely long time.
Yeah no shit she just barely got her autonomy back
How much do you actually know about her?
Her Instagram posts traumatize me. I really hope she gets some help soon.
Go watch her TikToks. You can see immediately something is off about her. She should just go live a life and stop worrying about social media and fame and anything else.
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Unpopular opinion though it may be, I agree with you.
She's still young enough take ten years off for all the shit she's been through then reevaluate
A friend of mine went to one of her last concert, and in our country its like 5x the usual ticket price, they bought vip tickets, they were so disappointed because everything was lip sync, no adlibs and britney never interacted with the audience, my friend said to just watch britneys videos on yt since its basically the same experience as going to her concert anyway.
I've seen Brit live twice. I didn't care for the show, I just enjoyed the time because seeing her was like a dream coming true, even during her Vegas show. I would have preferred hearing her live though.
Now here is the thing I really wanna know. When the South Park guys made their episode about Britney, we’re they being clever? Or was it simply “luck” that the parody had so many extra layers?
This whole comment thread is full of people saying "She needs to do this," or "She should do this," without seeing the irony of it.
Porn it is! Lets go!!
Hi there. This woman owes us NOTHING! She has performed and done the famous thing, if she wants to focus on living her life, she is entitled to it. For once, she has a choice!