Britney Spears is speaking out after she was allegedly assaulted by a security guard for Victor Wembanyama — this year’s number one NBA draft pick.
In a statement posted to Twitter on Thursday, the pop star said she first spotted Wembanyama in her Las Vegas hotel lobby as she was headed to dinner. Later that night, she said she saw him at a restaurant in a different hotel.
Spears said she recognized Wembanyama and wanted to congratulate him on his accomplishments.
“It was really loud, so I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention,” the singer wrote. “His security then back handed me in the face without looking back, in front of a crowd.”
She said the blow almost knocked her over and knocked her glasses off.
Wembanyama, who was drafted by the San Antonio Spurs last month, told reporters Thursday that as he was walking down a hallway, someone who had been trying to get his attention “grabbed me from behind.” He said security then “pushed her away,” though he noted he didn’t see what happened because he had been told not to stop so that a crowd couldn’t form around him.
The 19-year-old said he didn’t know “how much force” was used and that he only found out the person was Spears hours later.
Spears addressed Wembanyama’s comments in her response, denying that she “grabbed him from behind.”
“I simply tapped him on the shoulder,” she wrote.
Spears criticized the security guards’ behavior, pointing out that she is often swarmed by fans, including that same night.
“I was swarmed by a group of at least 20 fans,” she said. “My security team didn’t hit any of them.”
In a statement to CBS News, the Las Vegas Police Department said it responded to a battery incident in the area around 11 p.m. Wednesday night, but could not provide more information. The department said no arrests were made and no citations were issued.
Spears said the story was “super embarrassing,” but that she shared it to “urge people in the public eye to set and example and treat all people with respect.”
“Physical violence is happening too much in this world. Often behind closed doors,” she wrote. “I stand with all the victims and my heart goes out to all of you!!!”
The “Circus” singer said she has not received a public apology from Wembanyama, the security guard or the Spurs.
Britney Spears has broken her silence on what she called a “traumatic experience” with NBA star Victor Wembanyama’s security team in Las Vegas on Wednesday night.
The pop singer addressed the incident in a lengthy social media post on Thursday afternoon, describing the altercation as both frightening and embarrassing.
“Traumatic experiences are not new to me and I have had my fair share of them,” she wrote. “I was not prepared for what happened to me last night.”
Spears said she approached San Antonio Spurs first-round draft pick Wembanyama to “congratulate him on his success” after spotting him at two different Vegas hotels. She wrote that she had “tapped him on the shoulder” to get his attention amid the noise.
“His security then back handed me in the face without looking back, in front of a crowd. Nearly knocking me down and causing my glasses off my face,” Spears wrote.
Pop star Britney Spears and basketball star Victor Wembanyama gave different accounts of an incident involving the NBA player’s security team.
AP Photos by Chris Pizzello, left, and Eric Gay
Hours before Spears released her statement, Wembanyama acknowledged during a Thursday press conference that his security had responded to a person who “grabbed him from behind.” He said he only found out that Spears was involved later that evening.
In her own account, Spears said there was no grabbing involved. The “Baby One More Time” songstress added that she was also “swarmed by a group of at least 20 fans” that night but said that “my security team didn’t hit any of them.”
Though Spears called the incident “super embarrassing,” she said it was important to “share this story and to urge people in the public eye to set an example and treat all people with respect.”
“Physical violence is happening too much in this world,” the star continued. “Often behind closed doors. I stand with all the victims and my heart goes out to all of you!!! I have yet to get a public apology from the player, his security or their organization. I hope they will.”
Spears then thanked fans for “the tremendous amounts of love and support” and recognized the Las Vegas Police Department for its support.
Earlier Thursday, Las Vegas authorities confirmed an incident had occurred around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday outside of the restaurant Catch at the Aria Hotel. The city’s Department of Public Information told Rolling Stone the dispute was “documented on a police report, and no arrest or citations have been issued.”
Pop singer Britney Spears has filed a police report alleging she was struck in the face by a security guard for basketball player Victor Wembanyama on Wednesday night in Las Vegas.
According to TMZ, which first reported the story, Spears, 41, spotted Wembanyama, a 19-year-old French basketball player and one of the most anticipated rookies of the upcoming NBA season, at Catch restaurant in the Aria hotel around 8:30 p.m. local time. (Rolling Stone and US Weekly each independently verified the incident occurred.)
Spears, who was having dinner with her husband Sam Asghari and two others, allegedly approached Wembanyama in the restaurant and tapped him on the shoulder to ask for a photo together.
FILE – Victor Wembanyama was drafted as a first pick to the San Antonio Spurs in June 2023.
Arturo Holmes/Getty Images
Spears told police that the director of team security for the San Antonio Spurs, Damian Smith, backhanded the Toxic singer, knocking off her glasses and causing her to fall to the floor.
Story continues below advertisement
Wembanyama was drafted by the Spurs last month as the team’s first overall pick.
Smith allegedly apologized to Spears at her table afterward. Spears accepted the apology, but later filed a police report with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) alleging battery.
“On July 5, 2023, at approximately 11 pm, LVMPD officers responded to a property in the 3700 block of Las Vegas Boulevard regarding a battery investigation,” police said in a statement on Thursday. “The incident has been documented on a police report and no arrest or citations have been issued. No further details will be provided at this time.”
None of the parties involved in the incident, including Spears and Wembanyama, have commented publicly on the alleged altercation.
It is unclear whether Spears is seeking criminal charges against Smith.
Wembanyama, currently the NBA’s tallest active player at an impressive seven feet four inches, is set to make his professional debut as part of the NBA’s Summer League in Las Vegas this Friday.
Spears, whose 13-year-conservatorship ended in November 2021, recently reconnected with her mother after years-long drama surrounding Spears’ allegations of mistreatment at the hands of her family. She married Asghari, a 29-year-old model and fitness trainer, in June 2022.
NEW YORK (AP) — You’re handed an LED wristband as you enter “Once Upon a One More Time,” a musical on Broadway stuffed with Britney Spears songs. But the gift is strangely inert for the whole show, only coming to life and gleaming at the curtain call. It’s not a wristband — it’s a metaphor. It glows in the end because you are free. Free of this bombastic, patronizing, clumsy, lazy show.
“Once Upon a One More Time,” which opened Thursday at the Marquis Theatre, is pure summer dumb — it’s got smoke machines working overtime, weird dance breaks, tons of glitter and every song ends with a manufactured IMAX-level sonic boom. One of the main characters actually swings on a chandelier.
Everything about it seems recycled: A fractured fairy tale that is a tired concept by now — no less a giant than Andrew Lloyd Webber failed with it with “Bad Cinderella” this spring. It’s also a safe feminist story about women writing their own story led by a creative team led mostly by men, an enduring problem on Broadway but very awkward for a story about princesses seizing their narrative.
The musical has a story written by Jon Hartmere about classic fairy tale princesses — Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and the Little Mermaid, among them, (gathered just as they were in the movie “Ralph Breaks the Internet”) — who are transformed after reading “The Feminine Mystique,” a landmark feminist text. Betty Friedan’s book helped launch the women’s movement by depicting women as prisoners of a culture that made a fetish out of motherhood and housework.
Why Friedan has been brought low here is unclear, or even why a post-conservatorship Spears authorized this unsubtle musical, which includes many of her hits like “Oops!… I Did It Again,” “Lucky,” “Stronger” and “Toxic.” The creators have hollowed out the original song’s lyrics to shoehorn a narrative they are not suited for. They’ve then added them to a script that mixes a threesome joke, drunk princesses and references to Howard Stern with lines like “You’re not pulling my slipper?”
Adam Godley is delightful as the droll, fussy Narrator, who is like the backstage ringmaster of fairy tales, ordering about the princesses — “Ready the wedding scene!” — and standing in the way of change or growth. “Real quick, though, this is happy ever after — right?” asks Cinderella. “Of course,” he answers. It’s not.
The musical is directed and choreographed by husband-and-wife pair Keone and Mari Madrid, who have gone viral on YouTube for their dance videos, but here seem fascinated by weird, jerky arm movements that suggest the performer is having a seizure. For “One More Time,” they go overboard on index fingers pointing.
That’s not to take anything from the two leads — Briga Heelan as Cinderella and former “American Idol” contestant Justin Guarini as Prince Charming — who use their pipes, physical comedy skills and tenderness to sell a script many levels below their capabilities. They are truly fairy tale heroic.
It is a story that veers in tone from glib satire to sugary sentimentality, trying to establish a sisterhood it hasn’t earned and adding a gay-rights story that seems tacked on and distracting. There’s a remarkable shift in Act 2 that remakes the Narrator into a horrific Marvel Cinematic Universe-level villain who murders all who disobey him. A desperate attempt to make a coherent happy ending fails.
It certainly is Spears’ moment on Broadway, since many of her hits are also in “& Juliet” — a jukebox musical now on Broadway that celebrates one of her writing partners and producers, Max Martin — including her “… Baby One More Time” and “Stronger.” That show is in every way better than “Once Upon a One More Time,” which is clearly designed to be a pre-teen magnet and sell T-shirts. Only one Spears show on Broadway is truly “Toxic.”
