Oops, we did it: stars say sorry to fragile Britney
HOLLYWOOD stars and celebrities are offering apologies to Britney Spears after a documentary exposed the torrent of abuse she faced in the years before her public breakdown.
Justin Timberlake, the ex-boyfriend of the former teen pop star, became the latest to offer contrition for failing to stand up for her.
His comments followed a slew of actors and musicians apologising after the release of Framing Britney Spears, which charts the downfall that eventually led to a mental breakdown and the guardianship of the singer’s money and assets being handed over to her father.
Comedian Sarah Silverman was among those to express regret.
“I wish I could delete it,” Silverman said of a video in which she mocked the young singer’s “slutty clothes”, weight and children.
The documentary scrutinises a conservatorship ruling that allowed Spears’s father to control her money, right to vote and career.
It was put in place in 2008 following Spears’s five-day psychiatric hold and was set to expire in 2009, but remains in place.
In recent years the legal case has spawned the #FreeBritney movement, made up of angry fans.
A court hearing last week rejected an appeal by Spears’s father Jamie Spears for more control over her finances.
He was attempting to regain some power lost when a judge named a private trust company as co-conservator for the singer.
Britney Spears’s lawyer has previously said she is “afraid” of her father. Last Thursday, he said it was “no secret” she did not want her father to have control over her finances.
“We are all to blame for what happened to Britney Spears — we may not have caused her downfall, but we funded it,” Glamour magazine wrote in an Instagram post last week.
The phrase “we are sorry, Britney” has spread across social media, accompanied by demands for apologies from those who ridiculed her throughout the 2000s.
Timberlake released an apology for benefiting “from a system that condones misogyny” and said that he had “contributed to the problem”.
Those rallying around Spears include Sarah Jessica Parker, Sharon Stone, Cher and Ellie Goulding.