“Everybody’s talking all this stuff about me. Why don’t they just let me live?”
So sang Britney Spears on her 2004 single My Prerogative.
More than 15 years on, in the week that a documentary, Farming Britney Speasrs, aired in the US those words are echoing once again.
The New York Times film turns the spotlight on the singer’s treatment by the press before her public breakdown in 2007 and the ongoing dispute over her conservatorship – an arrangement that means she doesn’t control many aspects of her own life and career.
The documentary has led to renewed criticism about her treatment within the bubble of 00s celebrity culture, and has sparked some soul-searching in the media.
Blogger Perez Hilton has similarly said he is “so sorry” for how he behaved.
Spaking on his podcast this week, he said: “My words and actions were wrong. I was nasty, mean, cruel, inconsiderate, awful. I have apologised to Britney not just publicly, but privately.”
Amid this reckoning, Spears’ treatment at the hands of the entertainment media machine feels outdated in today’s climate – but has the celebrity experience really changed?
“We are all to blame for what happened to Britney Spears,” read an apology from Glamour magazine to the pop star on Instagram on Tuesday.