According to a recent report, Lynne Spears is fervently requesting Britney to reconcile with Jamie Lynn, emphasizing that the desire for reconnection is mutual. The source revealed, “Lynne is begging Britney to make amends with her sister, Jamie Lynn, now.” The insider further added, “They are both leaning toward a yes. Lynne knows that Britney does miss her sister, and she told her that the feeling is obviously mutual.” However, Britney, still hesitant, firmly believes that Jamie Lynn is the one at fault and expects an apology before considering any reunion. As the report states, “Britney still feels that Jamie Lynn is the one who messed up, and if they are going to meet, she would need to come to her and not vice versa.”
Lynne Spears’ determination to repair family bonds
The report highlights Lynne Spears’ dedication to restoring familial harmony, with sources mentioning that she is actively figuring out how to make reconciliation happen. The report suggests that Lynne is “not going to rest until everything is perfect again” between the family.
Despite Lynne’s efforts, Britney’s strained relationship with Jamie Lynn remains unresolved. The Grammy winner previously accused Jamie Lynn of exploiting her for monetary gain, stating in an Instagram post, “Jamie Lynn, please stop with the righteous approach when you’re so far from righteous, it’s not even funny.” Britney also expressed her disappointment when Jamie Lynn broke down on TV over having struggled with her self-esteem as the little sister of a global superstar. In a since-deleted Instagram post, Britney wrote, “Are we gonna say it was hard being my sister ???? Hmmmmmmmmmmm …. really ???”
While Lynne is determined to mend her daughters’ relationship, she understands that it will take time for them to overcome their differences and reach a place of reconciliation. Another insider mentioned, “Lynne knows that it still will take time to get back on the same page and fall into all the right places their relationship needs to be.”
The journey towards healing and reconnection continues for the Spears family, with an apology from Jamie Lynn being a crucial factor for Britney’s consideration of reconciliation. As Britney stated in her Instagram post, “With family there’s always things that need to be worked out … but time heals all wounds !!! And after being able to communicate what I’ve held in for an extremely long time, I feel so blessed we were able to try to make things RIGHT !!! I love you so much !!!”
As far as early 00s bangers go, Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” is difficult to top. Not only did it get people to take their clothes off at house parties worldwide, but it also smashed new records at a time when streaming was still germinal and the Grammys hadn’t even yet offered up yet an award for such a category as Best Male Rap Solo Performance. Nelly managed to secure almost a million (760,000, to be exact) streams on AOL Music’s “First Listen,” which was launched the same year “Hot in Herre” came out: 2002. As far as concern for global warming went that year, in an annual global climate report, it was assessed that: “Global temperatures in 2002 were 0.56°C (1.01°F) above the long-term (1880-2001) average, which places 2002 as the second warmest year on record.” Oh how saddened one is to use the phrase, “Little did they know…” here, but yes, little did humanity know (despite ceaseless and ominous warnings), it was all going to get so much worse. That is to say, so much fucking hotter. And yes, Nelly seemed to want to make a hit out of that no-brainer prophecy in a song like “Hot in Herre.”
Taking elements of Chuck Brown’s 1979 single, “Bustin’ Loose,” (hence, “I feel like bustin’ loose/And I feel like touchin’ you”), Nelly created a club (and yes, climate change) anthem out of it by also appearing in a music video helmed by Director X, already a beloved protégé of Hype Williams at that time. The scene of Nelly pulling up to the club in his car would end up seeming to inspire Britney Spears the following year in her own video for “Me Against the Music,” in which she, too, opens her video with a pulling up to the club scene. And, on a side full-circle note, “Me Against the Music” would be the one hundredth track for AOL Music, First Listen to offer up as an exclusive streaming preview. Because, back when such internet technology was still new, music releases could still be positioned as an “event.” As much as going to the club to dance in a sweat-drenched fever could be. And that’s precisely what happens for the majority of “Hot in Herre,” as female dancers (after all, it’s a rap video) with visible beads of sweat dripping down their faces and bodies do their best to ignore the unbearable temperature in the name of having a good time and also trying to get laid. Because there’s a reason wanting to bone goes back to a phrase like “being in heat.”
As Nelly moistens his lips, jumps the divider of his VIP area and approaches the woman who’s attracted his attention, played by Pasha Bleasdell (who tragically died of a brain tumor in 2022), bodies continue to converge on one another as Nelly gets his moment to shine on the dance floor with Bleasdell in front of him. While that goes on, many of the (mostly female) dancers in the club proceed to take Nelly’s advice about taking off their clothes—or at least pieces of them. The “sexily glistening” (as opposed to grossly sweaty) bodies that are paraded by Director X are of a uniquely 00s aesthetic that has only recently been revived with similar effect in Euphoria. Soon enough, Nelly is starting to take some of his own more frivolous articles of clothing off as other clubgoers fan each other with their hands and generally start to appear as though they’re attending a taping of MTV’s Spring Break as opposed to a Nelly video filmed in his adopted hometown of St. Louis. And, talking of St. Louis, the lesser-known version of the video (reserved for showing to the European set) took place in front of and inside of the famed St. Louis Arch (or at least a CGI’d version of it). Starting with Cedric the Entertainer as the bouncer (in the original, he’s the DJ) for the club that the Arch has become, various revelers enter the elevator leading up through the Arch as one man blows his hand back and forth to indicate the hotness inside the elevator, though it actually looks like he’s just trying to wave away the scent of someone else’s fart.
Soon, Nelly pulls up to the arch and gets in the elevator with just one other woman as we’re asked to ignore the architectural impossibility of a nightclub being able to “fit” inside the so-called top of the Arch. And while, yes, one can technically ride to the “top,” the elevators to do so are nothing like the posh one presented in Nelly’s rendering of it. But, clearly, 2002 was a much easier time for enlisting viewers’ suspension of disbelief.
As a randomly-placed thermometer shows the temperature going up while more people enter the imaginary “Arch Club” (complete with a staircase in the background), Nelly pretty much recreates the same scenes from the U.S. version of the video, except with a far more “European” slant…in that when people start to peel one another’s clothes off, director Bille Woodruff is sure to capture the sweat whipping off people’s bodies as this happens. We’re talking it looks practically like the Flashdance bucket scene. Woodruff, unfortunately, would also direct a number of R. Kelly videos over the years, whose crimes against women would make Nelly’s various rape allegations (one of which broke just before the #MeToo movement of 2017 did) look positively tame…not to trivialize what happened to the women who were assaulted by Nelly. But, back in 2002, both men were still safe and protected in their fame bubble, chock-full of enablers and sycophants as it was. The pressure, for Nelly, didn’t get truly “hot in herre” until #MeToo finally did. The roof was on fire, in other words, much as it is in the club in the U.S. version of the video, at which point the ceiling sprinklers finally burst. The way a storm has to erupt whenever it gets too sweltering. As for the second version of the video, the thermometer ends up breaking, spewing red mercury as it does.
At the end of the decade that Nelly reigned over (though really just the first half of it), the 00s were reported as being the hottest on record. “Hot in Herre” (“herre” being this cesspool of a globe) indeed. But that was soon to be topped by the report on the burning temperatures of the 2010s. Undeniably, the 2020s will keep upping the previously-held records, with Nelly’s formerly “sexy” single becoming, increasingly, an eerie and macabre prophecy. Complete with him also telling people to “let it just fall out” and “let it hang all out.” Elsewhere among his rapey lyricism, he includes, “I got a friend with a pole in the basement/(What?)/I’m just kiddin’ like Jason/Unless you gon’ do it…”
Cringeworthy moments of the song aside (including “What good is all the fame if you ain’t fuckin’ the models?”), Nelly does bring up a valid question when he keeps urging people to take their clothes off in the heat. And that is: will clothes really still be required when the heat gets more insufferable? Like, Hades-level insufferable. Or can we all go back to Garden of Eden’ing it despite being a very long way from paradise? Which the weather of 2002 looks more and more like from this perspective.
Asghari also posted a video of sweet moments from their lavish nuptials, writing, “One year married to the woman of my dreams. Happy anniversary my love.”
During an exclusive interview with “Good Morning America” last year, the Iranian-American actor noted that married life has been “surreal.”
Like Madonna’s 2018 collaboration with Quavo and Cardi B on “Champagne Rosé,” “Popular” marks another unexpected trifecta in terms of musical partnerships for the Queen of Pop. And yet, as also indicated by “Champagne Rosé,” it’s clear Madonna wants to be more involved in the genre of music that tends to outshine pop in the present landscape. Because, save for Taylor Swift, it’s difficult for people to get “excited” about pop music anymore. Certainly not the way they once did when Madonna first rose to fame in the early 80s. Indeed, it’s easy to say that Madonna invented pop as we know it, itself a diminutive of popular. Which brings us back to the title of the song she’s featured on, along with Playboi Carti, by The Weeknd. As the second single from The Idol’s soundtrack, The Idol Vol. 1, it arrives just two days before the series’ official premiere on HBO. Those who have been following the drama of the series’ rollout are aware that it isn’t exactly “on-brand” with Madonna’s usual liberal-sanctioned philosophy vis-à-vis toxic masculinity. But the “brains” behind the show claim that parading toxic masculinity is the point. Or used to be before “it went from satire to the thing it was satirizing.”
