Amid Taylor Swift’s placement on the slow-burning pyre for being the celebrity with the highest amount of carbon emissions this year, other stars of every stripe have come to light as well. With Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian—because it always goes back to the strange media incestuousness between her and Swift—assumed to lead the way in flight extravagance, the damning evidence against Swift showed that the singer is causing plenty of “Bad Blood” with fans who naively thought she was somehow immune to such temptations furnished by her wealth.
Others were called out too, including Jay-Z (de facto the too-beloved-to-mention Beyoncé), Drake, Oprah (whose presence on the list was perhaps the most disappointing of all), Floyd Mayweather (random), Mark Wahlberg, Travis Scott (no surprise, as he’s a generally shittaytay person), Steven Spielberg, A-Rod (likely trolling for J. Lo doppelgangers worldwide) and Blake Shelton (also random). Others who were on the list but didn’t quite make the Top 10 included Lady Gaga and Kanye West, though the former is so frequently wont to tout herself as a “woman of the people” grounded in her “gritty New York roots” (*cough cough* the Upper West Side).
But one pop star who has been spared is Britney Spears as she actually continues to post about her various trappings of fame with something of a carte blanche this summer. Specifically, the images and videos of herself on yachts (and splashing around on jet skis) and private jets, frequently posing on the latter before takeoff with her fresh husband, Sam Asghari. After which, the two jet away to tropical, beachy locations like Hawaii, Cabo, Tahiti and Bora Bora. So it is that the timing of this so-called “reckoning” for celebrities abusing private jets (granted, there’s no evidence to suggest Brit takes seventeen-minute flights between Van Nuys and Camarillo) couldn’t actually be better-suited to the glut of recent sympathy directed at Spears after the unveiling of all the trauma and betrayal she endured after being forced into a conservatorship by her nefarious parents (and Tri Star Management) in 2008.
For, had this “reckoning” about private jet travel been going on in November of 2020, before the conservatorship was terminated, Spears might not have eked by so freely as she posted a picture of herself, arms behind her head while leaning back “casually,” on a jet with the caption, “I’m doing that whole work on yourself thing at the moment.” Of course, if celebs truly wanted to “work on themselves,” they would be less cavalier about grotesque displays of wealth in the name of perpetuating the deeply-rooted societal belief that that’s all a person can measure worth and importance by (even “forward-thinking” Billie Eilish).
What’s more, the reasoning will go that, shouldn’t Brit, after a thirteen-year lockdown of her own (compared to our far less lengthy COVID one), be the lone celebrity who is immune to this kind of condemnation? This kind of French Revolution torching and pitchforking? Well, not really. For if you start making exceptions for one famous person, it becomes a slippery slope.
But Britney’s “I’ve gone through too much to give a fuck” attitude re: public opinion has been ostensibly accepted by most, who would likely argue that someone as rightfully skittish as she is couldn’t deal with the scrutiny of flying commercial anyway, even if she bought out all of first class. And apparently, Brit, rather than engaging in a Norma Desmond alternative by not traveling at all, wants to make up for the time she lost during the 00s and 10s period when celebrity behavior wasn’t nearly as monitor-able by fans (and “haters” a.k.a. anyone who dissents with something like a logical callout). Which, sometimes, can actually be a worse fate than being more sensationally monitored by tabloids.
And, had the tabloids been more interested in tarnishing Britney (or with the climate crisis) at the very beginning of her career, they might have brought up how her private jet actually caused an early rift in the British pop group, Steps, then touring with Britney in 1999. While four members of the band took a tour bus, Ian “H” Watkins opted to swoop in on Brit’s jet as he cited having too much trouble sleeping on the bus. So, in addition to being a private jet Circe, Brit’s carbon footprint has been well-documented from the beginning of her career, even before she had the “too much trauma” shield to prevent her from being lambasted for openly showcasing her travel mode profligacy like other celebrities.
While Brit has been frequently known as a “relatable queen” for her “messy,” unmanicured social media posts, this aspect of her character reveals that, in the end, every celebrity, no matter how “pure at heart,” turns out to be cut from the same “me and my comfort first” cloth. So it is that, where Britney might continue to say, “Kiss my ass, America,” knowing Swift’s irrepressible urge to be “well-liked,” she’ll come up with some machination to “make amends”—like her other frequent pop culture counterpart, Beyoncé (see: Kanye insisting, “Ima let you finish but… Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time”), who is currently planning to save Renaissance by omitting “spaz” from “Heated” (yes, you might “swear it’s déjà vu”). Swift could likely offer her own “reparations” to the public by making a big to-do about donating to some climate change organization. Once again proving that throwing money at the problem is all it takes to make it go away. Until everything itself has gone away.
As for Britney, she can likely keep advertising her excessive CO2-emitting lifestyle because people will say, “Britney deserves to enjoy her success after all she’s been through.” Which might leave other celebs feeling inspired to start inflicting their own manufactured forms of trauma so as to get a similar pass for parading their constant access to such collectively damaging luxuries.
