Us Weekly: Britney Spears' early-career "wholesome pop star virgin" image was a "PR blitz"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Britney Spears' Secrets: Sex at 14, Her Grandma Committed Suicide at 31
Monday November 19, 2007



http://www.usmagazine.com/britney_teaser_draft

Britney Spears made a name for herself as a happy, wholesome pop star who was saving herself for marriage.

But lawyer Eric Ervin, who worked with Spears as a teenager, tells Us Weekly in its new cover story that the "virgin" image Spears portrayed was, in his words, a "PR blitz." In fact, Us reports in its new issue that Spears lost her virginity at 14 to boyfriend Reg Jones, and that she and Justin Timberlake were intimate from the beginning.

Something Spears also kept secret: Her family's tragic history. Us has learned that Spears' paternal grandmother, Emma Jean Spears, in June 1966 committed suicide at age 31. Britney's grandmother, who suffered from depression, shot herself in the chest with a shotgun at the grave of her infant son who had died eight years earlier just three days after being born.

A local newspaper article obtained by Us reported at the time: "The shotgun had been pressed against the woman's chest and she apparently pulled the trigger with a toe of the right foot from which a shoe had been removed." The newspaper reported that Emma Jean had attempted suicide three times before.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. What?!?! The music industry engineering an identity for a musician?!?!?!

I'll NEVER believe it! NEVER!!!!!!

That would mean the music industry is actively engaged not in providing integrity-based music/art to the people, but is offering us only musical product scientifically engineered for specific demographics for consumption by people who only consume their art based on what magazines and marketers tell them they like, and not through due consideration of the merits of the music/art itself and their own interests!!!!!

That's not America at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MissHoneychurch]

2. I wish the Media would leave her alone

and that she could sort out her problems. See a psychologist and talk about her life till now. She really needs help.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. So far, the media's doing the exact opposite and digging deeper for skeletons in the closet

I can't imagine being a celebrity and being under that kind of scrutiny, but logic says "get out of the public spotlight and get some help."

But one of the things she's dealing with is a distinct inability to stay out of the spotlight for more than 24 hours at a time.

[MissHoneychurch]

5. She never knew another life

for the last 10 years or so. I am really wondering why none of the persons close to her can see through all the shit and REALLY help her. Not only pretending. But as it seems they only want money from her.

[WolverineDG]

16. Everyone's used her as a meal ticket

including her parents. And people wonder why she's so screwed up?

dg

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Since the media and marketers created her, they have a right to take her down.

If she had become famous because of talent or ability and worked her way up on her own, I'd agree with you.

But she's only famous because the marketers and the media created her to be famous - she is owned, lock stock and barrel, by the people who engineered her and made her in the secret record label laboratory where the suits, demographers, and marketers create all the pop stars.

When she agreed to give up her humanity to be a famous pop star icon, she gave up her rights to not have her entire life laid out for us.

However, I will agree with you that the media should leave her alone, but for me it's from the standpoint that I don't fucking care. Let her die in a pool of her own vomit after she killed Paris Hilton in cold blood with a bar stool and a toothpick from her fifteenth Martini; I don't care, and I'm sick and tired of her bullshit wasting media time that could be spent talking about something that actually matters.

[Sugar Smack]

10. What do you want to bet they'll also "rehabilitate" her?

For example, Drew Barrymore grew up in the time she was absent from the media. She & Todd Gold got together & wrote her autobiography. That plus a new start (Poison Ivy) made her less of an instant-gratification product for consumers and more of a person. Maybe Britney's people could sequester her for a few years. Til her features have aged just a little. Then they could dress her in frump-suburban clothes and show pictures of her with really short hair and button earrings. On the cover of Better Homes. Digging around in a garden with shears. Don't mind me.

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. Could be. Either her owners have already written her off, or are planning her comeback

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the demographers and market study people have done a full analysis and twenty-year trajectory of how they will manage her careers ups and downs, and, I bet, have already put in place the music and the concert that she will do in 2025, her first in 12 years, that she will do with her children in a bag come back tour after she's been cleaned up and, probably, born again, because her record label will have sold her to a Christian record label that needs a fake product that's gone through a bogus "redemption" and "recovery" and willing to do a lot of Jeebus-speak in concerts about how Jesus saved her from cocaine and hard living.