Unfortunately, speculation about the reshoots involved stem from how “the original version of the series…focused heavily on the ‘female perspective,’ which both The Weeknd and Levinson took issue with.” This was around the time writer-director Amy Seimetz bowed out of participating in The Idol when it was eighty percent finished. Who knows if that was before or after Madonna agreed to collaborate on a song for it (perhaps in part due to one of her go-to producers, Mike Dean, appearing on the show…in addition to co-producing “Popular” with Metro Boomin)? But either way, it’s clear that M might have been drawn to the story as a result of its own resonance with her pre-fame drive. And while, sure, everyone is making the automatic comparison between Lily-Rose Depp’s Jocelyn character and Britney Spears, the OG for fame hunger as a pop star will always be Madonna. As the now well-known lore goes, a nineteen-year-old college dropout Madonna moved to New York in 1977 with nothing more than thirty-five dollars in her pocket and a dream. She didn’t precisely know what shape the dream of being famous would take, but she knew it somehow involved “the arts.” Initially, she thought that meant being a dancer (not the topless kind, mind you), but soon realized that entailed blending in when all she wanted to do was stand out.
Thus, her next foray into fame-seeking was being in a band…as the drummer. But it didn’t take her long to see that she was still in the background that way, too. She needed to be front and center. She needed to be a solo act. By 1982, she had betrayed many people along the way to get a record deal with Sire (Seymour Stein signed her while in a hospital bed, but Madonna couldn’t have cared less—she just wanted the contract, to make that Faustian pact, as it were). So if anyone can sing the lyrics to “Popular” (not to be confused with M.I.A.’s song of the same name) with conviction, it’s Lady M. After all, the chorus goes, “Beggin’ on her knees to be popular/That’s her dream, to be popular/Kill anyone to be popular/Sell her soul to be popular/Popular, just to be popular/Everybody scream ’cause she popular.” And everyone was screaming because Madonna was so popular by the time The Virgin Tour took hold of stages throughout the U.S. in 1985. In fact, no female artist until Madonna seemed to attract hordes that would scream so much. Before Madonna, such ardor was reserved solely for male bands and solo acts (see: Beatlemania). Hence, Madonna later reflecting on those “wannabes” as follows: “If I was a girl again, I would like to be like my fans, I would like to be like Madonna.”
Britney certainly wanted to be like Madonna too, never hiding her love of Mother Pop Star as her career took off. It was in 2003 that the trio (a more logical trio than Madonna, The Weeknd and Playboi Carti) of M, Britney and Christina Aguilera took the MTV VMAs by storm when the Queen of Pop kissed both Princesses of Pop. But it was the beso with Britney that grabbed the most headlines, with splashy images of their kiss reprinted and replayed everywhere. Certain types might have likened it to some kind of “illuminati ritual,” while Madonna referred to it simply as symbolically “passing the baton” of pop stardom to a younger generation. And yet, Madonna would never “take a bow” regardless of such statements feigning that she’s “lost her influence” somehow. If anything, Madonna remains more relevant than ever in an era where the conversation about famous women aging while “refusing” to leave the spotlight has become, somehow, a hotbed issue. Enter the lyrics to the chorus that go, “She mainstream ’cause she popular/Never be free ’cause she popular.”
But Madonna has never really wanted to be “free” from fame, despite recent posturings about family being her more valued focus. Because fame was always, whether she was fully aware of it or not, the only way she could fill the void where her mother’s love had been lost. Dead at the age of thirty, when Madonna was just five, the loss of Madonna Ciccone Sr. to breast cancer was one that the junior M would feel all her life. The type of black hole that would prompt a girl to seek out becoming the most beloved, famous woman in the world (until being beloved gave way to being constantly condemned). So when she opens “Popular” with the solemn lines, “I’ve seen the devil down Sunset/In every place, in every face,” she knows what she’s talking about.” Funnily enough, however, Madonna has never styled herself as much of a “Hollywood type.” Sure, like any famous person, she’s set up shop there via real estate (including her purchase of The Weeknd’s Hidden Hills property in 2021), but, by and large, she’s never really made it her home à la, say, Lana Del Rey.
When she was first “initiated” into fame, she definitely spent more time drinking Hollywood’s Kool-Aid, complete with living in Malibu after marrying Sean Penn and taking a shine to L.A. life during her “movie star era” that consisted of dating Warren Beatty and being one of the leads in his 1990 comic adaptation, Dick Tracy. Yet Madonna seemed forever beholden to the opposite coast, constantly going back to it and eventually writing off Los Angeles as somewhere “for people who sleep.” Not to mention writing an entire song (called, what else, “Hollywood”) about the false seduction of the place formerly known as El Pueblo de Los Angeles. The Weeknd has expressed similar opinions in his music, including lyrics like, “This place is never what it seems…/Take me out of LA/This place will be the end of me.” This from a song entitled, appropriately, “Escape From LA.” Elsewhere on that After Hours track, The Weeknd also criticizes (despite insisting “I don’t criticize”), “LA girls all look the same/I can’t recognize/The same work done on their face.” On the same album, The Weeknd also declares on “Snowchild,” “Cali was the mission but now a nigga leaving” in relation to the epiphany that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Madonna would explore that topic in detail on one of the first records of its kind, Ray of Light, particularly via the opening track, “Drowned World/Substitute For Love.” A song that began to bubble up after giving birth to her first child, Lourdes Leon, in 1996, at which time Madonna was suddenly in search of greater meaning in her life. Hence, turning to Kabbalah for spiritual comfort in her erstwhile material world. Eventually, Madonna would render Kabbalah into another trend as well, with many celebrities in the early 00s sporting the signature red string, from Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher to Angelina Jolie to none other than Britney Spears herself. This being one reason why Madonna chose to sardonically sport a “Cult Member” t-shirt while leaving the Kabbalah Center circa 2004 (L.A., to be sure, has just as many cult leaders doubling as members). For, after M and Brit performed together at the VMAs in ’03, the latter adopted the red string bracelet signifying her “Kabbalah commitment” as well, intended to ward off the “evil eye.” If that was the case, maybe Brit actually shouldn’t have taken it off so soon after declaring in 2006, “I no longer study Kabbalah. My baby is my religion.” Because it was 2007 when shit would really start to hit the fan for her. Indeed, that’s the period of Brit’s life that The Idol appears to be “inspired by,” with The Weeknd obviously playing the Sam Lutfi figure.
Spears and Lutfi met at a nightclub at the end of 2007 and, fittingly, The Weeknd plays nightclub owner/“self-help guru” (a.k.a. cult leader) Tedros. Like Lutfi, Tedros seems to have a knack for “attaching himself to celebrities, often at vulnerable moments for them.” And no one was more vulnerable than late ’07 Britney (which is perhaps how Lutfi was allegedly able to feed her a steady cocktail of Risperdal and Seroquel). In this sense, Madonna stands out as a singular pop star for her strength and bulletproof nature, seemingly designed to endure media scrutiny and unremitting criticism without letting it get the better of her. As she says in her “Popular” verse, “I know that you see me, time’s gone by/Spend my whole life runnin’ from your flashin’ lights/Try to own it, but I’m alright/You can’t take my soul without a fuckin’ fight.”
Madonna’s love of religious motifs in her lyrics continue with, “Put it in her veins, pray her soul to keep.” This fixation on praying and keeping one’s soul is also present on a song like 2015’s “Devil Pray,” during which Madonna sings, “But if you wanna save your soul/Then we should travel all together/And make the devil pray” and “Ooh, save my soul/Devil’s here to fool ya.” Devil imagery has also come up in Madonna’s recitation of the Book of Revelation on 1990’s “The Beast Within,” as well as 2008’s “Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You.” Her frequent lyrical ruminations on a battle between good and evil is clearly culled not just from her Catholic upbringing, but her extensive time spent in a world where carnal temptations are the name of the game. And not everyone is able to resist (on a pertinent note, Madonna has always been well-known for her abstinence…from drugs).
At varying points in the trailer for The Idol, Tedros says things to Jocelyn like, “You’re the American dream. Rags to riches. Trailers to mansions” and “You’re not a human being. You’re a star.” Both of these sentiments more overtly apply to Spears (though Madonna didn’t exactly grow up in “baller” circumstances either) as she’s been turned into tabloid fodder in a manner that Madonna wasn’t—not to the same extent, anyway—in her early career. For she came up at a time when TMZ-level shaming had not yet become a phenomenon. Thus, back in late November of 2021, Spears wrote on her always cryptic Instagram, “I just shot a movie titled “THE IDOL”… it’s guaranteed to have hits and a lot [of] bright pics to put in my beautiful family’s faces!!!!!”
