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Tag: Britney Spears

  • Britney Spears Says She Will ‘Never Perform’ in the US

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    Spears in 2001.
    Photo: Kevin Mazu/WireImage

    If you were hoping that maybe someday, Britney Spears would return to performing, you might have to get a plane ticket to live that dream. Spears says she has no desire to perform in the United States, but she supports her son’s musical talents and dreams. She shared a photo on Instagram of herself with a piano from her 2002 American Music Awards performance, as she plans to gift it to her son. But she doesn’t want to get back on stage herself in the United States. She writes, “I will never perform in the U.S. again because of extremely sensitive reasons but I hope to be sitting on a stool with a red rose in my hair, in a bun, performing with my son… in the UK and AUSTRALIA very soon.” Spears praises her son’s talent, calling him a “huge star.” She doesn’t specify which of her two sons she’s talking about, but she may be referring to her youngest son, Jayden, as he is reportedly in Los Angeles to pursue a music career. He also spent his second Christmas in a row with his mother, as she shared a photo of the two together over the holiday break.

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    Alejandra Gularte

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  • Kevin Federline says his sons with Britney Spears are the reason for his new memoir

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kevin Federline says concern for his two sons with Britney Spears long kept him from telling his story, and those same concerns are the reason he’s telling it now that they’re men.

    In a memoir to be released Tuesday, “You Thought You Knew,” Federline documents his difficult years as husband, ex-husband, and co-parent with Spears, who wrote her own memoir in 2023.

    Federline’s includes some salacious stories and some potentially disturbing details about her behavior that have already made headlines.

    “I want my children to be able to move forward in their lives and know that the actual truth of everything is out there,” Federline, 47, told The Associated Press in a Zoom interview, backed by palm trees in Hawaii, where he now lives with wife Victoria Prince and their two daughters. “That’s a very, very big part of this for me. And it’s really important that I share my story, so they don’t have to.”

    He and Spears’ son Preston is now 20 and his brother Jayden is 19. They have little relationship with their mother.

    Federline was a 26-year-old backup dancer for other major pop acts when he coupled with Spears in 2004. Their courtship, two-year marriage and divorce took them through one of the most intense celebrity media frenzies in modern history. Federline was ruthlessly roasted as a loser hanger-on, especially after he released his own deeply mocked hip-hop album.

    Britney Spears, center right, and her husband Kevin Federline are interviewed by Rachel from the Tyra Banks show as Tyra Banks, right, looks on while they arrive for the LG Mariah Carey and Jermaine Dupri Post Grammy Party at a private residence, Feb. 8, 2006, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

    “I wasn’t just famous — I was infamous,” he writes in the book, which will be released on the new audiobook first platform Listenin.

    He told the AP he long considered writing the book, but recently got serious about it.

    “I picked it up and put it down quite a lot over probably a five-year period,” he said. “I think that it’s a very good description of me, who I am, the father I’ve become, the husband I am, the ex-husband I am.”

    Key revelations from Kevin Federline about Britney Spears

    — Federline describes the night he and Spears first connected at a Hollywood nightclub, and how they hooked up hours later in a hotel bungalow: “Britney turned around, slipped off her underwear and started kissing me, tearing at my clothes with both hands. We stumbled toward the bed while I struggled to kick my pants off my ankles. This. Is. Happening. OK, sorry. Calm down, that’s as detailed as I’m going to get.”

    — He writes that a “San Andreas-level seismic shift in my reality” followed a few hours later when he left the hotel with Spears and dozens of paparazzi cars followed them.

    — He describes the night before their wedding, when Spears called her ex Justin Timberlake, seeking closure: “She never really got over him. She might’ve loved me, but there was something there with Justin that she couldn’t let go of.”

    Justin Timberlake, right, greets Kevin Federline as they arrive at the JT-TV launch party in Los Angeles, Feb. 9, 2007. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

    Justin Timberlake, right, greets Kevin Federline as they arrive at the JT-TV launch party in Los Angeles, Feb. 9, 2007. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

    — Federline said seeing Spears drinking while pregnant “tripped the silent alarms in my head.” He later was outraged when he saw her doing cocaine when the boys were still breastfeeding, saying “are you seriously going to go home after this and feed them like you don’t have a body full of drugs?”

    — He writes that Preston told him Spears mercilessly mocked him and once punched him in the face.

    — He says the boys began refusing to visit her when they were 13 and 14, and later told him stories that “shook me to the core.” “They would awaken sometimes at night to find her standing silently in the doorway, watching them sleep — ‘Oh, you’re awake?’ — with a knife in her hand.”

    Spears’ response to Federline’s book

    Spears responded with a statement on her social media accounts. She said Federline has engaged in “constant gaslighting.”

    “Trust me, those white lies in that book, they are going straight to the bank and I’m the only one who genuinely gets hurt here.” She said, adding that “if you really know me, you won’t pay attention to the tabloids of my mental health and drinking.”

    She also addressed her relationship with her sons:

    “I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys. Relationships with teenage boys is complex. I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life. Sadly, they have always witnessed the lack of respect shown by (their) own father for me.”

    An attorney for Spears did not respond to a request for comment.

    Federline’s life, and thoughts about Spears’ life

    Federline writes about growing up in Fresno, California, and finding “my therapy and my purpose” through dance.

    Kevin Federline, wearing a white button down shift, performs in the center of a stage with his arm raised during a concert. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

    Kevin Federline performs during a concert at the House of Blues Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

    He reminisces about his first big tour, with Pink, and working with Aaliyah, Destiny’s Child and Michael Jackson. He details wrestling with John Cena in the WWE and appearing in a self-mocking Super Bowl commercial.

    Federline says Preston and Jayden are living on their own as young adults, and have both been working on making music that makes him proud.

    He weighs in on Spears’ dissolved court conservatorship, saying it was necessary but hurt most of the people involved. He said the fans who fought to free her left an unfortunate legacy.

    “The Free Britney movement may have started from a good place, but it vilified everyone around her so intensely that now it’s nearly impossible for anyone to step in,” he writes.

    He says in the book that he wrote it in part as a public plea for her to get more help.

    “I’ve lost hope that things will ever fully turn around,” he writes, “but I still hope that Britney can find peace.”

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  • Kevin Federline Tells VF He’s “Just Trying to Help” Britney Spears With His New Memoir

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    It’s not, by any means, the hottest take in the literary world to say, “Gee, a lot of Kevin Federline’s memoir was about Britney Spears, huh?” Federline and Spears married in September 2004 after a whirlwind courtship of just a few months. Two years and two kids later, Spears filed for divorce.

    Federline is now 47 years old, but damn if that brief marriage nearly two decades back doesn’t take up the majority of ink in You Thought You Knew, his new memoir, which hit shelves Tuesday. Not only does the 228-page tome provide plenty of insight into what Federline thinks of his ex-wife’s past and current mental state, it’s a remarkable case study of he-said, she-said hypocrisy. Federline and ghostwriter Alex Holstein, editor-in-chief of boutique publisher Listenin, deliver a tale of a man who feels he’s been wronged by a woman, while engaging in some of the same behaviors he demonizes her for.

    Federline told Vanity Fair that the book in which he accuses his ex-wife of doing hard drugs while breastfeeding their children, shares details of their intimate encounters, and openly questions whether her 13-year legal conservatorship should have been lifted, is in pursuit of a better life for Spears.

    “I’m just trying to help,” he says. “This isn’t about hurting or bringing anybody down. It’s about trying to get to a place where it’s like, come on, there is still a path forward that involves you and the kids and people around you that love you, that want to bridge that gap.”

    It’s OK when Kevin does it—for varying definitions of “it”—but not Britney. Spears published her own New York Times bestselling memoir, The Woman In Me, almost exactly two years ago. Federline makes appearances, though less prominently than the role she plays in his book. Federline says he has read her memoir, but he hesitated when asked if he felt it accurately depicted their time together.

    “Look, I feel like she has the right to tell her story, and I don’t know how accurate all of it was, but I think a lot of people will stay silent on it because they just want to see her get better,” he tells VF. “Like I said, everybody has a right to tell their story.”

    Spears has already publicly pushed back on Federline’s allegations. (He says he hasn’t heard from her directly: “I haven’t spoken to her in years. We haven’t been able to communicate like that for a long time.”) Before the book’s publication date, Spears wrote on X, “The constant gaslighting from ex-husband is extremely hurtful and exhausting. I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys.” She continued, “Relationships with teenage boys is complex. I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life.”

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    Kase Wickman

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  • MTV Makes Its Lack of Music Official

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    Although MTV’s “content” focus has been reality TV and other adjacent schlock for many years now, those who remember it as the place to go for new music and groundbreaking videos by artists who once invested the time, effort and money into making them have been saddened to learn of the official loss of the “M” in MTV (formerly Music Television, but now, one supposes, just “Television”). That is to say, the music has been booted in an authoritative capacity, with Paramount, MTV’s parent company (and itself presently “A Skydance Corporation”), opting to jettison five of MTV’s “offshoot” channels—the ones that actually play videos—in the UK: MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live. While this doesn’t include the “plain” version of the channel in the US, where MTV was birthed, it still signals a larger indication of just how far the channel has fallen from its proverbial heyday.

    When it hit the airwaves for the first time on August 1, 1981 (at 12:01 a.m.), the inaugural video was The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.” A pointed statement to make as the world was on the brink of an entirely new kind of “modernism” when it came to pop culture. The music video was beyond radio, TV and film—mixing all of those elements to form an entirely new—and ultimately far more powerful and influential—entity. An entity that would shape the next few generations. Not just their style and taste, but the way in which they “absorbed” media. Because if parents thought attention spans of the youth were “short” then, they could never have imagined what was coming with the likes of TikTok, ultimate mind flayer. But before that total bastardization of what it would mean to “consume content,” MTV laid the groundwork. Seeing a void to be filled for a generation that was clearly hankering for something like this (but didn’t yet know how to put it into words), there were already one hundred and sixteen music videos to be broadcast in the first day of the channel’s airing.

    And that was just the beginning. Because two years later, in 1983, a veritable dam had opened, unleashing the music video prowess that seemed innate to both Madonna and Michael Jackson. For both 1958-born pop music icons (still billed, to this day, as the Queen and King of Pop) would have some dominating videos on MTV in ‘83. Of course, it was Jackson’s year for churning out the “blockbuster” videos of the Thriller album: “Billie Jean,” “Beat It” and, the biggest of all, “Thriller.”

    Even so, Madonna’s output in ‘83 was not to be discounted, with “Everybody” (filmed in December of ‘82) and “Burning Up” in rotation frequently enough to dispel the average listener’s initial belief that Madonna was a Black artist. A misconception that was probably a compliment to her, but, at the same time, M was aware that being white would better serve her money-making/commercial possibilities. By 1984, Madonna’s self-titled debut, released the year prior, was really starting to gain traction thanks to the next duo of music videos from Madonna released that year: “Lucky Star” and “Borderline.”

