Being that tabloid-type publications still enjoy the parading of a headline that makes a celebrity come across as unhinged, OK! Magazine frequently weighs in on Britney Spears’ various Instagram posts (which, as most should know by now, usually include dancing and twirling—and also plenty of shade) with more than a hint of judgment. One such headline referred to a post she put up on Thanksgiving wherein she referred to her erstwhile conservatorship by mentioning, “I know most didn’t get them in the past but I hope you’re all being served with my handwritten letters now.” She then added, in anticipation of her December 2nd birthday, “I hear the new thing to do is to have slumber parties and dance in the kitchen 😜😜😜 !!! I’m not turning 41 … I’m turning 12.”
Even though it was a light-hearted way to “brush off” her self-infantilization, OK! chose to bill that as “Britney Spears Bizarrely Jokes She’s ‘Not Turning 41’ But 12 Years Old Ahead Of Birthday.” But many might either empathize or at least be able to clearly understand that her allusion to that particular age is her “safe place.”
Granted, being on The Mickey Mouse Club wasn’t exactly a time of “innocence”—what with Justin Timberlake kissing her during a game of spin the bottle (Ryan Gosling claimed the same, but Britney insisted she only ever kissed Justin). Timberlake, among many other sources of pervert-oriented pride about Britney, would be sure to later announce that he was her first kiss. In addition to shaming her for lying to the media about being a virgin while dating Timberlake. Something he would keep doing well after their breakup, finding a way to incorporate Britney into a 2009 SNL sketch called “Immigrant Tale.” Playing the part of Cornelius Timberlake, he tells his fellow immigrants on the boat bound for Ellis Island of the exploits his great-great-grandson will have, including dating a “popular female singer… Publicly, they’ll claim to be virgins but privately… he hit it.”
Britney’s sudden lack of “credibility” in the wake of their breakup was further spurred by Justin, who did everything in his media blitzkrieg power to insinuate or outright declare that 1) Britney cheated on him and 2) they had sex throughout their relationship. One such announcement being made on a radio show when Timberlake was asked point-blank, “Did you fuck Britney Spears?” Without hesitating, he responded, “Okay yeah, I did it!”
All of this is to say that, while many people turning a so-called “icky” age would prefer to return to their twenties, that decade, for Britney, was her most traumatic, commencing with the Timberlake breakup that sealed the media’s sudden dismantling of her image as America’s sweetheart and culminating in her conservatorship. Placed under it at the beginning of 2008, Spears was just twenty-seven years old and would spend the theoretical prime of her life in this form of captivity.
And it’s only natural for her to feel as though time was robbed from her. Time from what is seen as the last dalliance with precious youth before full-tilt middle age. Now thrust into her forties, Britney’s bifurcated personality/identity crisis isn’t just about being caught up in the curse of an obsession with youth because she founded her image on a Lolita one, but because the safest place right now probably does feel like twelve.
Regardless of the fact that her parents were pimping her out already at that time, it was still her own life. And the work she did at twelve would end up providing the launching point to total freedom and agency with a solo career. What’s more, to be that age and concerned only with frivolous, frothy things is likely all Britney wants at this juncture. For she’s spent so much of her life worrying about pleasing people, making one wrong step or, worse still, being threatened with loss of access to her children (who, tragically, don’t want to see her anyway) that it’s understandable for her to want slumber parties and dancing in the kitchen. Along with other “trifles” like makeup, dessert, planetary destruction through fashion and talking about hot guys (since the quote unquote hot guy she’s married to appears so often to be missing, when he’s not trying to get her to go Instagram Live against her will).
So yes, Britney can say she’s turning twelve if she wants to. If that’s the age that makes her feel best, why not? Plus, that old saying is true: you’re as young as you feel. And based on Britney’s posts, she’s feeling like the deranged twelve-year-old within.