Months later, Spears appeared in a photo with Levinson and The Weeknd. It hardly seemed a coincidence. Nor does it that Madonna is involved in the soundtrack. For not only can she speak to the kind of fiendishness for fame that “Popular” dissects, but she also witnessed Spears breaking down and breaking free (showing up to her wedding as an honored guest to support that revelation) in real time. So from whatever angle one looks at it, no one has a better view on this subject matter than Madonna. Thus, even if the show isn’t “brilliant,” at least Madonna “joining the cast” on “Popular” is.
I grew up during Disney Channel’s golden era — you know exactly what I’m talking about. It was the when Disney Channel Original Movies (DCOMs) were at their prime and peak Disney TV starring the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, the Sprouse twins, and more. In hindsight, it was wild. There has never been such a hotbed for stardom since Ryan Gosling, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera were all on the Mickey Mouse Club.
And, yes, as I continue growing up I miss having these lighthearted shows and movies to watch. Every so often, my roommates and I will binge Disney movies like High School Musical or classics like The Princess Diaries. But lately, there’s been a shift.
Has anyone noticed that we as a society are lacking a little…creativity? I mean, sure, it’s completely normal to crave a little dose of your childhood here and there — who isn’t comforted by memories of your life before you had an overwhelming sense of anxiety. But I almost feel as though we’ve gotten too comfortable with bringing back the old.
Some of the nostalgia-inducing events are exciting. Think: the fervor for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour or The Jonas Brothers’ The Tour, where they play all of their old songs spanning their entire career. It’s exciting and it’s a good way to get fans of old and new in the room.
We’re also in an era of reboots galore. Take a short glance at any of your streaming platforms and you’ll see a lot of familiar titles. Former early 2000s favorites like Zoey 101, iCarly, and That’s So Raven are finding themselves back on our television screens. And if you think that’s all…oh, boy.
Some reboots are reimaginations of the show…like Gossip Girl with a new cast and fresh, young faces. While others are continuations of the show just in the future – think iCarly and Zoey 101 (the reboot being Zoey 102).
And then, there’s Disney.
Disney is constantly trying to get the older generations into theaters, not only with Marvel, but with live action remakes of our favorite films. Over the past decade, we’ve seen versions of Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and most recently, The Little Mermaid. And while I surely will watch out of curiosity and lack of alternatives, I’m always left feeling a little underwhelmed.
Nostalgia-core is literally everywhere. It’s in the way we dress, with Y2K trends consistently leading the pack. People are preferring jelly shoes and mini skirts over any other decades-inspired trend. But when do we border the line between nostalgia and overdoing something?
Maybe it’s because we went through a global pandemic for so many years, we are craving stability and childhood…going back to our roots and finding comfort in what we know after a lot of uncertainty. Watching reboots of your fave show or movie can feel like the adult version of a pacifier.
Or maybe it’s because we have completely lost identity in today’s society…where we can’t thrive on anything but the past. Unoriginal ideas cycling back into the trendscape just because we can’t think of anything new.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. If something is getting those viewers in and bringing in the money, why wouldn’t they keep rebooting shows? Why wouldn’t Disney just make live action versions of their entire filmography? That way, they can release one original and make it really amazing in the interim.
One thing I know for sure is that trends recycle all the time. There was a time not so long ago where anything low-rise was considered a fashion crime and you wouldn’t dare wear Crocs out of your house unironically. But in the early 2000s, and subsequently in 2023, you would be considered right on trend.
And while the Disney films will always be successful in some capacity, I don’t know if every show needs a reboot. Some shows ended where they ended, and that’s how it should stay. Honestly, I feel like I’m getting bored too easily, I already know the plotline of everything coming out!
With popular shows like Succession and Ted Lasso in their final episodes forever, we are met with the realization that we will soon run out of original content if we keep rebooting everything. And yes, I get that a reboot is still somehow original if it’s a continuation of the series…you know that’s not my point here.
So, I’m left with the question: when is it time to let the past be….the past?
As the Summer of Barbie kicks into high gear, it’s only right that the film should be matched by an indelible soundtrack (perhaps not since Promising Young Woman has so much thought and care been put into a movie’s accompanying pop song landscape). Leading up that album is Dua Lipa (who also appears in the movie as “Mermaid Barbie”) with the single “Dance the Night,” a major improvement from her so-called summer anthem of 2022, “Potion.” Teaming with Caroline Ailin again (the pair previously co-wrote “New Rules,” “Don’t Start Now,” “Pretty Please” and “Fever” together), Lipa gets some production help from Mark Ronson (who scored the soundtrack and actually DM’d Lipa to get her involved with the project), Andrew Wyatt (also in charge of the score) and the Picard Brothers for a 70s-infused feel that matches the visuals of the video (both sartorially and set design-wise).
Favoring a “filming the video within the video” structure (à la Britney Spears in “[You Drive Me] Crazy”—which was a soundtrack single as well), we open on Lipa being escorted into a sound stage and getting quickly bombarded with the frenetic energy of the set as she’s told there’s some new choreography she has to learn (again, how very Britney while making the video for “[You Drive Me] Crazy,” as she said at the mention of new dance moves to be incorporated, “I’ve just got so much choreography on my head right now”). Lipa is only too ready to oblige the request as she proceeds to start practicing the new moves—shots that are intercut before we see Lipa telling her choreographer, “God, I love that” before the giant disco ball set piece abruptly comes crashing to the ground (an unfortunate snafu that will come full-circle at the end when Barbie director Greta Gerwig makes a cameo). Thus, not an auspicious start. But, as Lipa says in “Dance the Night, “Don’t give a damn/When the night’s here I don’t do tears/Baby no chance I could dance, I could dance, I could dance/Watch me, dance/Dance the night away.” And that’s just what we’re about to watch her do—albeit in the daylight hours, and within the setting of a carefully-curated, hyper-manipulated “dance floor.”
When we aren’t seeing her on the stair-filled stage, there are shots of her in her dressing room (this, instead, echoing Britney’s “Circus” video, complete with all the close-ups on perfume bottles). But the walls of that dressing room quickly come tumbling down—literally—as we’re then shown Lipa among a backdrop with nothing more than a bright klieg light behind her as she proceeds to dance in conjunction with backup dancers wielding clear plastic umbrellas before her perfume bottles seemingly come to life in the form of dancers dressed up as, well, perfume bottles. Elements of the “dressing room set” reappear in the form of multiple clothing racks packed to the gills with all manner of pink and gold sequined frocks as Lipa dances in the center while her dancers move them deftly in a circle around her.
The outline of Mattel’s signature, many-pointed logo then transitions us into seeing a bevy of Lipas walk through a hall of bulb-lit mirrors (in fact, it reminds one of a similar scene in the Chemical Brothers’ “Let Forever Be” video). Except they’re not really mirrors, so much as glassless rectangular metal bars that are the perfect size for walking through. Lipa is then joined by other dancers dressed in the same metallic pink halter top and blue mini skirt before she ascends the staircase with the (newly-replaced) disco ball at the center.
This is a world of make-believe, and we’re given that sense repeatedly as the fantastical set pieces keep coming (including two giant makeup palettes for the background behind the disco ball). In some respects, the stairs also channel the vibe of the set for “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (something Margot Robbie would also riff on as Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey). It’s around the one-minute, ten-second mark that scenes of the Barbie movie itself start to get interspersed. Specifically, parallel dancing moments of Barbie and co. as they party on a similar set. As Barbie states to Ken in the trailer of such an evening, “I don’t have anything big planned, just a giant blowout party with all the Barbies and planned choreography and a bespoke song.” One imagines that, when the time finally does arrive to see that scene in all its splendor, the “bespoke song” has to be none other than Lipa’s “Dance the Night” (and, if not, that might be a terrible mistake).
As the video continues, Lipa takes a brief pause to watch her presumed director scream and extend her hands out to the disco ball she sees crashing to the ground, likely watching it happen in slow motion from her helpless vantage point. As everything around her (including the disco ball) seems to freeze, Lipa keeps dancing, adhering to the casually cold lyrics, “Watch me, dance/Dance the night away/My heart could be burning, but you won’t see it on my face/Watch me, dance/Dance the night away/I’ll still keep the party running, not one hair out of place/Lately I’ve been moving close to the edge/Still be looking my best/I stay on the beat/You can count on me/I ain’t missing no steps.” No, she certainly isn’t. For that’s what it is to be a “Barbie Girl” (a.k.a. a woman in general)—you’ve got to be perfect, unflappable and always “on,” no matter what’s really going on behind those seemingly dead eyes of yours.
In many ways, that’s the purpose of this song: to remind that, beneath the glossy veneer many women exude for the sake of making others (read: men) feel good about themselves, there’s so much involved in appearing so “effortless.” And yes, Lipa embodies such effortlessness in sentiments like, “Baby you can Find me under the lights/Diamonds under my eyes/Turn the rhythm up/Don’t you wanna just come along for the ride?/Oh my outfit so tight.” The Britney influence is evident on this verse, too, for she expressed something tantamount on “Brave New Girl” when she sang, “He said, ‘Let’s get a room girl, come and ride with me’” and “She wants the good life, no need to rewind/She needs to really, really find what she wants/She lands on both feet, won’t take a back seat.” Indeed, one can’t help but think that Spears would have been an ideal choice to create a song for the Barbie Soundtrack, her own aesthetic and discography a long-standing homage to “Barbie World.” Alas, as the movie would suggest, such a “shiny, plastic” existence is so often betrayed by a sinister undercurrent—something Spears knows only too well.