    However, it was during the final months of 1984 that Madonna would truly become a household name thanks to the part MTV played in promoting the eponymous lead single from her sophomore record, Like A Virgin. Even before the video was out or the song was an official single release, Madonna decided to debut “Like A Virgin” in a big way during the First Annual MTV Video Music Awards. It was on that night of September 14, 1984 that the long-bubbling symbiosis between Madonna and MTV was crystallized. And forever etched into the public consciousness thanks to Madonna descending from the top of a giant, three-tiered wedding cake all dressed in white as she ironically sang about how she was made to feel “shiny and new” and “like a virgin, touched for the very first time” thanks to her new love. And her new love, ultimately, was MTV. Though it wasn’t always a love that cut both ways. Something Madonna addressed in honor of the network’s tenth anniversary in 1991, when she made a special tribute video during which she said the following (while dressed in her Greta Garbo-chic hair, makeup and attire and filmed in black and white), shot in a manner that makes abrupt cuts to her next “non sequitur” (but ultimately all related) train of thought:

    “I’m here because I wanted to talk to you about…us. And all that we’ve been through. I wanted to talk about me and you. I remember when we first met. You didn’t know who you were yet. I didn’t know who I was. We grew up together. So ten years, what’s the big deal, huh? I’m not one of those people that wears clothes just because somebody gave it to me for free. Although I do like this diamond. Are diamonds really a ten-year anniversary present? You think you can make me forget everything just by giving me this? You expect me to come running back to you every time you give me a present? When will you understand that I am a person and not a thing? That I deserve to be treated like a person and not a thing! I turn my back—for one minute—and you find somebody else. You’ve been hanging out with tramps with cheap clothes and bad songs to sing. I’ve got a tattoo on my behind too, you think you’re gonna see it? I know why you spend time with her: because she’s not threatening… She doesn’t make you laugh, she doesn’t make you cry… I won’t even go into the men you’ve been hanging around with… You’ve never had more fun with anyone else—and you know it.”

    That was and is still the truth when it comes to MTV and its most iconic moments. For even the Britney Spears ones are rooted in “Madonna-ness” (most especially the 2003 VMAs). But, more than that, the speech would touch on a number of apropos and foreshadowing points regarding the direction MTV had taken in its then still germinal period. It was like a harbinger of how the network would continue to mutate as the 90s went on. For, only a year after Madonna’s immortalized “love letter,” the network would premiere its first reality show (for some, arguably, the first “proper” reality show), The Real World, in 1992. Granted, before that, House of Style was one of MTV’s earliest deviations from focusing on music as it decided that taking to “the streets” to give the hoi polloi a snapshot of the latest fashion trends, as well as the lives of supermodels (still an ever-burgeoning concept that OG House of Style host Cindy Crawford helped solidify), was just as important as playing music videos.

    Of course, by the time the late 90s rolled around, the original “premise” of MTV was all but gone, with “content” taking over instead (though that isn’t to say some of said programming wasn’t actually brilliant [see: Daria]). Which is why Say What? started airing in 1998—because it was a show designed to do what MTV had originally been “all about”: playing music videos. The fact that the network had to make such a concerted effort to “block out time” (usually no more than an hour) to do what their unofficial mission statement had originally been was, well, not a good sign…to say the least. And then came a slew of other shows in the spirit of Say What?: 12 Angry Viewers, MTV Live, Artist’s Cut, and Total Request. It was the latter, in its Total Request Live format, that would signal the third phase of MTV and its influence on a new generation. To be sure, many tween and teenage millennials would spend their after-school hours watching TRL while “doing homework.” And yes, it was during this era when Britney Spears became the reigning queen of the network, serving as the twenty-first century edition of Madonna with her own indelible visuals, including “…Baby One More Time,” “Oops!…I Did It Again” and “Toxic.”

    Reality-type shows centered on the “hottest” musicians of the day also extended into programming like Punk’d and Making the Video (Britney was a staple on both). And even the VMAs continued to offer up a steady stream of “iconic” moments up to a certain year (the Taylor and Kanye incident of 2009 being of particular note)—but probably the last major “moment” was Beyoncé doing her baby bump reveal after singing “Love On Top” at the 2011 VMAs. The lack of “memorable MTV” instances wasn’t necessarily because the network stagnated. No, instead, it just kept getting worse. But, perhaps even more than that, it had lost its core audience. Generations that no longer cared about such things (e.g., music, style, what’s “relevant” in pop culture) as they once did, having grown into the very kind of person Avril Lavigne had warned about in “Sk8r Boi” (“She sits at home/Feeding the baby, she’s all alone”). More damaging still, those generations had joined the likes of Gen Z in getting their music and pop culture fix from other internet and app-centric outlets. Even for all of MTV’s best efforts to pivot itself toward being just as available via the internet, it didn’t have the same clout.

    Then came the first truly gut-punching portent of full-tilt doom: the deletion of the entire online archive of MTV News. That meant years and years of music journalism flushed into the proverbial abyss in the wake of layoffs and the shuttering of MTV News altogether. Ever since, the descent into total oblivion for MTV has been all but guaranteed. And sure, maybe it will keep the lights on, so to speak, with some of its “tentpole” offerings (like the VMAs and, in Britain, Geordie Shore), but there’s no denying that MTV will never again be the vibrant, cutting-edge network that molded culture and public taste as it once did. Yet that isn’t entirely its own fault. Indeed, perhaps it’s best to quote Madonna paraphrasing Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond when she said in the abovementioned speech, “I am big. It’s the videos that got small.” And oh, how they have—whittled down to barely thirty seconds of “content” on a petite smartphone (that oxymoron of a word).  

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Britney Spears Not So Coincidentally Releases “Scary” to Streaming Platforms Ahead of Kevin Federline’s “Tell-All”

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    While Britney Spears may not have released an album since 2016 (which means she’s going mano a mano with Rihanna in terms of retreating from music for almost a decade now), it doesn’t mean she’s lacking for material to keep unleashing onto the masses. Which is why, every now and again, her “team” will put out some proverbial “from the vault” tracks. As they did on October 16th with an official streaming platform release of “Scary,” which originally only appeared on the Japanese deluxe edition of Femme Fatale. And, despite the eyebrow-raising about Spears’ overall “withdrawal” from participating in the songwriting or music production process of that record, it does bear noting that she actually did write the lyrics to “Scary” (along with Fraser T Smith and Kasia Livingston).

    In truth, the lyrics have Spears’ stamp all over it. Not just in terms of the “parlance” at play, but because it could also be said that Spears, at one point in her life, might have applied the following verse to Kevin Federline: “Baby, I don’t know/How I’m gonna survive/This fatal attraction/It’s gonna eat me alive/I’m not supposed to want ya/But I do like I die/It’s turned me into a monster/Like I’m Jekyll and Hyde.”

    To be sure, it was a “fatal attraction” for Spears, whose more than somewhat impetuous decision to marry Federline after roughly five months of dating (the two had been together for three months prior to announcing their engagement in July of 2004, then got married in September of that year) has resulted in a lifetime of hell in exchange for just under three years of marriage. A marriage that, according to Spears, Federline spent most of abandoning her in favor of late nights out on the town while she stayed home tending to their newborns, with Sean and Jayden born just one year apart (the former in September 2005 and the latter in September 2006).

    So, in truth, the only “monster”/“Jekyll and Hyde” behavior was coming from Federline, who seemed to turn on Spears just when she needed a trustworthy and reliable companion the most. Instead, Federline has proven that he will bite the hand that feeds him over and over again, having opted to release a “tell-all” memoir called, cringily enough, You Thought You Knew. The implication being that the public thought they knew the full extent of Spears’ “shenanigans,” both back when they were married and in subsequent years when it came to her being around their children.

    Naturally, the release of such a book has probably been a long time coming, yet only took this long because Federline is finally off Spears’ payroll (indeed, the timing of its release is no coincidence at all on that front). Besides, this is the same person who released videos that were taken unbeknownst to Spears by her own sons when they were each eleven and twelve. Videos meant to imply she’s a “crazy” and “unhinged” mother. And no, they don’t make her look very “flattering,” but it’s certainly not out of the realm of “parenting behavior” to scold one’s children for things like going into a store without shoes on (yes, ironic when considering that Spears herself had a “no shoes on at the gas station” phase). Even so, the media took the bait, reporting on the videos just after Spears had gotten out of her conservatorship (at the end of 2021; Federline posted the videos in August of 2022). And also just after she had married Sam Asghari.

    The callous action prompted Nicki Minaj to state on her Queen Radio podcast, “Do you understand what kind of a clown you have to be to be a whole grown fucking man, and as soon as you see somebody happy and getting married and moving on and being free and feeling good in their own skin, to do the very thing that you know is going to attempt to ‘break them down,’ going to the media… You know, only cowards use the media against a famous person who they once loved, they procreated with, um, they’re being taken care of by. Using the person’s fame as this constant ‘gotcha’ moment… How dare you?” Minaj then added of Jayden and Sean’s involvement, “They’re kids, they don’t know how detrimental this is. But you know, cocksucker. Leave her the fuck alone” (a sentiment she has since repeated in the wake of Federline releasing his book of lies).

    Alas, Federline cannot seem to do that. Not only releasing his “tell-all,” which includes accounts of Spears taking cocaine while breastfeeding (as if) and having an affair with a woman (okay, sure), but also going on any and every outlet that will take him to do interviews about it. Yes, it’s all very “scary” indeed. With Spears having no recourse but to actually comment on the whole thing, posting a statement on her Instagram that read, “What’s scary [that’s right, scary] is he’s convincing. It literally blows my mind the moments he stops before he cries. Are you fucking serious?” Unfortunately, yes, Federline seems to think he is. And while Spears might have been overexaggerating when she added, “I know his book will sell loads more than mine” (for there’s no way Federline would be capable of selling over two million copies of his schlock), it’s natural for her to fear that. Because both Federline and her own family have conditioned her to feel such fear for decades. And maybe, at the time when “Scary” was written, this fear was part of what she was tapping into—in addition to tapping into being scared by her own amorous feelings for another (once upon a time, K-Fed).

    As she repeats “so scary” around the one-minute, twenty-three-second mark, use of the theremin instrument is designed to play up the “spook” factor (and yes, theremins are also used in the background of movies or TV shows to denote the cliché sound associated with aliens [side note: Spears also has a song called “Alien”—wherein a version of the theremin sound is employed at the beginning]). It’s the same sound also used in Megan Thee Stallion’s own song called “Scary” (released on her 2022 album, Traumazine). And, to be sure, there ought to be a mashup of these two tracks.

    In another moment of eeriness, Spears sings, “You’re taking over my mind.” Although intended to speak from the perspective of someone who can’t stop thinking about the object of their affection, it instead reminds the listener of the effective “mind control” those behind Spears’ conservatorship had over her. Constantly manipulating her with the threat of limiting access to her children. So no wonder she also adds the following verses to “Scary”: “I wanna take over your body like like like it’s freaky Friday” (amazingly, Lindsay Lohan didn’t glom onto that phrase by posting it somewhere, desperate as she is to call out her “enduring relevance” in pop culture) and “I wanna take you to a dark place/Make you, make you, make you do it my way.” Again, these lyrics might be meant as “sexual” within the context of the song, but when taken out of it, they seem to be echoing Spears’ not-so-subconscious urge to engage in some payback at that time. Wanting to take possession of others the way they had taken possession of her, all in a bid to break free.

    So, sure, some can try to say that the release of “Scary” to streaming is timed for Halloween/“spooky season.” But the only thing that’s really spooky for Britney this season is the constant reanimation of what should have remained a spectral part of her past: Kevin Federline.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Britney Spears unleashes on Kevin Federline for ‘attacking’ her in tell-all memoir

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    Britney Spears fired back at her ex-husband Kevin Federline ahead of the release of his memoir, “You Thought You Knew.”

    Federline made multiple concerning allegations against Spears in the book, including that the pop star once punched their son in the face, Page Six reported.

    As the release date for Federline’s book, Oct. 21, approaches, Spears has called out her ex for “constantly gaslighting” her. The “…Baby One More Time” singer also accused Federline of working to profit off her pain.

    “To be loved unconditionally and with a naive heart like mine, always being threatened or made to believe I’m the bad one as they profit off my pain…” she wrote Oct. 16 on X. “Oh dear Jesus show me there is a God and I can too be loved unconditionally and not have to be so perfect cause it’s really interesting.”

