With the recent release of the Framing Britney Spears documentary, the public has seen the behind-the-scenes harassment that Britney had to endure during her recent years as a pop star. 

However, this isn’t the first time how Britney’s unfair treatment by the media has happened to her. And what’s more, her torment is supposedly still going on today in her home life. 

To understand how the documentary was created, we have to talk about the #FreeBritney movement. According to ew.com, “The #FreeBritney movement launched in 2019 with the object of liberating Spears from the legal conservatorship under which she’s lived since 2008…” 

The conservatorship first started after Spears’ infamous breakdown in 2008, where she shaved her head and attacked paparazzi with an umbrella. The media supposedly had been following her for hours and when asked to stop, they mocked her and kept shooting the photos. 

After the event, she was hospitalized. During her recovery, her father, Jaime Spears, fought in court to become her legal “caretaker.”

The Ringer explains the status: “The conservatorship, which was made permanent in 2008, is separated into financial and personal components and allows for more or less total control of her life. She can theoretically make no decisions, major or minor, without approval.” 

Now some things have changed since then. Around September of 2019, Mr. Spears relinquished some of his power. However, the status still set up a situation for “being controlled.” The many more theories of Britney being in danger continued to stem from social media. 

One popular theory actually came from a TikTok, where one commentator on Britney Spears’ Instagram posted, if you are in danger, wear a yellow shirt next time. Interestingly, she did the exact thing, wearing her favorite yellow shirt. This had fans in a frenzy, where over 384,000 fans have liked the post. 

However, this wasn’t enough for police and investigators, as a three-month Los Angeles Times investigation reportedly found no evidence that the conservatorship was detrimental to Spears’ well-being, although they seemed to have trouble getting information from those close to Spears. 

They wrote, “The Los Angeles Times spent three months examining Spears’ conservatorship and reaching out to those who might have seen firsthand how it has affected her; no one in her inner circle responded to requests for comment. The paper could find no independent evidence that Spears was being harmed by the arrangement.”

So fans had enough and put a project together with people backing up the idea for a documentary. According to a release promoting the documentary, Framing Britney Spears promises a “re-examination of her career and a new assessment of the movement rallying against her court-mandated conservatorship, capturing the unsavoury dimensions of the American pop-star machine.”

The documentary showed the true harm Britney has experienced in her life, not just by her father, but by the music industry and the media that has plagued her. 

Ever since she started on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, the media was obsessed with her. From the over-sexualization, fat-shaming, the sexist and misogynistic comments, to the death threats, and addressing the harmful effects of Jamie Spears’ conservatorship over her. The documentary talks of all angles, and doesn’t hold back. 

Fans reveal their support to the documentary as even Rotten Tomatoes gave it as a 93%, where Top Critic, Ester Zuckerman, said, “Stripped of her voice, Spears has been turned into a meme and a cautionary tale, and her own participation in that narrative remains elusive. After all this time, we’re still projecting so much onto Britney Spears.”

Britney has always struggled despite her legendary status as a popstar, and the fact that even things like this can happen to her is shocking. Hopefully, with the documentary out, it can spread awareness and finally Free Britney.