The final pièce de résistance in set pieces (apart from a huge Playboy-esque “boudoir” heel) comes in the form of a Barbie convertible that gets split in half as the camera “goes through it” before we see Lipa sitting in her own pink car (the same one Robbie sits in for a promotional still of the movie). We then cut to a scene of her strutting through the set with a slew of human disco balls behind her. The disco ball motif, in case you couldn’t tell by now, is very important. For, as Taylor Swift’s “mirrorball” made clear, this ostensible emblem of good times merely reflects back what everyone else wants to see. Images of Barbie are also conjured when Swift sings, “I’m a mirrorball/I can change everything about me to fit in…/The masquerade revelers/Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten.”
Nonetheless, as Lipa puts it, “That’s the moment I shine/‘Cause every romance/Shakes and it bends/Don’t give a damn.” And how could any Barbie when she looks this good as the music keeps playing? Which is why one just hates to think of the unpleasant thoughts that might creep in if it ever stops.
In an Instagram post shared Thursday, Britney, 41, told her 42 million followers that her mom visited her house for the first time in three years.
“My sweet mama showed up at my door step yesterday after 3 years … it’s been such a long time,” the Toxic singer wrote. “With family there’s always things that need to be worked out … but time heals all wounds !!!”
“And after being able to communicate what I’ve held in for an extremely long time, I feel so blessed we were able to try to make things RIGHT !!!”
Britney said she loved her mom and that she is “so blessed we can have coffee together after 14 years !!!”
Story continues below advertisement
Along with the caption, Britney shared a photo of her younger self wearing a frilly pink ballet tutu.
TMZ reported Lynne met Britney at the singer’s LA home on Thursday and was there for about two and a half hours. Britney’s husband, Sam Asghari, 29, was also said to be present.
The Spears mother and daughter have had a publicly tense relationship for years. In July 2022, Britney took to social media to accuse Lynne, 68, of abusing her during her infamous 13-year conservatorship — which she also claimed Lynne masterminded. Lynne has denied both allegations.
When Britney married Asghari in June 2022, neither Lynne nor Britney’s father or her two sons were in attendance.
Story continues below advertisement
At the time, Lynne commented on an Instagram post from Britney about her wedding day, writing, “You look radiant and so happy! Your wedding is the ‘Dream’ wedding! And having it at your home makes it so sentimental and special!” She continued, “I am soooo happy for you! I love you!”
Two months later, Lynne posted an old photo of her and Britney to her Instagram account in what appeared to be an attempt to reach her daughter.
“Britney, your whole life I have tried my best to support your dreams and wishes!” Lynne wrote. “And also, I have tried my best to help you out of hardships! I have never and will never turn my back on you!”
“Your rejections to the countless times I have flown out and calls make me feel hopeless!” she continued. “I have tried everything. I love you so much, but this talk is for you and me only, eye to eye, in private.”
Story continues below advertisement
Months after Lynne’s callout, Britney made another Instagram post about her mother in December 2022 while on a trip to Mexico. She wrote that she and Lynne should go for a coffee together.
“Mom and Dad … I crossed the border and I made it !!!” she wrote in the caption of a selfie post. “After no coffee for 15 years ☕️ … Mom we can go have coffee together now !!! I’m treated as an equal … let’s have coffee and talk about it !!!”
Britney Spears was put into a conservatorship that controlled many aspects of her life on Feb. 1, 2008, by her father, Jamie Spears, and his lawyer, Andrew M. Wallet. The conservatorship came amid a string of strange, public behaviour from Spears, which her family equated to a mental breakdown. (Spears herself has since argued her behaviour was harmless.)
Story continues below advertisement
In November 2021, amid the height of the #FreeBritney movement, a judge ruled to terminate Spears’ conservatorship.
In the past year and a half since these reports circulated, Britney has been somewhat focused on rebuilding her life post-conservatorship. She got married to her longtime partner, Sam Asgahri, in June 2022, made her long-anticipated music comeback in August, and appeared to squash her yearslong feud with Jamie Lynn in December.
While some women like to at least slightly pretend they would “emancipate themselves” if they “could” from a toxic relationship, some simply like to own up to loving the pain. Especially in song form. For the past decade or so, both Rihanna and Lana Del Rey have been largely responsible for filling that role. And yet, as both women “mature” (theoretically), each one has “calmed down” and explored more spiritual, “good-natured” themes in their songs of late. For Del Rey, this includes falling prey to the middle-age trap of expressing the desire to just settle down and have kids with someone (hopefully not Jack Donoghue or Evan Winiker or some other out-of-left-field rando). This revealed on such Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd tracks as “The Grants” and “Sweet.” Nonetheless, she still struggles with letting go of her younger self’s input on more usual emotional pain-worshipping fare, namely “Candy Necklace.”
As for Rihanna maybe part of the reason she’s taken a hiatus from music (save for her two singles, “Lift Me Up” and “Born Again” for the Black Panther:Wakanda Forever Soundtrack) is a result of not necessarily wanting to keep talking about how good toxic relationships feel (hear: “Rehab,” “Russian Roulette,” “Love the Way You Lie” and “Love on the Brain,” to name a few). After all, she’s presently in a “healthy” one with A$AP Rocky, spurred by having two children with him. Even so, considering both LDR and RiRi are like a sonic version of the Safdie Brothers’ Heaven Knows What, it’s difficult to branch out from the trope they established for themselves. That’s why Del Rey mostly hasn’t and why Rihanna has opted to become a business mogul—to avoid singing about topics that are perhaps not what people want to hear (i.e., being in love with someone stable and supportive). Because, for as much as she was ridiculed for her relationship with Chris Brown (and going back to him a second time after he physically assaulted her), listeners couldn’t deny their love of lyrics such as, “It’s like I checked into rehab, and baby, you’re my disease.” To be sure, the idea of being unable to kick a toxic addiction in the form of a love interest has been romanticized for centuries (just look at Catherine and Heathcliff). Rihanna has been able to capitalize on that repeatedly, especially after she stopped denying rumors of her romance with Brown, initially saying things like, “We are best friends, honestly, like brother and sister.” Sure, like brother and sister if they were Finneas and Billie. Or Angelina and James. Anyway, this pattern of starting out as “besties” with a guy before finally letting him into her boudoir continued with Drake and A$AP, the former being jettisoned perhaps because he was just too wholesome for Rihanna’s taste.
Focusing on her new family and her various Fenty-related business endeavors has thus made Rihanna lose touch with her songstress “baddie” side, while Del Rey, too, shuffles in the limbo of her early persona and the one in which she tries to become this generation’s Joni (Mitchell) meets Joan (Baez). So, possibly sensing a void once wholly occupied by these two queens of championing “it hurts so bad but feels so good” relationships, Anne-Marie has entered the fray with her latest single, “Unhealthy.” Already coming in hot this year with singles like “Sad Bitch,” “Expectations” and “Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” “Unhealthy” marks the fourth single that will appear on her third album of the same name this summer. Not only that, but it somewhat ironically features Miss “Man! I Feel Like A Woman” herself, Shania Twain. And yet, Twain’s notedness for being an “independent woman” took a while to cultivate after releasing “You’re Still the One,” also from her 1997 album, Come On Over.
You might say that it, too, turned out to be a song about toxic love—once Mutt Lange eventually ended up cheating on her with her best friend, Marie-Anne (not Anne-Marie) Thiébaud (truly, the stuff of country song clichés, and also a large part of the plot driving Hope Floats starring Sandra Bullock). Weirder still, though, was Twain ending up with the now ex-husband of Marie-Anne, Frédéric Thiébaud. Meanwhile, Marie-Anne is still with Mutt. So, in the end, it was a happy little “wife swap” story, wasn’t it? The sort of story Del Rey (or Taylor Swift during folklore/evermore period) might talk about on one of her songs. The point is, the fact that Twain makes a cameo on “Unhealthy” just goes to show that, no matter how far a woman comes or how much “growth” she might have experienced, there’s always room to ruminate on the “beauty” of l’amour toxique.
But before Twain’s verse enters the picture, Anne-Marie opens with, “Well, your love is worse, worse than cigarettes/Even if I had twenty in my hands/Oh, babe, your touch, it hurts more than hangovers/No, that bottle don’t hold the same regret.” Yet, despite knowing all these things vis-à-vis how bad this man is for her, she still can’t—nay, doesn’t want to—let go. In other words, “good dick will imprison you.” Or even slightly adequate dick, these days. With an accompanying visualizer for the song that shows Anne-Marie delighting in some junk food before proceeding to treat her ketchup bottle like an unwieldy splooging penis, we can feel her lack of concern for other people’s opinions as she blithely recounts, “And my mother says that you’re bad for me/Guess she never felt the high we’re on right now/And my father says I should run away/But he don’t know that I just don’t know how.”