    BRITNEY SPEARS’ EX KEVIN FEDERLINE CLAIMS SHE STOOD IN SONS’ DOORWAY WITH KNIFE WHILE THEY SLEPT

    Kevin Federline wrote a tell-all memoir and included claims about ex-wife Britney Spears. (Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

    Spears claimed Federline was “literally attacking” her “in his interviews.”

    “Why is HE SO ANGRY,” she wrote, before adding, “and what’s scary is he’s convincing. It literally blows my mind the moments he stops before he cries are you f—ing serious …”

    Spears noted that Federline’s memoir will likely “sell loads more” than her 2023 memoir, “The Woman in Me.”

    “If you really love someone then you don’t help them by humiliating them,” she wrote. “What scared me was how serious and angry he got, people have no idea, it is way worse than anyone could imagine… the boy hates me and it is deep anger to literally say the things he is saying.”

    Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Spears and Federline.

    Britney Spears and Kevin Federline in 2005

    Britney Spears and Kevin Federline were married for three years before finalizing their divorce in 2006. (James Devaney/WireImage)

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    Spears and Federline were married for three years. The “Circus” singer filed for divorce in 2006. During their marriage, Spears and Federline welcomed two sons. In his memoir, Federline claimed he became concerned about Spears’ time with their two boys – Jayden and Preston – after their divorce due to her alleged erratic behavior.

    However, Spears claimed she “pleaded” for a relationship with her two sons.

    “The constant gaslighting from ex-husband is extremely hurtful and exhausting,” she wrote Oct. 15 on X. “I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys. Relationships with teenage boys is complex. I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life. Sadly, they have always witnessed the lack of respect shown by own father for me. They need to take responsibility for themselves.”

    Britney Spears smiling with Kevin Federline while pregnant in 2005

    Britney Spears and Kevin Federline share two sons. (Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)

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    Singer Britney Spears wears black cut out dress on red carpet.

    Britney Spears called out Kevin Federline for including “white lies” in his memoir. (Getty Images)

    Spears also called out Federline’s “white lies” in his memoir.

    “With one son only seeing me for 45 min in the past 5 years and the other with only 4 visits in the past 5 years. I have pride too. From now on I will let them know when I am available. Trust me, those white lies in that book, they are going straight to the bank and I am the only one who genuinely gets hurt here.” 

    “I will always love them and if you really know me, you won’t pay attention to the tabloids of my mental health and drinking,” she added. “I am actually a pretty intelligent woman who has been trying to live a sacred and private life the past 5 years. I speak on this because I have had enough and any real woman would do the same.”

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  • ‘I have had enough’: Britney Spears responds to Kevin Federline allegations – National | Globalnews.ca

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    Britney Spears is speaking out against claims made by her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, after he publicly expressed concerns about her mental health.

    Over the past week, Federline has been discussing his upcoming memoir, You Thought You Knew, and his concerns for Spears. Federline and Spears were married from 2004 to 2007 and share two sons, Sean Preston Federline, 20, and Jayden James Federline, 19.

    “The truth is, this situation with Britney feels like it’s racing toward something irreversible,” Federline, 47, wrote in an excerpt of his book, viewed by The New York Times.

    “It’s become impossible to pretend everything’s OK,” Federline continued. “From where I sit, the clock is ticking, and we’re getting close to the 11th hour. Something bad is going to happen if things don’t change, and my biggest fear is that our sons will be left holding the pieces.”

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    Ahead of the release of Federline’s memoir on Oct. 21 and in response to the multitude of recent news reports on its contents, Spears took to social media to call her ex-husband out for “gaslighting” and “hurting” the 43-year-old pop star with a book she described as full of “white lies.”


    “The constant gaslighting from [my] ex-husband is extremely hurtful and exhausting. I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys,” the social media post reads. “Relationships with teenage boys is [sic] complex. I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life.”

    “Sadly, they have always witnessed the lack of respect shown by [their] own father for me. They need to take responsibility for themselves,” the post continues. “With one son only seeing me for 45 min[utes] in the past 5 years and the other with only 4 visits in the past 5 years. I have pride too.”

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    Spears’ post said that from now on she will “let them know when I am available.”

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    “Trust me, those white lies in that book, they are going straight to the bank and I am the only one who genuinely gets hurt here,” the post adds. “I will always love them and if you really know me, you won’t pay attention to the tabloids of my mental health and drinking.”

    Spears also said she had been living a “sacred and private life” since she was released from her conservatorship, which officially ended in 2021 after nearly 14 years of close supervision and monitoring.


    Click to play video: 'Britney Spears’ conservatorship officially terminated, singer says it’s ‘best day ever!’'


    Britney Spears’ conservatorship officially terminated, singer says it’s ‘best day ever!’




    “I am actually a pretty intelligent woman who has been trying to live a sacred and private life the past 5 years. I speak on this because I have had enough and any real woman would do the same,” the post concludes.

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    Earlier this week, a representative for Spears released a statement after Federline alleged that the Toxic singer watched her sons sleep “with a knife in her hand.”

    “With news from Kevin’s book breaking, once again he and others are profiting off her and sadly it comes after child support has ended with Kevin,” a representative for Spears said in response to excerpts released from the upcoming memoir.

    “All she cares about are her kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James, and their well-being during this sensationalism. She detailed her journey in her memoir,” her rep added of her 2023 book, The Woman in Me.

    Federline told The New York Times that he hasn’t spoken to Spears “in years.” But in his memoir he reportedly writes about becoming concerned with what he describes as Spears’ “erratic behavior, which he learned about mostly secondhand from their two sons.”

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    “They would awaken sometimes at night to find her standing silently in the doorway, watching them sleep — ‘Oh, you’re awake?’ — with a knife in her hand,” he alleges in the excerpt provided to the outlet. “Then she’d turn around and pad off without explanation.


    Cover image of Kevin Federline’s memoir, ‘You Thought You Knew.’.

    Listenin Inc / Sam Holden / Amazon

    He also suggested that all the fans who put their energy and efforts into the “Free Britney” movement should “now put the same energy into the ‘Save Britney’ movement.”

    “Because this is no longer about freedom. It’s about survival,” he added.

    Federline told the Times that he had not discussed the contents of the memoir with Spears.

    “I’ve never, ever, once, been against Britney,” he said. “I’ve only tried to help my sons have an incredible relationship with their mother. And it’s hard because when I really reflect on everything that’s happened — my kids do not know the woman that I married. And I’ve spent two decades trying to bridge that gap.”

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    Spears and Federline met in 2004 when he was a dancer in a Hollywood club. They married later that year, but divorced in 2006, shortly after the birth of their second son.

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  • Britney Spears’s Ex Kevin Federline Is Still ‘Profiting Off Her’

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    They’re both authors now.
    Photo: Michael Caulfield/WireImage for Sony BMG Music Entertainment

    Britney Spears doesn’t appreciate her ex-husband Kevin Federline making it sound like she was a “Toxic” parent. In his new memoir, Federline is alleging new disturbing details from Sean Preston and Jayden James’ child, as well as critiquing the #FreeBritney movement. Federline and Spears were married from 2004 to 2007, and during that time they had two children together. Shortly after Federline’s kids aged out of child support age, he’s telling all in a new memoir. Spears is addressing his claims, and what she terms as his “gaslighting.” Here’s everything we thought we knew about Kevin Federline’s You Thought You Knew.

    In his upcoming memoir, You Thought You Knew, out October 21, Federline alleges that Spears sometimes used to watch their sons sleep “with a knife in her hand.”

    Following Spears’s 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in 2008, which Federline describes in his book as “one of the hardest nights of my life,” he was granted sole custody of Sean and Jayden. Federline suggests in the book that the children had reason to be afraid of staying with Spears, who was placed under a conservatorship after the psychiatric hold. “They would awaken sometimes at night to find her standing silently in the doorway, watching them sleep — ‘Oh, you’re awake?’ — with a knife in her hand,” he alleges, per the New York Times. “Then she’d turn around and pad off without explanation.”

    In the second-to-last chapter of You Thought You Knew, Federline says the #FreeBritney movement “started from a good place,” but argues that Spears’s long-term well-being is now at risk because professionals may fear being vilified if they try to help her. “All those people who put so much effort into that should now put the same energy into the ‘Save Britney’ movement,” he reportedly urges in his writing. “Because this is no longer about freedom. It’s about survival.” According to Federline’s book, he feels like “the clock is ticking” before something bad happens to Spears. Noting that he’s worried about his sons having to deal with the fallout, he called for fans to stand by Spears, Sean, and Jayden. “Now, more than ever, they need your support,” he writes. “I’ve been their buffer for years, but now it’s bigger than me. It’s time to sound the alarm.”

    “With news from Kevin’s book breaking, once again he and others are profiting off her and sadly it comes after child support has ended with Kevin,” a representative for Spears said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. “All she cares about are her kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James and their well-being during this sensationalism. She detailed her journey in her memoir.” Spears stopped paying child support to Federline last November, the same month that Jayden turned 18 and reportedly reunited with her; Federline has denied to Entertainment Tonight that money “is at the root of” his book.

    Spears also went on Twitter to more personally address what she called “gaslighting” from Federline. “I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys,” she wrote. “Relationships with teenage boys is complex. I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life.” According to Spears, her relationship with her children was damaged because they “witnessed the lack of respect shown by own father for me.” She says one child spent 45 minutes with her in the past 5 years, and the other had 4 visits total in that time. “Trust me, those white lies in that book, they are going straight to the bank and I am the only one who genuinely gets hurt here,” she wrote. “ I am actually a pretty intelligent woman who has been trying to live a sacred and private life the past 5 years. I speak on this because I have had enough and any real woman would do the same.”

    This post has been updated.

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  • Britney Spears’ rep responds to ex Kevin Federline’s memoir allegations – National | Globalnews.ca

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    Britney Spears is responding to her ex-husband Kevin Federline’s allegations against her in his upcoming memoir, which include that she watched her sons sleep “with a knife in her hand.”

    “With news from Kevin’s book breaking, once again he and others are profiting off her and sadly it comes after child support has ended with Kevin,” a representative for Spears, 43, told Entertainment Weekly in response to excerpts released from Federline’s upcoming memoir, You Thought You Knew.

    “All she cares about are her kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James, and their well-being during this sensationalism. She detailed her journey in her memoir,” her rep added of her 2023 book, The Woman in Me.

    Federline, who was married to Spears from 2004 to 2007, expressed concern for Spears and their sons, Sean Preston Federline, 20, and Jayden James Federline, 19, in excerpts shared with the New York Times.

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    “We haven’t spoken in years,” Federline, 47, told the New York Times in an interview. But in his memoir, due Oct. 21, he reportedly writes about becoming concerned with what he describes as Spears’ “erratic behavior, which he learned about mostly secondhand from their two sons.”

    “They would awaken sometimes at night to find her standing silently in the doorway, watching them sleep — ‘Oh, you’re awake?’ — with a knife in her hand,” he alleges in the excerpt provided to the New York Times. “Then she’d turn around and pad off without explanation.

    “The truth is, this situation with Britney feels like it’s racing toward something irreversible,” he added.


    “It’s become impossible to pretend everything’s OK,” Federline continued. “From where I sit, the clock is ticking, and we’re getting close to the 11th hour. Something bad is going to happen if things don’t change, and my biggest fear is that our sons will be left holding the pieces.”

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    He also suggested that all the fans who put their energy and efforts into the “Free Britney” movement should “now put the same energy into the ‘Save Britney’ movement.”

    “Because this is no longer about freedom. It’s about survival,” he added.

    Federline told the Times that he had not discussed the contents of his new memoir with Spears.