And I'm sure that starting about 2012 the marketers will be looking for the new child that will become Brittney's protege beginning in 2026 after her big comeback has proven successful (and it will prove successful because the people who own her also own People magazine and E! and other media outlets).

Our ability to do marketing and future forecasting based on current polls and demographics is absolutely amazing, so, in al honesty, I could see the aforementioned being planned out. If not in those details precisely, at least in that kind of time frame.

[Phillycat]

12. You said:

When she agreed to give up her humanity to be a famous pop star icon, she gave up her rights to not have her entire life laid out for us.

Dude, she was like 6 years old! How much choice did she really have in the matter? And yeah, you can say, "She's an adult now and she should know better", but she's never had a chance to grow up in the context of a normal life. She doesn't know how to help herself. I'm not a huge Britney fan, but I feel sorry for her.

[redqueen]

13. Thanks...

I'm not a fan *at all* (though I do admit to liking Toxic) but as you said - she was six.

I feel sorry for her too.

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. I don't feel sorry for her at all.

I feel sorry for her childhood, in some ways, but as an adult, she has the ability to make choices - and she chooses to live the life of a fucking useless moron.

Raising be damned, at some point people have to grow up and take responsibility for themselves and stop blaming others. She's had plenty of chances.

[Phillycat]

19. She's, what, 24?

And is emotionally stunted by never having had a proper childhood or adolescence.

Listen, I'm the first person to say you gotta own what's yours and take responsibility for your own shit. I had a seriously fucked up childhood, and I had to do a lot of work on myself to get to the point of being a functioning human who interacts with other humans in a generally good way. I had to quit drinking, and go to therapy, and some other stuff. But I was 30 when I finally started coming around. A lot of people in their early 20's just don't have the emotional capacity to do that kind of work on themselves (of course there are exceptions). Throw in a childhood and adolescence of being CONSTANTLY in the GLOBAL spotlight, and how much could that have fucked up her growth? Come on, man. Yes, she's an idiot. Yes, she's white trash. Yes, she's made some of the most excerable choices, especially concerning whom she chose to father her children. But I honestly don't think she has the tools to help herself right now. She's not very bright, and she's surrounded by people who won't tell her the truth, because they want her to make money for them. It's a sad story. I'm not yet so jaded that I can't find a spot of sympathy for someone who is self-destructing so spectacularly and publicly.

[SacredCow]

17. I agree....

The media circus around her has gone totally out of control. At this point, I feel very sorry for her and hope she gets herself some help.

[philosophie_en_rose]

4. LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE. LEAVE HER ALOOOOOOOOONE.

:rofl:

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

9. Seriously...

Why does anybody give a crap about this? It's not that I don't like the woman, but what's with the obsession?

[Downtown Hound]

15. Well, that's a good question

But I think the case is interesting because it really shows where we're at as a society with regards to our media. Brittney Spears came to fame in the 90's, when "values voting" was all the rage and apparently our young stars were pressured to be something they're not. Brittney is a perfect case study in regards to how the media likes to force feed the public a bullshit image and what that image needs to be. Namely, a gorgeous blonde, athletic, bubbly, and virgin-pure pop star.

Now with regards to what's going on now, well that's another case study for our media. Our media, and our public, love to build people up and tear them down. It puts people on a pedestal that's impossible for any one human being to manage, and when they fail, they send in the lions. So now that Brittney has been unmasked, and our image of her shattered, look for the media to get every last dollar they can out of her, by exploiting what has become her fucked up life. She's still of use to them, just not in the same way that she was.

Brittney Spears, product of corporate U.S.A., victim of corporate U.S.A., extreme money maker for corporate U.S.A., whether it's through her snow white image or the popcorn entertainment of watching her life spin out of control. If Brittney is guilty of anything, it's of not being able to break free of the stranglehold her masters have on her and assert her own identity, but I think that's probably easier said than done if we were in her shoes. I feel really sorry for her. And Brittney won't be the last person to be swallowed up by this mass colossus known as the entertainment industry and corporate media.

[Fleshdancer]

7. totally wild speculation: she had a manager when she needed a mom

I can't imagine raising my daughter the way Spears was raised. The money just isn't worth it to me.

May she get the help she needs some day.

[Frank Cannon]

8. Justin Timberlake was banging Britney?

Is there ANYONE that guy hasn't screwn?

[guitar man]

14. sigh

is there any wonder now why so many people swallowed the WMD story?

[FredScuttle]

20. Reg?

Seriously....Reg?