In certain respects, it channels the simultaneously parallel and antithetical anthem that is Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” during which she chirps, “My mother says, ‘When you gonna live your life right?’ Oh momma dear, we’re not the fortunate ones/And girls, they wanna have fun” and then adds, “The phone rings, in the middle of the night/My father yells, ‘What you gonna do with your life?’/Oh daddy dear, you know you’re still number one/But girls, they wanna have fun.” And the “fun” Anne-Marie wants to have is with this “bad for her” man (cue the Bridget Jones’ Diary line, “Anne-Marie, wanton sex goddess, with a very bad man between her thighs”). Much like Bonnie Parker, who one could easily imagine singing, while bullets rained down on her and Clyde, “‘Cause even if it kills me, I’ll always take your hand/It’s unhealthy, they just don’t understand/And when thеy try to stop me, just know nobody can/You’re still gon’ be my man.”
Anne-Marie dares to release such a single at a time when it’s not exactly chic to continue such LDR and RiRi stylings in music. Which begs the question of how much a sudden aversion toward #MeToo-oriented notions have gradually started to fall back into favor, even by women themselves (Anne-Marie could very well be talking about her own relationship with Slowthai, for all we know). As for Twain, she confirms the delights of toxicity by chiming in, “Oh, this body high gives me sleepless nights/It’s a million times what any drug could give/And my red eyes, they are twice as wide/It might look like pain, but to me, it’s bliss.”
Perhaps not since Britney Spears singing, “With a taste of your lips, I’m on a ride/You’re toxic, I’m slippin’ under” on her 2004 hit called, what else, “Toxic,” has there been so much pleasure expressed over pain. And, considering some of the other song titles on Unhealthy, including “Psycho,” “Obsessed,” “Kills Me to Love You” and “Cuckoo,” this particular single only adds to the “on-brand” motif. One that someone apparently had to pick up the slack for as Del Rey and Rihanna have started to soften.
Ah, the ’90s. An era defined by MTV, Lisa Frank notebooks, and more boy bands than we care to count. (For the record, we think 98 Degrees was super underrated.) Some of our absolute favorite pop culture moments were born out of this decade, and when we think back on it, we can’t help but relish in the wonderfully wild ’90s hairstyles.
From messy buns to a broad selection of bangs, and, of course, butterfly clips galore, there was something special about the hair trends from this time. The It girls of the era, such as Britney Spears, Janet Jackson, and Gwen Stefani, were serving up enough inspiration to carry us right into the following decade.
If you’re as nostalgic as we are, then you’ll love this roundup of the 20 most quintessentially ’90s hairstyles we would low-key wear today. We might get some strange looks, but hey, we’ll never shy away from an adventurous beauty look. Keep reading for our favorites.
As the discussion continues about whether or not “middle age” really exists anymore, among the many pop stars to benefit from the decision that it doesn’t is Kylie Minogue. That is to say, she isn’t being reamed for not “acting her age” the way Madonna (who has influenced Minogue and so many other pop star prototypes) constantly is. For whatever reason, Madonna appears to be the sole absorber of all ageist criticisms pertaining to aesthetics and lyrical content deemed too “young” for someone “her age.” She is, in effect, the pop star embodiment of Lottie (Courtney Eaton) on Yellowjackets taking all the punches from Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), representing the public in this case, so that none of the other girls have to. And while Minogue is ten years younger than Madonna, it’s still a bit of stretch to hear some of the things she’s singing about on her first single from Tension, “Padam Padam” (luckily, not a dance remake of the Édith Piaf song).
This isn’t to say a woman shouldn’t be able to sing about whatever the fuck she wants, no matter what age she is, it’s just interesting that only certain women seem to eke by with a “pass” for talking about such things as, “Padam, padam/I know you wanna take me home/Padam, and take off all my clothes.” Certainly, Minogue’s well-maintained face and body are nothing to balk at and it’s easy to believe someone (man or woman) would want to take her home, but it has to be acknowledged that this sort of talk from a fifty-plus pop star has only ever been done by Madonna (that’s right, not even Cher has “dared” to do what Madonna does in terms of redefining pop stardom for an “unthinkable” age bracket). And when she did (and still does), it never quite manages to get by “the censors” without some very harsh assessments.
Take, for example, a 2012 review of MDNA, in which the reviewer felt it essential to comment, “Let us banish from our minds the thought that there are perhaps more dignified approaches for a 53-year-old woman than singing, ‘Girls, they just wanna have some fun’ in a song named after a series of porn videos in which women are encouraged to strip off in exchange for free baseball caps…” Minogue, of course, would never get such flak for singing about similarly “undignified” things “for her age” on “Padam Padam,” elsewhere including, “I can hear your heart beatin’/Padam, padam, I hear it and I know/Padam, padam, I know you wanna take me home/Padam, and get to know me close.” Less “age appropriate” still is, “This place is crowdin’ up/I think it’s time for you to takе me out this club/And we don’t need to use our words/Wanna see what’s underneath that t-shirt/Shivers and cold champagne.”
As for the music video to go with “Padam Padam,” Minogue reteams with Sophie Muller (who also directed, among other Minogue singles, “Magic” and “Dancing”) to create a vibrant, red-filled palette that suggests the passion and heartbeat alluded to throughout the song. That red palette includes Minogue’s très rouge Mugler catsuit (alas, a red catsuit can never be more iconic than it was in Britney’s “Oops!…I Did It Again”). The video opens with aesthetics that are right out of the Twin Peaks and Chris Isaak music video playbook—from shots of Minogue in a diner holding out her bright red cup to be refilled to Minogue lying on a motel bed with two “fuzzed-out” TVs next to her (the whole 90s-esque motel vibe smacks of Chris Isaak’s “Baby Did A Bad Thing”). The lush visuals of both locations can be attributed to the Pink Motel and its adjacent Cadillac Jack’s Café (formerly Pink Café). And yet, for all the visual precision, there’s not really a cohesive “theme,” other than: red (ironic, considering the motel’s name). At other moments, Minogue appears outdoors with a slew of backup dancers as she “oversees” more than participates in the choreography (another maneuver Madonna has taken to in recent years, especially on tour). And, despite talking about being in a club, Minogue makes mention of that line while back in the diner as her dancers move around on the stools and in the booths for a simultaneously eerie and “playful” effect.
In another scene, Minogue sits in a “futuristic” (because of its hyper-curved shape) red armchair as the dancers gyrate behind her. This, again, indicates a kind of disconnect between what Minogue wants to “exude” within these lyrics versus what she’s capable of exuding through her physicality. When Madonna turned fifty-four—Minogue’s current age (going on fifty-five as of May 28th)—in 2012, she was still determined to match her own physical manifestation of “Girl Gone Wild” in the Mert and Marcus-directed video, gyrating in unison with Ukrainian boy band Kazaky and their male model imitators that rounded out the cast of backup dancers.
Three years prior, Madonna had another Benny Benassi-flavored track in 2009’s “Celebration,” with the Jonas Åkerlund-directed video featuring her writhing and grinding in thigh-high stiletto boots and a barely crotch-covering Balmain studded dress. The song doesn’t just bear bringing up because of Madonna’s continued dance commitment in it, but because even when Minogue says in “Padam Padam,” “You look like fun to me/You look a little like somebody I know,” it echoes Madonna saying something similar on “Celebration” with, “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?/You look familiar/You wanna dance?” Minogue has that same desire to grind up against someone (preferably of a “boy toy” demographic) on the dance floor for a while before going back to one of their places to disrobe. After all, she hasn’t put such work into her body for it to go unnoticed by another, n’est-ce pas?
As for “Padam Padam” itself, there’s no denying it’s an absolute bop (which is a relief after the tired stylings of her Disco era). Produced by Lostboy, the song has the kind of earworm hook that made “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” so, well, impossible to get out of one’s head. Within this single, Minogue alludes to that 2001 hit with the line, “I’ll be in your head all weekend.” In addition to probably giving/getting head all weekend from the sound of it. But again, Minogue’s ability—as well as any other female pop star going forward—to refer to such things without the judgment to “act her age” is a direct result of the floggings Madonna has taken. And, as stated before, continues to take.
Perhaps because Minogue comes across as a “nicer” person, or maybe just the fact that she’s Australian and not American (therefore not subject to the same puritanical American views as Madonna), it’s helped her avoid such similar tongue lashings. But for all of Madonna’s supposed “bitchiness,” no one, least of all Minogue, can deny the path she’s cleared for post-middle-age existence (particularly for women), whether as a pop star or a civilian. Which is to say, it no longer really exists at all as a direct result of Madonna’s refusal to pander to being, as she once phrased it in an interview with Jonathan Ross, “put out to pasture” at the age of forty.
