San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Spears’ claims about encounter are pathetic
I’ve always rooted for Britney Spears.
She’s been manipulated by the music business and exploited by her family. She’s been ridiculed by the media and infantilized by the court system.
She’s been denied custody of her children, locked into a 13-year conservatorship, pressured into working against her will and denied access to the money she earned. And she’s battled debilitating mentalhealth challenges along the way.
So I don’t get any pleasure out of stating that Spears’ persistent attempts to drum up controversy over her brief Las Vegas encounter with Spurs rookie supernova Victor Wembanyama have been pathetic and embarrassing.
By sheer force of attentioncraving will, Spears made a nothingburger into a national story and refuses to let that story die quietly.
It all started on the night of July 5, when Spears spotted Wembanyama, who was in Vegas for Spurs summerleague games, in the ARIA Resort & Casino.
She called out to the French phenom, chased after him and, in an effort to get his attention, reached out to tap him on the shoulder.
That’s when a bodyguard, who never looked back to see who she was, stuck out his left arm and blocked her from making contact with Wembanyama.
That should have been the end of it. But Spears couldn’t handle the humiliation of being ignored in a public setting. So she filed a police report alleging that she had been the victim of a battery.
When police officers arrived at the scene, Spears’ manager, Cade Hudson, falsely told them that Wemby’s bodyguard hit Spears “in the face with a closed fist,” according to a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department incident report.
Spears herself released a social media statement the following day, calling the incident an act of “physical violence” and saying Wemby’s security guard nearly knocked her down.
This account was soon contradicted by a video showing that she was merely blocked from touching Wembanyama and didn’t come close to getting knocked down.
Spears’ own security team contradicted her story. One member of that team, Quaran Smith, told police that Wemby’s security person did not hit Spears and did not have a closed fist.
Smith said the guard “pushed Britney’s hand off the Spurs player without looking and not knowing who was tapping him on the shoulder.”
Smith called it a “standard response for security/bodyguards.” That take was echoed by Steven Ketter, another member of Spears’ security team who witnessed the incident.
Put things in context: You’re protecting one of the most famous professional athletes in the world and you hear someone calling out to the person you’re guarding and trying to catch up to them. When you see that person’s hand reaching out to touch the athlete you’re protecting, you’re obligated to block that contact.
Remember Monica Seles? She dominated the women’s tennis circuit in the early 1990s, until a deranged fan of her chief rival, Steffi Graf, came up behind her during a changeover in her match at the Citizen’s Cup in Hamburg and stabbed her in the back with a butcher’s knife.
At a news conference after the attack, Seles said, “I think security has to be improved; we shouldn’t wait until this happens to somebody else.”
Even though Wemby’s security guard did the right thing, after it became apparent to him that Britney Spears was the person he’d blocked, he approached her and apologized.
Ketter told police that Wemby’s bodyguard and Spears “said sorry to each other for the misunderstanding and that the incident had ended.”
Nonetheless, Spears subsequently insisted on contacting the police. She wasted the resources of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department with a bogus allegation, which the officers ultimately dismissed.
In her July 6 public statement, Spears said the story was “super embarrassing to share with the world,” but pointed out that it was “out there already.”
Why was it “out there already”? Because she chose to turn it into a criminal matter.
On July 11, Spears revived the seemingly dormant story with a video statement renewing false claims that already had been debunked by the video of the incident. She complained that she hadn’t received a public apology.
Spears said she had been knocked “on the floor.” She added, “My best friend picked me up and held me.”
No one picked her up, because she never fell.
Spears released this video on the same day she announced the publication date for her forthcoming memoir — a book for which Simon & Schuster is paying her $15 million. Was the timing coincidence or public relations calculation?
(Spears fans are correct when they note that Wemby inaccurately said last week that Spears grabbed him from behind. Keep in mind, however, that video of the incident shows a member of Spears’ entourage bolting toward Wembanyama after Spears’ hand had been blocked, and it’s not clear if that person made contact with Wembanyama. Also, Wemby discussed the incident, with clear reluctance, only after Spears made her allegation and reporters asked him what happened.)
By hyping her false narrative, Spears has activated her social media army of loyalists, who have posted insults and threats against Wembanyama, including: “Your security guard is going to need his own security guard … and maybe you too.”
Three weeks ago, when Wembanyama made his first visit to San Antonio after being drafted by the Spurs, he approached fans with remarkable grace.
If anything will make him gun-shy about interacting with the public, it’s the kind of clout-chasing nonsense that Spears is spewing right now.