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    “I’ve never, ever, once, been against Britney,” he said. “I’ve only tried to help my sons have an incredible relationship with their mother. And it’s hard because when I really reflect on everything that’s happened — my kids do not know the woman that I married. And I’ve spent two decades trying to bridge that gap.”


    Click to play video: 'Britney Spears’ conservatorship officially terminated, singer says it’s ‘best day ever!’'


    Britney Spears’ conservatorship officially terminated, singer says it’s ‘best day ever!’




    In August 2022, Spears responded to Federline‘s “hurtful” claims about her relationship with their sons.

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    Federline said the relationship between Spears and their two shared sons had become distant in an interview with the Daily Mail.

    “The boys have decided they are not seeing her right now. It’s been a few months since they’ve seen her,” Federline told the British publication.

    Federline claimed the boys decided on their own accord not to attend their mother’s wedding to her now ex-husband Sam Asghari. Federline said that, regardless, the boys were “happy” for their mother.

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    “This whole thing has been hard to watch, harder to live through, harder to watch my boys go through than anything else,” Federline said in the interview, referring to Spears’ conservatorship battle. “It’s been tough. It’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.”

    Spears was released from her 13-year conservatorship in November 2021. Contrary to popular opinion, Federline said he believed the conservatorship held by Spears’ father Jamie “saved” the Toxic singer.

    “I saw this man that really cared, and really cares about his family and wanting everything to be OK,” Federline said. “When Jamie took over, things got into order. He saved her life.”

    Spears responded to Federline’s claims on her Instagram story.

    “It saddens me to hear that my ex-husband has decided to discuss the relationship between me and my children,” she wrote.

    “As we all know, raising teenage boys is never easy for anyone .. It concerns me the fact that the reason is based on my Instagram … it was LONG before Instagram,” Spears continued. “I gave them everything. Only one word: HURTFUL … I’ll say it … My mother told me ‘You should GIVE them to their dad.’ I’m sharing this because I can. Have a good day folks!!!”

    Spears and Federline met in 2004 when he was a dancer in a Hollywood club. They married later that year, but divorced in 2006, shortly after the birth of their second son.

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    — With files from Global News

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  • Britney Spears’ ex Kevin Federline claims she stood in sons’ doorway with knife while they slept

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    Britney Spears would sometimes stand outside of her sons’ room when they were at her house with a knife while they slept, ex-husband Kevin Federline has claimed. 

    “They would awaken sometimes at night to find her standing silently in the doorway, watching them sleep — ‘Oh, you’re awake?’ — with a knife in her hand,” the former backup dancer wrote in his upcoming memoir “You Thought You Knew,” according to The New York Times. “Then she’d turn around and pad off without explanation.”

    Fox News Digital has reached out to Spears’ reps for comment.

    A rep for Spears told US Weekly: “With news from Kevin’s book breaking, once again he and others are profiting off her, and sadly it comes after child support has ended with Kevin. All she cares about are her kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James, and their well-being during this sensationalism.”

    Federline said the incidents made her sons, Sean Preston, 20, and Jayden James, 19, afraid to stay at her house following her split from him in 2007. 

    MELISSA JOAN HART FEELS ‘GUILTY’ FOR TAKING AN UNDERAGE BRITNEY SPEARS TO HER FIRST NIGHTCLUB IN THE ’90S

    Britney Spears and Kevin Federline in 2005.  (Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)

    He also wrote about the time in 2007 when Spears was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold at a hospital following a custody dispute in which she refused to let the boys go with his representatives. 

    “It was one of the hardest nights of my life,” the 47-year-old wrote of that night. “I felt sick over what she was going through. This was someone I had loved. Someone I had built a life with. The mother of my children.”

    Weeks later, Spears was placed on another psych hold that eventually led to her 13-year conservatorship, and Federline getting primary custody of the boys. 

    Federline admitted in an interview with The Times that he hasn’t spoken to Spears in “years,” but expressed concern that her release from her conservatorship in 2021 wasn’t a good idea. 

    Spears with her sons and Sam Asghari in 2017

    Britney Spears with her sons and Sam Asghari in 2017.  (Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)

    “It’s become impossible to pretend everything’s OK,” Federline wrote, according to The Times. “From where I sit, the clock is ticking, and we’re getting close to the 11th hour. Something bad is going to happen if things don’t change, and my biggest fear is that our sons will be left holding the pieces.”

    He urged all the people who supported the “Free Britney” movement to get her out of her conservatorship to “now put the same energy into the ‘Save Britney’ movement. Because this is no longer about freedom. It’s about survival.”

    BRITNEY SPEARS CLAIMS THERE’S ‘NO JUSTICE’ AFTER SETTLING LEGAL BATTLE WITH ESTRANGED DAD: ‘MY FAMILY HURT ME’

    Britney Spears with Kevin Federline in 2006 at an event

    Kevin Federline and Britney Spears at an event in 2006.  (Chris Polk/FilmMagic)

    Earlier this year, Spears posted a video she took of one of her sons playing the piano. She could be heard crying in the video and exclaiming, “That’s my baby!” 

    “Reposting because it’s a far better edit and excuse me crying and breathing hard !!!” she captioned the post. “I was excited !!! Mamas don’t get enough credit at all these days !!! I mean just saying !!! I made a person !!! A live breathing person and I made two of them !!! And my boys are so incredibly sweet and charming !!! I’m so blessed.”

    In June, she also shared a photo of her reuniting with Jayden. 

    But, her relationship with her sons has been fraught over the years. 

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    In 2022, the “Oops!…I Did it Again” singer wrote a revealing, since-deleted post on Instagram, accusing her sons of being “hateful” following an interview with the Daily Mail in which the boys discussed repairing their relationship with her.

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    “I know that teenagers are just hard to deal with at that age … but COME ON, there’s being rude then there’s being HATEFUL … they would visit me, walk in the door, go straight to their room and lock the door !!!” she wrote at the time. “I’m like why come visit me if they don’t even visit me !!! But I never said that because I have to be kind !!!”

    She added, “It breaks my heart because it seems to me that these days, cruelty does in fact win, although it’s not about winning or losing !!! But I can’t process how I dedicated 20 years of my life to those kids … everything was about them !!! For them to knock the breath out of me.”

    In the interview, Jayden said there is “no hate” between them and Spears, but “it will take a lot of time and effort” to fix their relationship. 

    Britney Spears performing in 2018

    Britney Spears in Las Vegas in 2018.  (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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    “I 100% think this can be fixed,” he said. “I just want her to get better mentally. When she gets better I really want to see her again.”

    “I love you a lot, I hope for the best for you,” he said directly to Spears. “Maybe one day we can sit down like this and talk again.”

    Britney Spears with her sons at a baseball game in 2013

    Spears with her sons at a baseball game in 2013.  (Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers via Getty Images)

    Federline also said in the interview that the boys decided on their own not to attend her 2022 wedding to Sam Asghari that ended in divorce a year later. 

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    In her 2023 memoir “The Woman in Me,” Spears denied Federline’s claims that she ever had serious substance abuse issues, and wrote that during their divorce he “tried to convince everyone that I was completely out of control.”

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  • Britney Spears’ “Circus” Has More Clout and Showgirl Resonance Than the Entire The Life of a Showgirl Album

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    In 2008, Taylor Swift was not only coming up in the world of music with her sophomore album, Fearless, but, more importantly, Britney Spears was making an unexpected and unprecedented “return” after, just months prior, being written off by the media as “never going to come back from” her much publicized mental breakdown. The one most closely associated with the illustrious images of her shaving her own head at a Tarzana hair salon on February 16, 2007. Although her performance at the VMAs later that year was meant to be her much-too-rushed “comeback,” Spears famously “bombed” (by the previous standards she had set for herself) while freely lip-syncing “Gimme More,” the lead single from Blackout. The performance was panned, unjustly so, and Spears went on a continuing emotional spiral for the rest of the year that led to her infamously and tragically being strapped to a gurney on January 3, 2008. A horrendous start to the new year.

    As was being placed in a conservatorship soon after on February 1, 2008. Meanwhile, Swift was building up toward releasing Fearless, which would come out in mid-November of that year. The same month that Spears released Circus, her sixth album. In celebration of its release, the title track and second single was put out on December 2nd, Spears’ twenty-seventh birthday (and, to be sure, there were many people who, earlier that year, probably thought Spears was at risk of joining the “27 Club”). The accompanying video, directed by Francis Lawrence (who had previously directed Spears’ perhaps more iconic “I’m a Slave 4 U”), not only centers on various product placements (chief among them, Bvlgari and Spears’ own fragrance), but also Spears as the ringleader of a circus. Yet, despite this theme, there is an undeniable element of “showgirl-ness” to the costumes she wears, in addition to appearing in a dressing room with a brightly-lit vanity mirror before taking her place at the center of the ring.

    And with just the opening verse alone, Spears says more about what it means to be a “showgirl” (a.k.a. born performer) than the entirety of Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl album: “There’s only two types of people in the world: the ones that entertain and the ones that observe/Well, baby, I’m a put-on-a-show kind of girl/Don’t like the back seat/Gotta be first.”

    By this time in the video, the viewer has already caught a glimpse of her wearing a see-through number while standing in front of a signature red curtain—the kind that only hangs in front of a stage, used in many an “old-timey” theater. Soon after, she’s walking through the fairgrounds, interacting with her fellow performers by dancing with them. After all, the song is also primarily about her love for this form of expression, and the ways in which dancing in certain environments can create the same kind of chaotic atmosphere as a circus ring. That atmosphere further compounded by the presence of all manner of performers, including a contortionist, ribbon twirler and stiltwalker.

    Spears joins in with her fellow showpeople in the center of the ring for a high-octane dance number that proves her assertion, “I’m like a firecracker, I make it hot/When I put on a show/I feel the adrenaline movin’ through my veins/Spotlight on me and I’m ready to break/I’m like a performer, the dance floor is my stage/Better be ready, hope that you feel the same.”

    For it is the essence of a showgirl (an inherent people-pleaser) to want the audience to respond to the enthusiastic energy they’re giving off. Spears, even despite being forced to be a “workhorse” for her family throughout every tour starting from 2009’s The Circus Starring Britney Spears, always wanted that positive reaction from those taking in her spectacle. Yet, even though Spears initially boasts of being the one to watch in “Circus,” unlike Swift, she proves herself a more legitimate showgirl in that she actually wants “the common folk” to be a part of her show, urging, “Don’t stand there watching me, follow me/Show me what you can do/Everybody let go, we can make a dance floor/Just like a circus.”

    The showgirl element of the “Circus” video begins to really ramp up once she starts to do her “whip and chair choreography” (timed for the moment when she sings, “I run a tight ship, so beware”), soon followed by one of the most visually stunning moments, when Spears is shown in profile as sparks fly above her, raining down behind her, in fact. Something she’s unfazed by, as any seasoned showgirl would be. This is but a preamble to dancing inside a ring that’s now on fire (a.k.a. a ring of fire). And no one knew/knows that metaphor better than Spears, who endured far more flak and scrutiny during the span of 2006-2008 alone than Swift has gotten in her entire career.

    Regardless, it’s apparent that Swift is but one of many millennial girls who very much wanted to be Spears (or at least be as adored as her). This being a key reason why “The Life of a Showgirl” featuring Sabrina Carpenter (a fellow Brit enthusiast and frequent homage-payer), the final track on said album, almost comes across as though it was inspired, in some sense, by Britney—the ultimate millennial showgirl. The one who, in Swift’s mind, would have warned/cautioned her against becoming a pop star (the modern equivalent of a showgirl). Thus, Swift painting the picture of visiting a star backstage after seeing her perform. This includes the verses, “I said, ‘You’re living my drеam’/Then she said to me/‘Hеy, thank you for the lovely bouquet/You’re sweeter than a peach/But you don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe/And you’re never, ever gonna/Wait, the more you play, the more that you pay/You’re softer than a kitten, so/You don’t know the life of a showgirl, babe/And you’re never gonna wanna.”