Continuing the pop music tradition of incorporating religious metaphor (hear: Madonna’s “Like A Prayer,” Beyoncé’s “Heaven,” Lana Del Rey’s “Gods and Monsters,” MARINA’s “Handmade Heaven” or even Kesha’s own “Raising Hell,” to name a few), Kesha adds “Only Love Can Save Us Now” into the canon. While her previous two singles from Gag Order, “Eat the Acid” and “Fine Line,” didn’t so directly refer to her ongoing legal struggles with one, Lukasz Gottwald, this particular track minces no words.
Co-produced with Rick Rubin, Jussifer and Stint, the moody, erratic beat is reminiscent of Kesha’s first two musical offerings, Animal and Cannibal. Despite Kesha warning fans that she didn’t feel like this record was “danceable,” instead billing it as a more “personal” album, the singer can’t help but surrender to visceral rhythms sooner or later when it comes to making music. “Only Love Can Save Us Now” proves that point as the more sinister, “irascible” part of the backing track would be right at home on any record before Rainbow. Even certain word choices harken back to Kesha’s “Ke$ha” period. For example, when she warns, “I’m ‘bout to blow your fuckin’ head through the ceiling,” who can help but think back to her also warning, “This place about to blow” on, what else, “Blow” (from the Cannibal EP)? Maybe that’s deliberate on Kesha’s part—perhaps she wants to make subtle digs at her “Dr. Luke era” to remind him that she’s forgotten nothing. Meanwhile, he actively works to court amnesia (no legal pun intended).
As for the religious overtones, Kesha is quick to spit metaphors like, “The resurrection’s here/Can you believe it?” (one imagines Dr. Luke wouldn’t like to). She also mentions, “Been baptized in Hollywood in the Cathedral/The power of Christ compels me, I’m a demon/Keep singing hallelujah, nothing can save us.” For those convinced that the Hollywood machine is a satanic cabal rooted in conspiracy, this song will surely bring a smile of vindication to their face. Her use of religious “ecstasy” gone wrong makes sense when considering most pop stars can’t help but eventually come to view themselves as godlike (what with celebrities being the new deities that people worship). Like Taylor Swift before her on “Look What You Made Me Do,” Kesha announces, “The bitch I was, she dead/Her grave desecrated.” Except, of course, Taylor’s words were, “I’m sorry, but the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ‘cause she’s dead.” This idea that, after a certain amount of publicly-splashed trauma, a famous person “dies” and becomes more their impenetrable celebrity self than their former “human” self is also present in Kesha’s declaration. And maybe that’s for the best in some ways since, as Kesha puts it, “I would kill for secrets/All of mine been leaking/I don’t got no shame left/Baby that’s my freedom.”
Having “nothing left to be ashamed of” is also something fellow Dr. Luke collaborator Britney Spears knows all about as she “dares” to keep posting videos of herself dancing with captions that are cryptic but not too cryptic to pick up on the underlying message of: “fuck everyone.” Especially people like Dr. Luke who were among the many to use her as what Dr. L himself called an “amazing vehicle.” As though she wasn’t even a person, just a money-making machine. Kesha echoed a similar feeling on “Fine Line” as she concluded, “There’s a fine line between what’s entertaining/And what’s just exploiting the pain/But hey, look at all the money we made off me.”
That “fine line” was crossed many times by Kesha’s abuser, which is why it’s easy to interpret one of her lyrics as doubling for the perfection she was forced to strive for physically while under his manipulative control. That lyric being, “Goddamn perfection in his image he made us.” Not to liken Dr. Luke to “God” or anything, but he has had his fair share of authority over the music industry via his status as one of few the producers who can cite innumerable hits on the Billboard charts. Though he has yet to surpass his mentor, of sorts, Max Martin. Indeed, it was through Martin that Gottwald secured his “Britney gig.” Which prompted him to say such telling things as, “I’m excited to be co-executive producing with Max Martin, the person who kind of invented Britney, and to make good music.” Clearly, he thinks he’s the Regina George to Kesha’s supposed Cady Heron and, like, invented her as well. But no, neither man needed to “invent” Britney or Kesha. Their talent and hard work was what got them where they are (and, in Kesha’s case, there’s a touch of the nepo baby flair thanks to her mother, Pebe Sebert, already being in the business).
But Kesha (and Britney) is done with the “goddamn perfection” that was expected of her. From Dr. Luke, or anyone else. So it is that she urges, “Yeah Jesus take the wheel/I’m going through phases.” This particular one doesn’t discount her past, but rather, incorporates it in a new way into the sonic and lyrical compositions. Even traces of the religious motif on 2020’s “Raising Hell” are easy to be reminded of on “Only Love Can Save Us Now.” For example, Kesha singing on the former, “Hallelujah I’m still here, still bringing it to ya/Ohm like Buddha” and “I’m all fucked up in my Sunday best/No walk of shame ’cause I love this dress/Hungover, heart of gold, holy mess/Doin’ my best/Bitch, I’m blessed.” The recurring topic of shame and ridding herself of it has obviously been something she’s grappled with in the wake of being mocked and having her integrity questioned ever since 2014, when she launched the civil suit against Dr. Luke in the first place. This prompting, among many countersuits, a libel one aimed at Kesha’s mother for speaking in support of her daughter on Twitter. Ergo, Kesha defying her “gag order” by singing, “I’m getting sued because my mom has been tweeting/Don’t fucking tell me that I’m dealing with reason.”
In fact, don’t ever tell any woman (in the entertainment industry or otherwise) that that’s what she’s been dealing with in a patriarchal society. To boot, Kesha takes a risk on her song being too literally interpreted as some kind of sacrilege (because everyone is too literal these days). But if Kesha is “denouncing” religion, she at least champions the one fundamental principle that most of them are founded on: love. Alas, when “organized networks” get involved, that message quickly becomes tainted. Thus, she riffs on a simple moral that The Beatles gave us long ago: “All you need is love.” Except when some asshole fucks you over and incites you to write an album about the slight.
For those who thought Shakira was all embitterment and revenge with her song subjects of late (hear: “Te Felicito” and “Shakira: BZRP Music Sessions #53”), Gerard Piqué isn’t the only topic occupying her mind (therefore, songwriting tendencies) lately. With “Acróstico,” the newest single that will likely appear on her twelfth album, Shakira focuses her mind instead on maternal sentiment—which was just in time for Mother’s Day weekend, as the song was released on May 11th. Accordingly, Shakira has no shame in getting Oedipal (just as John Lennon didn’t have any), talking about a mother’s transcendent, inimitable love for her children; in this case, two sons named Sasha and Milan (yes, they sound as though they were plucked right out of a season of RuPaul’s Drag Race).
It is these two names that are spelled out via the first letters of the verses in the song (though Shakira cheats more than a little bit by not having them spelled in a direct row—perhaps proving that acrostic poems are not exactly “elementary school child’s play”). A slow piano ballad, the beat drops around the one-minute, twenty-second mark as Shakira sings, “Se nos rompió solo un plato no toda la vajilla/Y aunque no sé poner la otra mejilla/Aprender a perdonar es de sabios/Que solo te salga amor de esos labios.” This meaning, “We only broke one plate, not all the dishes/And although I don’t know how to turn the other cheek/Learning to forgive is wise/May only love come out of those lips” (instead of the bullshit that came out of Piqué’s). As usual, everything sounds better and more poetic in Spanish than it does in English. But these are hardly the most standout or “maternal” expressions conveyed in the song. Elsewhere, Shakira gets even mushier with lines like, “The only thing I want is your happiness and to be with you/A smile from you is my weakness/Loving you serves as an anesthesia for pain/It makes me feel better/For whatever you need, I am here/You came to complete what I am.” How Jerry Maguire.
Of course, with Shakira’s sons only being ten and eight, it’s easy to feel such warm fuzziness toward them. But hopefully, they never take the route of Britney Spears’ spawns and veer more toward the path of Pamela Anderson’s. Depending on Piqué’s (and Clara Chía’s…if she lasts) influence, that feeling could change as they grow older (plus, if we’re drawing a comparative line, Piqué is technically Shakira’s K-Fed). Indeed, Britney is no stranger to the “write a song for my sons” genre only to have it backfire, having released both “Someday (I Will Understand)” and “My Baby” in years before the sting of Jayden and Sean’s betrayal. Years when they weren’t sentient enough to backstab (hence, lyrics such as, “Tiny hands/Yes, that’s you/And all you show/It’s simply true/I smell your breath/It makes me cry”—that last sentiment sounding more like an insult than a compliment).
But, for now, and despite Britney as a cautionary tale about writing songs for your sons, Shakira is hedging all her emotional bets on them by claiming ownership (almost as though marking her territory more strongly than Piqué can because he ain’t a singer). So it is that she declares, “You taught me that love is not a scam and that when it’s real it doesn’t end.” No pressure or anything for these sons to be her love “catch-all,” even as they grow up and inevitably try to distance themselves from their madre. Or worse, if they decide not to…meaning whoever they end up with will be marrying Shakira as much as her sons (though that might be motivation enough for some people).
