Notorious Celebrity Interviews & Photoshoots: Britney Spears for "Rolling Stone," 1999

[frejasface]

Comments

[msbombtastic]

the descriptions about her body and "jailbait" ugh
I was too young to realise, but the 90s/2000s seemed especially heinous as far as media coverage for young female artists and actresses

[invisiblegirlx]

I remember the way they talked about Britney and Christina and thinking this shit is gross but at my age not really understanding fully why. And the way they went after every female actor or performer on their weight and their sex life was really damaging.

[msbombtastic]

yeah it's really crazy looking back. I am 26 now, so I was just a little kid when her and Christina first debuted but in the early-mid 2000s was when I became a lot more aware of the media around me.
I remember when a lot of celebrities were getting really thin, and the way it was covered was either "nbd, wouldn't we all want to be this skinny?" or just completely making a spectacle of it (I remember with Nicole Richie in particular, it was like well damn if she is struggling with body issues, these constant headlines can't be helping)
it was so normalized at the time though and I was a preteen, so it didn't dawn on me how crazy that was.

[spoil]

I saw a TikTok video recently of this woman who talks about celebs we were told were fat when we were younger when in actuality they weren't fat at all and I remember specifically Nicole Richie during the first run of the simple life being called "fat" compared to Paris constantly. Then she lost a ton of weight and it was like she still couldn't win.

[msbombtastic]

oh yeah I've seen those videos!
yeah seriously, she def went through a lot of public scrutiny over her body/appearance and it's so messed up how that was just, fine back then lol. Clearly it's not great even now, but at least tabloids (from what I have seen?) don't make somebody losing 10 or 15 lbs a major headline on their cover.
The paparazzi was especially bad at one point too, and purposely used photos at bad/harsh angles as "proof" of someone "letting themselves go"

[spoil]

They definitely still do, unfortunately. I just recently saw a headline from the DailyMail on snapchat titling a post about Adele calling her "Skinny Adele" and it's like sigh. I'm sure she's flattered people think she looks great but when someone comments on your body weight bad and yes even if it's a good comment it makes you feel pressure to stay on top of that weight and can lead to an eating disorder. Makes you think you're not good looking or worthy otherwise because nobody commented how good you looked before but now you're getting more attention.

[msbombtastic]

oh yeah, I can imagine. especially people would always say things like "her *face* is so pretty" and it's like hmm we all know what you're implying lol. so even if it's kind of shitty that you're getting compliments after changing something, it could still feel good or vindicating in some way

[handsdowntoo]

I feel like it was way more blatant back then. Male reporters would just comment on womens bodies blatantly in front of them. But, to OP's point about Olivia Rodrigo - even if the magazines and coverage looks more above board the image is making illusions to the same things and you know men objectify her in the same way even if they don't comment on it on the radio.

[msbombtastic]

:( true

[agentsoup]

I remember people losing their goddamn minds over everything in this cover story (the photos to the drinking to Tinky Winky) but not shit about the creepy writer.

[tifa]

ya they really did all of this and hypersexualized her the minute she turned 18 🤢