Culture

The rebirth of Britney Spears

by LotusFlower | September 9, 2008 at 06:31 am

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Britney is back or at least on the way back and even those that never liked a single song by her must be hopeful that the former teen star is recovered from her bouts of mental illness. The MTV awards have been in the news mainly for Britney's co-host Russel Brand's outrageous ranting but the real story is the rebirth of Britney. This piece in the UK paper The Independent is a thoughtful reflection on her resurrection.

Ever since she flounced on to television screens 10 years ago aged 16, pouting and twirling her schoolgirl's uniform, doomsayers have predicted the self-destruction of Britney Spears.

And it came to pass – or so it seemed. After 83 million record sales, two marriages, two divorces, two children, a lost custody battle, repeated psychiatric evaluations, tens of thousands of paparazzi, a nude magazine cover and the most globalised of breakdowns, the singer seemed finished, professionally – if not as meat for the snappers' lenses – come February 2008.

When her husband won custody of their children, Spears did not sleep for four days and was sectioned at the prestigious Los Angeles Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre. She was reported to be suffering from bipolar disorder, manic depression.

Sunday night, though, brought a return to what passes for comparative normality. Spears won three statuettes at the MTV Video Music Awards in an evening hailed as the "resurrection" of her pop career.