    Although Spears posted side-by-side images of the two known photographs of her and Swift together with the caption that the first time they met was during the Oops!… I Did It Again Tour “in 2003,” that doesn’t really track considering that said tour ended in 2001. More plausibly, Swift would have met Spears while she was on 2004’s The Onyx Hotel Tour, at which time Swift would have been fourteen (turning fifteen after that tour ended in mid-2004).  Whatever the specifics of the meeting, it happened, and it undeniably influenced Swift. A much as Spears’ music and various indelible performances, whether live or in the music video format. For Swift, that Spears influence was revealed in a very blatant manner just three years after Spears debuted her ringleader costume at The Circus Starring Britney Spears.

    While performing “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” at the 2012 MTV Europe Music Awards, Swift essentially re-created not only the entire “Circus” video, but also donned a ringleader ensemble that was very similar to the kind that Spears wore for her The Circus tour. Undoubtedly, Spears’ showmanship for the Circus era played a part in this specific rendition. And, funnily enough, Swift would have met Spears for the second time after becoming famous in September of 2008 at the MTV VMAs, when Swift was nominated for the lone, measly award of “Best New Artist.” An image that reveals the stark contrast between before and after fame, as Swift looks far less, shall we say, “rough-hewn” in it.

    Alas, for all that Britney might have “taught” Taylor about the life of a showgirl, it still never seemed to sink in that having “grit” (like Brit) is what really makes such a performer. And while Swift might insist she has that combination of chutzpah and tenacity with a song like “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” there’s no denying that Spears not only earned her stripes in a way that “softer than a kitten” Taylor never had to, but also the fact that she smiled through her pain in a way that Swift could never possibly fathom. In this regard alone, Spears has more to say about the life of a showgirl than Swift, with “Circus” itself (in spite of being produced and co-written by, unfortunately, Dr. Luke) having more bona fide showgirl dazzle in its three minutes and twelve seconds than the entire forty-one minutes and forty seconds of The Life of a Showgirl.

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  • Selena Gomez marries Benny Blanco: ‘My wife in real life’

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    Selena Gomez has married music producer and songwriter Benny Blanco, announcing the news in an Instagram post showing the couple kissing and embracing on a lawn.”My wife in real life,” Blanco responded to the post Saturday by the Grammy- and Emmy-nominated performer. Gomez wore a white halter bridal dress with floral flourishes, and Blanco wore a tuxedo and bow tie, both custom-made by Ralph Lauren. Video above: Selena Gomez goes cold turkey for good reasonPaparazzi had snapped photos of a massive outdoor tent and other preparations in the Santa Barbara area.Friends in the entertainment industry and brands she’s linked to responded with heart emoji and congratulations. “Our Mabel is MARRIED,” said the account of her “Only Murders in the Building” series, and her Rare Beauty line of cosmetics posted: “so happy for you two.” Best wishes were also sent by Camila Cabello, Amy Schumer and others.Blanco, 37, and Gomez, 33, met about a decade ago and got engaged at the end of last year. They worked together on the 2019 song “I Can’t Get Enough,” which also featured J Balvin and Tainy. Among the songs he’s credited on as a writer and producer: Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream,” “Circus” by Britney Spears and Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger.”Gomez, whose hits include “Calm Down,” “Good for You,” ”Same Old Love” and “Come & Get It,” has been in the spotlight since she was a child. She appeared on “Barney and Friends” before breaking through as a teen star on the Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place.” She earned awards nominations in recent years for her ongoing role alongside Martin Short and Steve Martin in Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building.” Gomez has a massive audience on social media with 417 million Instagram followers, the most for any woman on the platform.

    SANTA BARBARA, Calif. —

    Selena Gomez has married music producer and songwriter Benny Blanco, announcing the news in an Instagram post showing the couple kissing and embracing on a lawn.

    “My wife in real life,” Blanco responded to the post Saturday by the Grammy- and Emmy-nominated performer. Gomez wore a white halter bridal dress with floral flourishes, and Blanco wore a tuxedo and bow tie, both custom-made by Ralph Lauren.

    Video above: Selena Gomez goes cold turkey for good reason

    Paparazzi had snapped photos of a massive outdoor tent and other preparations in the Santa Barbara area.

    Friends in the entertainment industry and brands she’s linked to responded with heart emoji and congratulations. “Our Mabel is MARRIED,” said the account of her “Only Murders in the Building” series, and her Rare Beauty line of cosmetics posted: “so happy for you two.” Best wishes were also sent by Camila Cabello, Amy Schumer and others.

    Blanco, 37, and Gomez, 33, met about a decade ago and got engaged at the end of last year. They worked together on the 2019 song “I Can’t Get Enough,” which also featured J Balvin and Tainy.

    Among the songs he’s credited on as a writer and producer: Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream,” “Circus” by Britney Spears and Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger.”

    Gomez, whose hits include “Calm Down,” “Good for You,” ”Same Old Love” and “Come & Get It,” has been in the spotlight since she was a child. She appeared on “Barney and Friends” before breaking through as a teen star on the Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place.”

    She earned awards nominations in recent years for her ongoing role alongside Martin Short and Steve Martin in Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building.” Gomez has a massive audience on social media with 417 million Instagram followers, the most for any woman on the platform.

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  • JADE’s Love is “Unconditional”

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    Marking the seventh song to be “unveiled” from That’s Showbiz Baby just ahead of its release, JADE’s “Unconditional” embodies another disco-fied sound that’s comparable to “Plastic Box.” And, though each song was crafted by different producers (the former by Grades, Oscar Görres [a.k.a. OzGo] and MNEK, and the latter by Sabath), both of their sounds and lyrical motifs share some DNA, with “Plastic Box” representing one kind of love and “Unconditional” another. In the former, she speaks to romantic love (as inspired by the “toxic energy” she had toward her boyfriend, Jordan Stephens, at the outset of their relationship—mainly due to her own jealousies about his ex) and, in the latter, she speaks to familial love. For she was specifically motivated to write the song because of and as a tribute to her mother, who has had an ongoing battle with lupus ever since JADE was a child. Hence, a verse like, “If only my love could be your medication/I could fix you so much better than your own prescription/If I lose you now, then I lose it all/If you’re going down, I can take the fall.”

    In a certain sense, it has a similar theme to Taylor Swift’s 2019 song (dedicated to her own mother), “Soon You’ll Get Better”—except “Unconditional” is far less of a cheesy buzzkill. Indeed, it was JADE who commented to The Guardian of the danceable disco beat (one that’s Robyn-worthy, which is saying something), “How can I write a really sad song that we’re all going to want to shake our tits to?” The answer lies, perhaps, in her characterization of the track as “Donna Summer meets MGMT meets Beth Ditto.” Though it definitely fits in more with Donna’s oeuvre than MGMT’s or Beth Ditto’s. As for the “official visualizer,” directed by twin sisters Fa and Fon (who previously worked with JADE on “Midnight Cowboy”), it actually comes across more like a right proper music video, with JADE bringing her A-game in terms of treating it like there should still be some sort of narrative.

    So it is that the “visualizer” starts out with her getting hair and makeup done in her dressing room, then anxiously pacing around in it once her glam team is gone. Almost as if she’s nerve-racked about something—like, say, her mother’s health. Or any other loved one that might be suffering, whether emotionally or physically. Such concerns are apparent in the first verse, during which JADE frets, “If I lose you now, then I lose it all/If you let me down, don’t know who I’d call.” Her sense simultaneous of anxiety and devotion continues to radiate from the subsequent pre-chorus and chorus, “You got me kickin’, shakin’ and screamin’ for ya/Got nothin’ you could do to make me leave/Ah, ah, ah, ah/Unconditional/I will hold your hand forever/Even if my heart explodes/Unconditional/I can’t put you back together/But I’ll always love you so.” Whitney and Dolly know something about that, too.

    Amidst her pacing and panicking, someone else walks in and, per the caption, tells her, “Jade, we’re ready for you.” With more than just some degree of reluctance, she leaves the room, at which time the disco-fied beat drops, echoing the one in Anita Ward’s signature disco hit, “Ring My Bell.” From there, we see her engage in all manner of different photoshoots, perhaps meant to remind her fans that she had to do many style changes for the sake of her album cover, which features her in five different guises (sort of like a one-woman Spice Girls [since Little Mix didn’t have five members]). At one point, while she’s on the phone with someone (yet again), she bemoans, “I can’t talk right now. I’m in a fucking teacup!” (yes, literally—she’s sitting in a giant teacup). This “said,” once more, through a caption. Granted, most of these captions are lyrics to the song, with JADE conveying the same emotionalism evoked by her words. This done mostly via looking as though she’s on the verge of tears at any given moment, especially when she’s on the phone. Perhaps intending to instill the idea that she’s talking either to her mother or someone who’s giving her a health update about her mother.

    Whatever the case may be, the award for best actress goes to JADE, who also indicates that there is an immense amount of pressure put on performers to always be “on,” even when the turmoil of their personal lives might be weighing on them. This conveyed as JADE is forced to go through shoot after shoot, enduring the rigmarole of being “done up” and restyled over and over again.

    Indeed, there is a moment when she’s getting her makeup done (while sporting blonde hair and a generally Showgirls-meets-Euphoria kind of aesthetic) that has shades of Britney Spears’ disaffected look while playing Lucky in the video for the song of the same name. Further reiterating the idea that being a “star” can actually be quite inconvenient when it comes to nurturing one’s personal life. And as the song comes to a close, with JADE belting out the chorus for the final time, it all gets to be too much for her to keep doing the work. To keep being constantly photographed and “handled” by everyone.

    Thus, there comes a breaking point where, amidst the cameras flashing, she proceeds to run away from everyone (in a scene that has plenty of Madonna in the “Drowned World/Substitute for Love” video vibes). All iterations of herself effectively fleeing the scene. But it’s the blonde JADE that we see carry out the escape in its entirety, running down the street with her phone while still wearing underwear that reads, “Ride of your life” on the back. Because, yes, she’s ready to drop everything and “just ride” (rather than be ridden, as it were) if it means she can be there for the person she loves.

    As for the mélange of disco meets rock sounds (so maybe that is where the Beth Ditto influence shines through) that take turns dominating throughout the track, JADE noted to Zane Lowe, “There’s, like, a merging, and I think that’s where I strive, is, like, the merging and sort of Frankenstein-ing of sounds to create what is the JADE of it all.” With “Unconditional” being one of the best examples yet of said “Frankenstein-ing.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Sabrina Carpenter Pays Fashionable Homage to Cher, Britney Spears, Madonna, and Marilyn—In One Night

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    Sabrina Carpenter is the undisputed queen of vintage. Her musical epic, punctuated by her global hit “Espresso,” never ceases to embrace the codes of yesteryear, as in the case of her latest single, “Tears,” with its ’80s disco pop sounds, which she performed on stage at the VMAs 2025 last Sunday. For her performance, Carpenter first appeared on stage wearing a fringed top adorned with rhinestones and a matching miniskirt. But halfway through, the singer changed up her look. The new outfit? A diamond-spangled halter bra and black sequined mini-shorts. It was a more daring and sexy ensemble, not to mention a nod to a pop star from the 2000s: Britney Spears.

    Sabrina Carpenter on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards 2025 on September 7, 2025 in New York.

