Britney Spears- “Everytime” [2004]
I don’t think I’ve made a post about this video before, but it’s one of my favorite Britney songs and videos.
She wrote this song as a response to Justin Timberlake, who as we all remember, used Britney and aired the dirty laundry about her allegedly cheating on him as a promotional tool for his first solo album, even going as far as using a Britney look-a-like in the video for “Cry Me a River” which was written about their breakup. Britney for her part, stayed classy even when Justin went on the radio discussing various aspects of their sex life. Cool guy!
Anyway, Britney’s song is basically a heartfelt apology, her taking the high road per usual. The Timberlake breakup changed the Britney narrative from “American’s Sweetheart” to basically painting her as a “bad woman,” and she never regained an overall positive reception from the public, after that it was almost as if everyone was hoping for her downfall.
While her very public “breakdown” was in 2007, the signs were there as early as 2004 that Britney was going through some rough times and it’s truly shocking to me that no one in her team tried to help her because she was clearly going through some shit!
Anyway, this video was Britney’s concept and she originally wanted it to end with her committing suicide. She was legit ASKING FOR HELP in a very public way and instead was soon sent on a world tour for the remainder of the year*. But I digress.
Obviously her team did not think it was appropriate for America’s former sweetheart to have a video where she commits suicide, so the ending was changed to a bizarre reincarnation thing. But still this video is pretty dark, showing the daily harassment that Britney endured by the tabloid culture, just waiting for her to snap. This video is definitely foreshadowing to the KFed/Britney relationship which began a few months later [she cast actor Stephen Dorff as a “bad boy”] and then her relationship with the paparazzi during her breakdown, it’s almost eerie.
source for the original video ending
*she ended up canceling the second leg of the tour after meeting Kfed and injuring her leg on a video shoot.
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