This is when it becomes worth noting that “Acróstico” is just as overbearing as it is “sweet.” And while there have been plenty of other pop stars who have used their children as lyrical inspiration (e.g., David Bowie’s “Kooks,” John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy,” Lauryn Hill’s “To Zion” and Madonna’s “Little Star”), this particular slow jam feels more like additional leverage against Piqué somehow. Forgive the jadedness, but it’s hard not to picture Shakira diabolically laying down this track as further proof of her beneficent superiority over her shady, two-timing ex.
The album artwork, fittingly enough, features a teddy bear popping out of an unpacked box…seeing as how Shakira has relocated from Barcelona to Miami with Sasha and Milan after the fallout with their father. The box above it also has a sticker stamped on with a broken heart icon and the words, “Fragile Handle With Care.” Shakira believes her sons will do just that, the antidote to every other ill and heartbreak that might come along. Seemingly not realizing that a mother’s son can be just as much of a bane as a boon to her emotional well-being. Perhaps fellow celebrity mom Madonna put it best when she wrote in part of her own Mother’s Day message, “I have experienced my highest highs and my lowest lows as a Mother. No one could have prepared me.” Maybe Shakira herself has yet to be prepared for the potential disappointment that can come with putting so much weight on a child’s love if it isn’t reciprocated in the “right” way somewhere down the line. To add to the “aggressive, sticky maternal love!” (as Marcello in La Dolce Vita would say) vibe, Shakira also offers an accompanying lyric video featuring animated scenes of a mama bird protecting and tending to her nest of two eggs. Heavy-handed, to be sure. But not as much as when she defends her nest through a violent storm before the eggs hatch.
Upon “safely” bringing her two babies into the world (as though anyone is ever safe once they’re here), she proceeds to “activate” as a mother by foraging for food to bring back to them—the maternal instinct innate (or so the video would like to suggest). Jumping up and down in excitement as she watches them learn to fly, the trio soon soars off together into the sunset. And, in an alternate universe, one could even imagine a Spanish version of Princess Diana having her time with William and Harry soundtracked to this. However, for those who are maudlin-averse or perhaps have a more Mommie Dearest experience with their own mother, this song—brief though it may be—might not be easy to stomach.
Britney Spears, one of the biggest pop stars of our time, has had a tumultuous journey post-conservatorship. In November 2021, her 13-year-long conservatorship was finally terminated by a California judge, and since then, Spears has been attempting to adjust to her newfound freedom.
In the year and a half since the conservatorship ended, the pop star has experienced both victories and setbacks. One of her biggest wins was her Elton John collaboration, “Hold Me Closer,” which went No. 1. Spears also landed a $15 million book deal, showing that she still has plenty of commercial appeal.
However, the road to freedom hasn’t been easy for Spears. She has faced rumors of struggles in her marriage, and those close to her have expressed concern about her well-being. In February, Spears’ inner circle had to cancel a planned intervention for her after she began acting erratically. “She is often up all night, sleeps during [the] day and has a lot of anger,” a source told PEOPLE at the time.
Another insider in Spears’ circle told PEOPLE that things behind the scenes had been “very difficult” and “chaotic” as those close to her encouraged her to get help. “Everyone had hoped Britney could be convinced to seek treatment before things got any worse, but they knew it wouldn’t be easy,” the insider said. “She’s been going through a lot and has been increasingly combative.”
Despite these challenges, a source close to Spears says that she is still a survivor. “She had been under lock and key for 13 years. Have there been ups and downs? Yes,” the source tells PEOPLE exclusively. “But some of the amazing things she’s done recently have all been her choice. She is a survivor. Despite whatever ups and downs she’s going through, she remains a survivor.”
In recent months, Spears has been using social media to voice her frustrations and air grievances with family members, including her dad Jamie Spears. She has accused him of forcing her to work and spend time in a mental health facility, claims that her family has long denied. Spears has also been open about her struggles with her mental health.
In a post on Instagram in August 2021, Spears spoke candidly about her mental health issues, revealing that she was struggling with anxiety and depression. “I haven’t spoken about it because I was ashamed to share what happened to me,” she wrote. “But honestly, who doesn’t want to capture their Instagram in a fun light?”
In the same post, Spears also addressed her conservatorship and said that she felt “embarrassed” by it. “I didn’t want people to think that I was lying or that I wasn’t genuine,” she wrote. “I’m sorry for pretending like I’ve been okay the past two years…I did it because of my pride and I was embarrassed to share what happened to me.”
Since then, Spears has continued to speak out about her experience with the conservatorship, and she has been using her platform to advocate for changes to the legal system. In a post on Instagram in November 2021, she thanked her fans for their support and said that she was “grateful and blessed” to have them in her life.
“What’s next for Britney is up to one person — and this is the first time we can say this in a decade — it’s up to Britney,” Spears’ lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, stated after the conservatorship was terminated.
Despite the challenges she has faced, Spears remains determined to move forward with her life. In a since-deleted Instagram post from December 2021, she wrote, “I’ve been looking forward to this day for the past 13 years
Here’s the thing: I could google how the poet laureate is chosen, but instead, I’ll give Instagram a quick scroll and acknowledge what in my heart of hearts I know to be true: Britney Spears is the voice we as a society need right now.
In a recent grid post on her personal page, the—singer? Guru? Icon? Life coach?—captioned a video of herself dancing to Paula Cole’s “Feelin’ Love” with an original Beat poem that can best be summarized as “lotion good; paparazzi bad; mean-ass gym girlie made me cry extra bad; let’s dance, bitches.” Taken on its face as a prose update, sure, it feels like perhaps it could use a few edits for clarity, but the flow can’t be denied.
This isn’t Instagram. This is poetry.
“Woke up this morning and my skin is so dry!!!” her caption begins. It reads like a text I might send to one of my friends while I brush my teeth, the ones in the tier where they receive updates throughout the day on my snacks and what streaming TV I have on in the background, and, hey, does my earlobe look weird, or is this just what earlobes look like? The same friends who might get a two-minute voice note describing the weird dream I had last night, and I know they’ll listen to the whole thing.
Instagram content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
But after mentioning visiting vague “exotic locations,” coating her body in lotion, and commenting on the weather, Spears’s monologue takes a turn: “I want to get out more.” Given her history—a 13-year conservatorship, childhood fame, public scrutiny for decades—this simple phrase, considered, becomes just a little devastating. Spears’s post goes on to detail the saga of getting pap-snapped recently when her car broke down on a drive with husband Sam Asghari. “I looked like an idiot!!!” she writes, lamenting her “facial expression, the way I was leaning over, the pooch in my stomach!!!” It was a “helpless situation,” and she is not pleased with the resulting photos. “It didn’t look like my body,” she writes of that and another recent pap incident. She then drifts back to a personal trainer she met with two months ago. “The first thing she did to me was literally…and I’m not even lying…pinch the skin on my stomach and legs and [tell] me I need to get my younger body back…Why the hell did she do that??? It made me cry.”
Spears, 41, has lived a lot of life, both in mundane and extraordinary ways, and ways that are mundanely extraordinary. (She’s given birth to two children, for example, something that a lot of people do, but is not acknowledged for the extremely metal act that it is until someone goes through it themself: mundanely extraordinary.) World tours, courtroom dramas, marriages and divorces, multiplatinum albums, Vegas residencies, extremely memorable moments with Teletubbies—Spears has a lot to unpack, and her no-comments-taken approach (literally; she has the comments turned off on her grid posts) is reminiscent of some favorite contemporary poets like Kate Baer and Janet McNally, who confront aging and motherhood and the ordinary, extraordinary, everyday snapshots of living in a female-shaped body. Take, for example, McNally’s “The Wicked One Goes to the Makeup Counter”:
Beauty stays, then goes; / it fades, we say, something about years and sun, the nights we slept / in makeup and left mascara like ashes on the pillowcase. We burned / through every one of our dreams. I wasn’t always a stepmother, you know. / There were whole years when I was a girl.
Womanizer singer Britney Spears was snapped without her wedding ring just days before Sam Asghari was seen without his. On Tuesday, March 28 she headed to board a private jet to Hawaii with her manager. On March 30, Sam was also snapped without his ring as he left Thousand Oaks gym. This added fuel to the rumours of their separation after 9 months of marriage. Sam shared a photo on his Instagram handle and one can clearly see the ring. In the picture, the actor was seated on a plane but did not reveal where he was heading towards. Well, there might be a possibility that he was going to Hawaii to meet his wife who has been there for two days already.
Britney Spears shares a dancing video with a mystery man
Recently, amid marital issues with Sam Asghari, Britney took to her Instagram handle to share a video of her dancing with a mystery man. In the video, the pop singer can be seen wearing a neon colour bikini whereas the mystery man was shirtless and wore shorts. Both of them were seen dancing their heart out while looking at the camera. As soon as she shared the video, she switched off her comment section. If you stalk the social media handle of Britney, you can see that the pop singer is having an amazing vacation through her posts.
Check out the video here
About Britney and Sam
For the unversed, Britney and Sam began dating in 2016 after meeting on the set of her “Slumber Party” video, which was one of her singles from Glory. The two finally got engaged in September 2021 and married nine months later in June 2022.