    Christopher Polk/Getty Images

    Christopher Polk/Getty Images

    In 2001, Spears wore a similar bra designed by Bob Mackie for a performance of “Baby One More Time” featured in an HBO documentary about her Dream Within a Dream Tour. Originally, the lingerie piece was designed for the Las Vegas revue Jubilee! in 1981. However, the bra sold at auction this year for $78,000 (over 66,200 euros); Sabrina Carpenter’s version being a replica, not the original.

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    Carpenter’s vintage fashion marathon and tribute—not only to Mackie but another foundational pop diva—continued outside the musical ceremony. And yes, you’d have thought that after winning three awards, including Album of the Year for Short n’ Sweet, the singer would be tuckered out, but no, far from it. Carpenter celebrated her victory at her own “Sabrina54” afterparty, and donned another look straight from Cher‘s archives for the occasion.

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    Olivia Batoul

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  • Madonna’s Influence Once Again Makes Itself Known in the Work of Sabrina Carpenter—This Time Via Her 2025 VMA Performance

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    Just when you think Sabrina Carpenter might be taking a break from her busy schedule of making Madonna references (whether doing her interpretation of M as Marilyn for Vogue [after already doing her interpretation of M as Marilyn from the 1991 Oscars] or infusing “Like A Virgin” aesthetics into a “Bed Chem” BRIT Awards performance), she goes and does something like her live debut of “Tears” for the MTV VMAs. And while most pop culture connoisseurs were quick to make the connection between Carpenter’s “Tears” performance and the rain-soaked “…Baby One More Time” performance from Britney Spears’ 2001-2002 Dream Within a Dream Tour, the overall Madonna-ness of what was happening onstage couldn’t be denied. Starting, perhaps first and foremost, with the set design taking its inspiration from late 70s NYC.

    This blip was, of course, not only one of the heights of the city’s “creativity bursts,” but also the very era when Madonna herself blew into town to become part of that vibrant creative scene flourishing amidst the urban decay. Because, yes, the mid- and late 70s were also the peak of New York’s financial crisis—hence, the infamous New York Daily News headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead” when ol’ Gerald refused, initially, to give a bailout to NY when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. A reality that became glaring in its ever-crumbling buildings and infrastructure. Accordingly, the town devolved into a crime-ridden horror show, the stuff of nightmares. To the point where law enforcement actually distributed a now notorious pamphlet at the airport called “Welcome to Fear City,” designed to warn visitors about all the various perils that would meet them should they dare to set foot inside the cesspool.

    Despite all the warnings to people about visiting this modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, let alone living there, dreamers and “free spirits” (so often “code” intended to refer to people in the LGBQTIA+ community) couldn’t be dissuaded. The arrival of these “brave souls” who chose to set up shop in the city at a time when it wasn’t just affordable, but actually dirt cheap resulted not only in a hotbed of experimental creativity, but also a hotbed of sexuality—oozing out of everyone’s…apertures. Even after the AIDS epidemic cast a dark pall over everything as soon as the 80s arrived. Almost like a swift punishment for all those unmitigated, orgiastic good times in the 70s.

    The kind of times that Madonna conveys so well in her work—revisiting it often in her visuals and sounds. Case in point, her performance of “Deeper and Deeper” during 1993’s The Girlie Show. Awash in sweltering, rhythmic writhing, Madonna and her dancers, all outfitted in 70s, nightclub-ready attire, turn the stage into one giant, festering pore of sexuality (a look and theme also revisited in the video for and live performances of 2005’s “Hung Up”—another very 70s number, and not just because it samples from ABBA). Carpenter attempted a tamer version of that for “Tears” during the VMAs (but then, the entire ceremony was decidedly tame this year, with Carpenter’s appearance standing out as the most “salacious” of all—and mainly because it was the queerest). Because, although there might have been plenty of flamboyant gays to go around, it didn’t mean things weren’t going to remain “family friendly” (since so many pearl-clutchers make the correlation that to be gay is to be “unfriendly” toward the proverbial family). After all, the show was being broadcast for the first time ever on CBS. The type of network that generally reaches an older demographic than MTV was once accustomed to.

    That said, many viewers likely had no idea what Sabrina and co. were talking about with all their mention of “dolls” on the protest signage being paraded around the stage. A stage that looked almost as fraught and filled with queerness as the segment in The Girlie Show that begins with “Express Yourself” and segues into “Deeper and Deeper” (itself a 70s-themed video). Emphasis, of course, on “almost” for Carpenter and her dancers’ performance. For while it might be intentionally visually chaotic, there is nothing sexually fraught about it, with Carpenter using words (through the abovementioned protest signs) instead of physicality to get her pro-LGBTQIA+ message across.

    Madonna, in contrast, was never afraid to get visceral—“uncomfortably” sexual—when it came to showcasing queer love. This done at a time when it was considered especially “disgusting” by conservatives (and “liberals” alike) as a result of AIDS. But rather than recoiling from the idea of showing physical touch among her queer dancers, Madonna leaned into it all the more, in both the Blond Ambition Tour and The Girlie Show, which both toured the world at a time when the AIDS scare was still at a peak. For, as she puts it during her The Girlie Show rendition of “Deeper and Deeper,” “Sometimes you gotta tell the world the way you feel. Even when they don’t wanna hear about it.”

    While Carpenter is “noble” for addressing a topic that “the world” doesn’t want to hear about and for being the only musical act during the 2025 VMAs to say something even remotely political (shit, even Lady Gaga couldn’t be counted on for it this time around), she still didn’t go as “all the way” as Madonna surely would have. And it isn’t just the 70s stylings of this segment in The Girlie Show that draws easy comparisons to Carpenter’s “Tears” performance. There’s also her 2019 “God Control” video, during which she, once again, returns to the 70s for a night out at the disco where gun violence breaks out within the erstwhile “safe space” for queer people.

    The song, like “Tears,” also has 70s-infused musical backing, produced in the spirit of disco. Yet another reason why the “Deeper and Deeper” connection was made to “God Control” (with both videos sharing a club setting, albeit the latter with a far more macabre tone). And as Madonna dances all devil-may-care in the moments before an armed white male enters to shoot up the place, the contrast between what the viewer sees and the chirpy sound of her voice singing, “This is your wake-up call/We don’t have to fall/A new democracy/God and pornography” is of a breed of irony and sardonic humor that Carpenter has yet to master.

    In her own 70s-infused way, Carpenter is also saying “this is your wake-up call” to those who don’t understand that the loss of trans rights is the loss of human rights. And that when one sect of humanity is degraded in this way, no one else is safe from such harm either. She just happened to present it in a less “in your face” manner than Madonna would have, opting to incorporate a random Britney reference as well. One that seemed to be done mostly for the sake of looking “hot” while being political. Something Madonna has also frequently done without being quite so random about her allusions. In any case, one modern hetero blonde pop star advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community is better than none.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Apart from Sabrina Carpenter, the 2025 VMAs Keeps It Pretty Tame (and Straight)

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    Perhaps it was only right that Doja Cat should kick off the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards with a performance of her lead single from Vie, “Jealous Type.” Not just because it throws shade at the notion of how artists get so competitive with one another at these sorts of award shows, but because, with her “new” sound embodying the sonic landscape of the 80s, it’s in keeping with the identity of the erstwhile “cable” network that was born at the dawn of said decade. A channel that changed the entire industry forever in that it made musicians fully grasp that their music was in need of a visual just as memorable (and/or “iconic”) as the song itself.

    To further heighten the overall “80s-ness” of her performance, Doja Cat appeared amidst the kind of set design that can best be described as something out of Patrick Nagel’s wet dreams. And then, of course, there was her decision to tap Kenny G as the person to perform the opening saxophone solo of the track (though, obviously, no saxophone solo will ever hold a candle to the one in “Careless Whisper”). She was also certain to evoke more than slight hints of Janet Jackson in the musical dance break toward the middle of her performance, which was rounded out with a keytar player that looked like a former member of Jem and the Holograms. All of which is to say that there’s definitely a reason the word “nostalgia” was used to describe the ceremony. Since, of late, that’s what MTV has been coasting/banking on in terms of staying afloat. This clearly being part of the reason that, for the first time, the ceremony was also aired on CBS, a network not exactly known for appealing to “youths.”

    In this sense, it’s as though MTV has decided to pander to the Gen Z view of their network as something dated, out of touch and generally “dinosaur-y” (a reality that still seems unfathomable when considering how “edgy” it once used to be). And yet, a great many of the musicians that dominate TikTok were in attendance, including Doja, Tate McRae, Sabrina Carpenter, Sombr and Conan Gray. However, those considered of the “older” generations now, including Mariah Carey and Lady Gaga also took precedence in terms of their performances.

    As for Mariah, who received the Video Vanguard Award this year (marking her first Moonman ever), her medley touched on “Sugar Sweet,” “Fantasy,” “Honey,” “Heartbreaker,” “Obsessed,” “It’s Like That” (interpolated with “Dangerous Type”) and “We Belong Together” (complete with a violin-playing ensemble behind her). And even her alter ego, “Bianca,” made a little cameo onstage. Her first appearance being in the “Heartbreaker” video as “the other woman” that Mariah catches Jerry O’Connell with at the movie theater. Alas, the homage to her greatest hits was more than slightly flaccid, especially since, after Carey’s appearance, she was quickly outshined by the greater dynamism of a live broadcast of Lady Gaga’s performance of “Abracadabra” and “The Dead Dance” from her Mayhem Ball show at Madison Square Garden. This (the fact that Gaga didn’t actually perform at the VMAs venue), however, further proving, in some sense, that the awards show was mostly phoning it in.

    What’s more, Gaga didn’t have a very queer performance, at least not in a “hit you over the head” kind of way. Nor did she have a very sexual one. Even so, there were errant moments of “spiciness.” Namely, when it came to Tate McRae dancing to her hits, “Revolving Door” and “Sportscar,” with her coterie of muscular male backup dancers starting out as “statues” on platforms before jumping in to join her for “Sportscar” and, then, to quite literally play in the same sandbox as her.

    Then, of course, there was Sabrina Carpenter, who, in the absence of both Madonna and Chappell Roan, appeared to take up the mantle for showcasing queerness onstage thanks to her rendition of “Tears.” That queer and trans advocacy being on-brand for the accompanying The Rocky Horror Picture Show-themed video. Throwing it back to late 70s-era New York vibes (since, again, most of the musicians at the VMAs are relying on already overdone sound tropes of the past for their “current” selection of music), Carpenter emerges from a sewer next to a trash bag as drag queens gather ‘round to have a kiki. Toward the end of the performance, there’s a bit of an “It’s Raining Men”-meets-Flashdance-meets Britney singing “…Baby One More Time” during the Dream Within a Dream Tour (and Carpenter is no stranger to imitating her at the VMAs either) moment when water begins raining down on Carpenter and the stripper-looking cops dancing next to her. The queer folk parading around the stage with protest signs that offer such insights as, “If you hate you’ll never get laid,” “Protect Trans Rights” and “Dolls Dolls Dolls” reminded the audience that, with the current administration in office, these are messages well worth reiterating. Particularly before the boot comes down completely, and all such forms of free speech are suppressed.

    Swinging the pendulum back toward straightness, Sombr, who comes off like a mash-up of Benson Boone (sonically and visually) and Austin Butler (just visually), also did his quote unquote best to “sex it up,” albeit with a very straight male perspective as requisite “hot girls” danced around him while he sang “12 to 12.” This after commencing the performance with “Back to Friends.” His only other “male competition” (in the same age bracket, that is) was Conan Gray, who served as this year’s dose of Kate Bush-meets-Chappell Roan with his romantic performance of “Vodka Cranberry.”

    As for the big winners of the night, Lady Gaga, Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande, all three played up their gratitude and appreciation for the fans (this being the go-to for the VMAs, whereas “God” is usually for the Grammys). And yet, one wonders anymore who MTV thinks that demographic includes. For, the older the network gets, it doesn’t appear to matter if they have the “newest” (ergo, youngest) acts onstage. Because, more and more, MTV is playing it as safe as possible—this extending to a kind of “sexlessness” and general lack of controversy compared to years past.

    It’s also saying something that the tameness of the show comes at a time when Paramount (a.k.a. MTV’s “parent” company) is accused of cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, ultimately, because of an Orange One-related vendetta. Perhaps prompting MTV to keep its content less “offensive” to certain (political) parties, while also trying to keep appealing to the generations it started out with: X and millennial. In other words, the generations that can even still remember what a marvel it was to have cable.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • War of the Denim Brands Trying to Play Up the 2000s (a More Marked Time of White Supremacy BTW) Instead of “Great Jeans”

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    Ever since Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle got it so wrong with their jeans ad, it’s been a free-for-all of shade-throwing on the ad campaign front. It started with Beyoncé, who released the final installment in her series of Levi’s commercials about two weeks after the American Eagle campaign was unveiled. Though, thanks to the daily rounds of fresh invective, the AE campaign still felt much more recent (especially by modern standards, when anything more than a day old is “old”) when Beyoncé’s Levi’s commercial dropped. Almost as if she (and Levi’s) were purposefully trying to show them “how it’s done.” And yet, even Beyoncé, often deemed as “ironclad” or “bulletproof” on the instant success front as Taylor Swift, didn’t exactly alight the masses with her campaign. Which, perhaps worse than saying something “incendiary,” said nothing much at all. 

    Thus, when Gap emerged with its own “little response” (whether admitting that it was a response or not) to the whole jeans controversy in mid-August, they decided to say it best by saying it with Katseye (don’t worry if you hadn’t heard of them until now) bopping around amongst many other dancers to the tune of Kelis’ signature 2003 hit, “Milkshake.” Which apparently feels as “fresh” and “relevant” to the youths of today as it did to the millennials of yore (particularly after the song cameo’d in 2004’s Mean Girls). And, on a side note, it would seem Kelis takes less issue with the song being used to sell denim than she does with it being used to sell Beyoncé herself. Or, more specifically, her music. For who could forget Kelis’ none too favorable reaction to “Mrs. Carter” sampling “Milkshake” for track four of Renaissance, “Energy”? So unfavorable was the reaction, in fact, that Beyoncé “quietly” just removed the sample the same way she removed the phrase “Spazzin’ on that ass” from “Heated” (replacing it with a perhaps even more suggestive phrase: “Blastin’ on that ass”).

    But there’s nothing “quiet” about the reanimation of “Milkshake” in 2025, the year when the saturation of 00s pop culture has reached an ostensible new apex, even though few thought that could be possible after Euphoria makeup and the remake of Mean Girls in 2024. But no, 2025 is gunning hard for the 00s to come back (even in terms of Lindsay Lohan making her own umpteenth “return” with Freakier Friday, released the same year, incidentally, as “Milkshake”). 

    Ironically enough, however, the 00s were a prime time for white supremacy. Reigning truly “supreme” in that no one was talking about the surfeit of whiteness in media at the time. Or the fact that someone like Jennifer Lopez or Lucy Liu was about as “exotic” as Hollywood was willing to get in film, music or any other entertainment medium. That lack of representation, it was all just accepted. Taken at face value. And this is part of why Sweeney and American Eagle (itself a brand very much associated with the 00s, along with Abercrombie & Fitch) might be the most “authentically” 00s of all in that they unleashed an ad campaign that assumes the presence of a customer mindset that truly is still “locked in” with that era.

    The era when the blonde girl with the “‘hot’ body” (to borrow a phrase from Janis Ian’s [Lizzy Caplan] chalkboard plan on how to take down Regina George) was never to be questioned, made fun of and certainly not accused of promoting white supremacy with a dubious tag line (“Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”) that was paired with an even more suggestive commercial “monologue” (“Genes are passed down to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color… My jeans are blue”).

    Thus, the Katseye x Gap campaign stood out even more by not only calling upon 00s semiotics and sounds, but also adhering to what the tenets of capitalism do best by repackaging what’s old, making it “new” again and selling it back to the masses. And since Gap commercials at their most successful are always known for the “all-white backdrop,” this latest one hit all the right notes of nostalgia. Considering that’s about the only thing everyone can afford to get high on now, it’s being ramped up all the more with each passing year.

    Hence, Addison Rae, a Gen Zer who clearly identifies as a millennial, also getting in on the 00s nostalgia action with her own ad campaign for Lucky Brand Jeans—an ultra 00s-associated brand. Accordingly, Women’s Wear Daily described the jeans she’s promoting as “a reimagined version of a look from Lucky Brand’s early 2000s archive.” What’s more, Addison rolled her sleeves (or is it cuffs in this case?) even further up by actually getting involved in the design process by serving as creative director for this specific line of ultra low-rise flare jeans. That fit, of course, being the pinnacle of 00s-era fashion, with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears exemplifying the trend in the early aughts. 

    As for Addison’s “commercial” (directed by Mitch Ryan), it didn’t go quite as viral as Gap’s (directed by Bethany Vargas, whose most recent credits include the likes of Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” video). Though there is still something like “choreo” in the mix after it opens with Addison walking out onto a stage area in her Lucky Brand Jeans as her own song, “High Fashion,” plays (obviously not as instantly recognizable as “Milkshake”). Right from the beginning, the tag line, “Wear Lucky, feel lucky” immediately pops up. And it isn’t lost on any millennial girl that one of Britney’s biggest hits in the early 00s was “Lucky.” Or that she herself was a wearer of Lucky Brand (along with all the other fashion “staples” of the day: Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie, Ed Hardy, Juicy Couture, etc.).

    The visual comparison to Britney that “AR” continues to draw was not lost on anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the 00s. And yet, despite Spears being everyone’s favorite reference, in the denim wars that have taken the U.S. by storm since July, it seems that Katseye is the clear winner of this round. Even if Addison’s campaign has a level of finesse, class and vague freshness beyond the mere regurgitation of a milkshake that boasts, “I know you want it/The thing that makes me/What the guys go crazy for/They lose their minds.”

    And what guys and girls alike are all losing their minds for this year is 00s stylings, whether in the world of fashion or otherwise. Though someone might want to remind them all that this particular decade was nothing if not pro-white supremacy. But try telling that to a generation that’s somehow managed to romanticize George W. Bush a.k.a. make “Bushcore” happen.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Why Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ draws FURY from Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson? Deets here | Bollywood Life

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    Why Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ draws FURY from Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson? Deets here














































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    • Why Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ draws FURY from Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson? De…

    Pamela Anderson and Britney Spears are reportedly unhappy with Taylor Swift over her new album, The Life of a Showgirl. Scroll down to know what’s the matter.

    Why Taylor Swift’s 'The Life of a Showgirl' draws FURY from Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson? Deets here

    “The Life of a Showgirl,” Taylor Swift’s twelfth studio album, will be released on October 3. However, not everyone in Hollywood is happy, according to reports. Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson are reportedly furious because they believe the album’s concept, images, and costumes blatantly taken from their iconic appearances without giving proper credit.

    Why Britney Spears not happy with Taylor?

    Spears thinks Swift used parts of her 2001 Dream Within a Dream concert outfit, according to a Radar Online source, cited by Indian Express. Similar to Britney’s famous ensemble, the singer introduced a new, hotter appearance for her album cover, complete with a rhinestone bra, fringed armbands, and a bejewelled nude thong. The source said, “She even feels she should have a credit in the liner notes,” claiming she feels “ripped off.” Spears doesn’t deny that Swift can get inspired, but it goes too far to copy such a particular style without giving credit. “Britney worked with Bob Mackie on that outfit, it’s pop history. To see it repackaged without so much as a nod feels wrong.”

    Pamela Anderson also not happy?

    According to reports, Pamela Anderson, who just made a comeback to Hollywood with Naked Gun, is also not happy. Sources cited by The Indian Express said that, Anderson’s 2024 film The Last Showgirl has a similar aesthetic and feel to Swift’s new era. The pop star’s album images are reminiscent of Anderson’s movie outfits, from the vivid orange and pink colour scheme to the retro Vegas style.

    “Pamela put her heart into The Last Showgirl. The colours, the vintage Vegas feel, it’s all over Taylor’s new visuals. Pam isn’t upset by the inspiration, but she believes recognition is deserved. Credits in the liner notes for her and Britney would be the classy thing to do.”

    Swift’s new era dives into offstage life

    During her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s podcast, New Heights, Taylor Swift revealed her upcoming album. This new era is a daring move, delving into her “exuberant, electric, and vibrant” off-stage life during the Eras Tour. She collaborates on the record alongside producers Shellback and Max Martin, who previously collaborated on Blank Space.



























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  • Freakier Friday: A Mélange of Lindsay Lohan’s “Greatest Hits” (The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday and Mean Girls)

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    Because there was no way Lindsay Lohan was ever going to crawl out of the depths of the toilet into which her career descended after the 2000s, a sequel to Freaky Friday was probably inevitable after her trio of Netflix movies failed to truly relaunch her as a “star” (stop trying to make “Lohanaissance” happen). And since Jamie Lee Curtis has always had a kind heart, she was fully on board with the project. One that came about right as a certain capitalization on “millennial nostalgia” was part of the motivation behind what could get “new” content greenlit (see also: the forthcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2 or even Shrek 5). What’s more, because Lohan performed “favorably enough” in her Netflix films (which, to be clear, are all absolute shite, with Irish Wish taking the cake), it seemed that Hollywood was ready to take a chance on her in a more legitimate way again: the studio movie. 

    And, considering that Lohan has such a history with Disney Studios, who better than that entity to give her the opportunity to be in a “right proper” movie as the lead for the first time in eighteen years. For, in all honesty, Lohan hasn’t been in a major studio movie as the star since 2007’s Georgia Rule, which was the first time when her party life really started to affect her professional life in that the producer of the movie, James G. Robinson, actually had to write Lohan a letter telling her what a fuck-up she was and that she needed to get it together for the sake of the production. Among the highlights of that letter were the accusations that Lohan “acted like a spoiled child” and had “frequently failed to arrive on time to set.” (Perhaps just another way in which she wanted to channel Marilyn Monroe.) These latenesses or full-stop absences were due to, per Lohan and her representatives, “not feeling well.” Something Robinson addressed in the letter by saying he was “well aware that your ongoing all night heavy partying is the real reason for your so-called ‘exhaustion.’”

    So yes, 2007 was not only a bad year for Britney, career image-wise, but also for Lohan. Indeed, it’s no secret that part of Freakier Friday’s cachet is a desire to see someone who was so trashed and hounded by the media in the 00s come back from the trauma of it all. Since it’s apparent that Britney really didn’t. Though it can be said Lohan’s former frenemy (and part of the trio in the car that night in 2006 that launched a thousand headlines and memes), Paris Hilton, has been vindicated in the last decade as well. In large part, thanks to a rebrand that essentially sought to erase her 00s image of being a vacuous (and racist/homophobic) party girl. 

    In Lohan’s case, however, there hasn’t been a rebrand, so much as a constant return to the movies that made her famous in the first place (even Irish Wish had callbacks to Freaky Friday and Mean Girls)—extending to her nonstop and inexplicable wealth of endorsement deals. So of course, not only would she want to be in a sequel to Freaky Friday, but also continue to allude to the other two primary films that made her a success in her childhood and teen years: The Parent Trap and Mean Girls (because other movies in her Disney oeuvre, like Life-Size, Get a Clue and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, were much more niche). As for the former film, the parallels appear immediately in the form of the warring dynamic between Anna Coleman’s (Lohan) daughter, a quintessential “California girl” (complete with the surfing predilection), Harper (Julia Butters), and a new-in-town, rather stuck-up British classmate of hers named Lily Reyes (Sophia Hammons). Obviously, it reeks of the dynamic between Hallie Parker and Annie James (both played by Lohan) in The Parent Trap (yet another remake of a Disney movie in Lohan’s oeuvre). Something Lohan was sure to play up with some of her sartorial choices on the infinite publicity tour for Freakier Friday.

    As for the high school that Harper and Lily attend, once again, it was filmed at none other than Palisades Charter High School, just before it burned down in January 2025. As a matter of fact, Curtis was certain to cite Freakier Friday as a love letter to Los Angeles in the aftermath of the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, with the movie also being shot at the now burned-down Altadena Town & Country Club for Tess’ (Curtis) a.k.a. Lily-as-Tess’ pickleball scene. To an extent, maybe Freakier Friday is “passable” as a love letter to said city, but, more than anything, it’s a love letter to Lohan’s short-lived career heyday. Almost as if to further emphasize that point, Elaine Hendrix a.k.a. the “evil (would-be) stepmother” of The Parent Trap, Meredith Blake, is given a totally non sequitur role as “Blake Kale” (the first name of course being a nod to Meredith’s last name), an editor in charge of handling the piece on Anna’s biggest client, the mononymous Ella (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). Because, that’s right, Anna is now a talent manager for musicians rather than being one herself, with the running story being that she “gave up” her chance at being a “rock star” because she had Harper. Indeed, the math of the movie places Anna at twenty-two years old when she had her child, with thirty-nine-year-old Lohan playing “thirty-six-and-a-half” and sixteen-year-old Butters playing fourteen. So sure, it’s like a Gilmore Girlsage difference. Though Anna and Harper hardly share the closeness of Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel). Nor is Tess exactly “Emily Gilmore [Kelly Bishop] material.” 

    For, once again, Freakier Friday, like its 2003 predecessor, is meant to highlight the fraught, contentious relationship between a teenage girl and her mother—and that mother’s imminent wedding to a dude she resents. Only this time, it’s Anna going through it with Harper, who, like Anna as a teenager, has little empathy for her mother’s profession or her plans to get married to some “interloper.” More specifically, her nemesis Lily’s father, Eric (Manny Jacinto). And, obviously, with this new form of Asian representation in the sequel, the way the “magic” of the body swap (presently a quadruple instead of a double one) works can’t be “offensive” the way it was in the first movie. That is to say, with a Chinese restaurant owner touting a garish accent giving Anna and Tess a fortune cookie with the same fortune inside of it (“She did something… Some strange Asian voodoo,” Tess-as Anna declares).

    And so, as a sign of its “updated” views from the original, the magic comes from a daffy, “multi-hyphenate” psychic/fortune teller named Madame Jen (Vanessa Bayer, another SNL alum besides Chloe Fineman who appears in the movie). And no, what isn’t included in the trailer is the wannabe demon voice she gives at different points in the process of delivering their “prophecy”: “Change the hearts you know are wrong, to reach the place where you belong.” It’s a much more reduced “curse” than the one in the fortune cookie that Tess and Anna get: “A journey soon begins, its prize reflected in another’s eyes. When what you see is what you lack, then selfless love will change you back.” 

    Regardless of the revamped wording, it’s the same old method for returning to one’s body in Freakier Friday, though Tess and Anna apparently have convenient amnesia about the fact that “all” it takes is empathizing with the person you can’t stand in order to be restored to your body. But it’s Harper and Lily who are told the little rhyme by Madame Jen, information they keep from Tess and Anna once they realize that now that they’re the adults, they can make the decisions that will free them from a life saddled together. It is especially Lily who doesn’t want the nuptials between Anna and Eric to happen, for it would mean potentially having to stay in Los Angeles. And London is where, supposedly, her heart lies—along with a fashion school she wants to attend. Harper, too, would rather die than leave her beloved L.A. and all the surfing potential that comes with it. And so, like Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and Cady Heron (Lohan) in Mean Girls, the two hatch a plan to take down their respective parent’s relationship rather than Regina George (Rachel McAdams). Hence, the creation of a list titled The Plan that looks a lot like the style and structure of what Janis writes on her chalkboard (in addition to mimicking Hallie and Annie’s plot to get their parents back together, rather than tear them apart). 

    Unfortunately for Lily, Harper, while in her mother’s body, has the chance to understand just how genuine Eric’s love for her mother is, making it more difficult to treat him like shit so that the relationship can disintegrate. Part of that plan being to get Harper-as-Anna back in contact with Jake Austin (Chad Michael Murray), who now owns a record store. This giving director Nisha Ganatra and writer Jordan Weiss (best known for Dollface) the chance to further play up the nostalgia of the 00s by having Lily-as-Tess loom in the background with Britney’s In the Zone album cover over her head as “camouflage” (later, she’ll also use Madonna’s True Blue). All while she advises her on how to be “seductive”—these instructions not only proving Lily’s inexperience with boys (though she insists she has a French boyfriend), but additionally prompting Jake to question whether or not Harper-as-Anna is having a stroke. What’s more, Jake’s fetish for older women (but especially Tess) has only gotten more pronounced since the Coleman women fucked with his head back in ‘03. Apparently to the point where he’s still “got it bad” for women who dress like Tess did when Anna was in her body (and also have Tess’ same short haircut from that era). 

    In order to “dig Jake up,” so to speak, Lily-as-Tess tells Harper-as-Anna about a “database for old people” known as Facebook. Just one of many “generational gap” jokes made at the expense of Anna and Tess. But, more than anyone, Tess, who bears the brunt of all the ageism. This mainly perhaps 1) Curtis knows how to deal with this kind of comedy without making it feel totally mean-spirited because she’s “in on the joke” herself and 2) Lohan isn’t quite ready to put a spotlight on her current status, from the Gen Z viewpoint, as being “old.” Which is why the only cutting remark she really gets from her daughter is about how Anna’s skin feels like it’s crying out for water. Then, of course, there’s the same dredged-up bit about teenagers being able to eat whatever they want because of their metabolism. Or as, Tess-as-Anna triumphantly phrases it to Anna-as-Tess while eating fries in Freaky Friday, “This food may make you blow up like a balloon, but it will do nothing whatsoever to me.” 

    And, for some, Freakier Friday will do nothing whatsoever for them. Because not everyone is charmed by the nostalgia that Freakier Friday largely coasts on, with a review from Time (the one that was scathing enough to get Curtis’ attention) saying it all with the title, “Freakier Friday Is Humiliating to Everyone Involved.” Other, kinder reviews cite Curtis as the saving grace of the movie, for it’s clear she’s having the time of her life playing Tess playing a teenager…again. And this, in truth, is the bulk of what makes the movie feel so exuberant. Even as it cashes in on the well-worn storylines and “winks” from Lohan’s past filmography. For while it’s designed to be a vehicle for her, Curtis is the one who stands out the most (sort of like what happened with Angelina Jolie outshining Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted—which is probably going to get a sequel any day now). 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Voss Water Repetition in Smile 2 and What It Says About Film Product Placement Today

    The Voss Water Repetition in Smile 2 and What It Says About Film Product Placement Today

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    Perhaps even more than the various terrifying scenes of Smile 2, what audiences are seeming to remember most after seeing Parker Finn’s sequel is the rampant product placement for Voss water. Woven so “naturally” into the script as a kind of “character quirk” that Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) feels the need to grab a bottle of Voss every time she feels “out of control.” And yes, this is explained in fairly elaborate detail to her best friend, Gemma (Dylan Gelula, who will forever be Xan in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). A best friend who, for the last year, was an ex best friend due to Skye’s Britney Spears-in-2007-level breakdown after getting in a car accident with her boyfriend, Paul Hudson (Ray Nicholson). Both were, it should go without saying, intoxicated and, no, her boyfriend did not survive the crash.

    In the aftermath of the accident, Skye only began to use drugs and alcohol all the more (coping mechanisms and all that rot), acting out erratically toward those in her life who were closest to her…Gemma included. But now that she’s being essentially forced to make a comeback (again, sort of like Britney after her 2007-early 2008 turmoil), Skye has never felt more alone or more mistrustful of the numerous sycophants around her. This extends to her “momager,” Elizabeth (Rosemarie Dewitt), and their joint assistant, Joshua (Miles Guitierrez-Riley). Hence, her desire to reach out to a no-bullshitter like Gemma again.

    Right after she gathers the courage (not to mention summoning the total loss of pride and dignity) to call Gemma and admit that 1) she misses her and 2) she wants her to come over for some emotional support, Skye makes a beeline for the Voss water, chugging it as though she’s just come off the field in the wake of scoring the winning goal for some nail-biting soccer game. The audience doesn’t yet know why Voss water is such a “thing,” perhaps initially assuming that there won’t be any explanation at all about it—that it’s just one of the more glaring examples of unapologetic product placement in recent years. In fact, maybe not since Pizza Hut in Back to the Future II has product placement been so unabashed. Except, in that case, the product and its distinctive logo were used to underscore a point about all the so-called advancements that would happen in the future. Conversely, in Smile 2, the brand is less about “progress” (unless referring to the emotional kind) and more about convenience. And, obviously, Finn thought that having Skye actually say the brand name might be the one way to go “too far” with product placement.

    However, just because “Voss” isn’t said aloud at any point doesn’t mean that Finn doesn’t end up calling plenty more attention (than is really necessary) to the brand via her character quirk. One that is explained when Gemma obligingly materializes at her apartment despite all the bullshit Skye put her through during her atomic meltdown. Unfortunately fro Gemma, she shows up just as The Smiler (which has, by now, possessed Skye for about twenty minutes’ worth of the movie) has done a hallucinatory number on the pop star, prompting her to act more skittish and erratic than usual. And also sending her straight for the bottle…of Voss water.

    That’s right, she doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that the two haven’t spoken or seen one another in a year before she goes for the Voss as a source of comfort. Watching her drink an entire bottle, all Gemma can say is, “Thirsty?” It’s then that Finn gives Voss its real moment to shine by interweaving it (albeit using a generic name: water) into the dialogue as Skye explains, “This therapist from my recovery program, she suggested that anytime I feel overwhelmed by the urge to use or get drunk, that I should stop whatever I’m doing and drink a full glass of water. It’s supposed to be some form of acknowledgement for what I can and can’t control.” (Never mind that Voss bottles aren’t exactly “a glass” of water.)

    Though that doesn’t really seem to apply to what brand of water she has available to her. Granted, Voss is supposed to be “renowned” for being reserved solely for the bougie set (it even seems to appear—or at least a bottle that has the exact same size and style—in Anora, when Vanya [Mark Eydelshteyn], rich son of a Russian oligarch, hands “Ani” [Mikey Madison] the water she asked for while over at his mansion). Even though it was once rumored to be bottled at the same source where tap water comes from in Iveland, Norway. But one supposes that rich people are willing to shell out high amounts (let’s call a bottle of Voss five dollars) so long as they’re told the product is of the “finest” quality. For, as is the theme in Smile 2, it’s all about what you think anyway, not reality.

    As for what the elaborate and heavy-handed use of product placement in Smile 2 reflects in the movie-going audiences of today is that, more than ever, people need not just repetition to remember a brand, but to have the product become a part of the storyline in a way that ends up being “integral” to either the character or the plot. And, in this case, both—though the viewer won’t know just why it’s so central to the more hallucinatory aspects of the plot until much later in the movie.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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