Britney Spears Slams ‘Cruel’ Paparazzi: ‘They’ve Always Been Incredibly Cruel to Me’
Britney Spears is once again speaking out against the paparazzi, calling their actions “cruel” in a candid birthday post shared on Instagram. The “Toxic” hitmaker, who recently celebrated her 43rd birthday while vacationing in Mexico, used the opportunity to address her ongoing frustrations with the way the paparazzi portray her.
In the post, Spears referenced the character from Friday the 13th, writing, “It really hurts my feelings that the paparazzi make my face look like I’m wearing a white Jason mask.” She went on to explain that this mistreatment is one of the reasons why she decided to leave the United States, stating, “It doesn’t even look like me.
They’ve always been incredibly cruel to me… the way they’ve illustrated me to be. I know I’m not perfect at all by any means, but some of it is extremely mean, and that’s why I’ve moved to Mexico.” Spears, who has been open about her decision to step away from the music industry, made it clear that she has no intention of returning to it.
“I’ll never return to the music industry,” she previously confirmed. Since gaining freedom from her conservatorship battle with her father, Jamie Spears, the pop icon has lived life on her own terms.
Reflecting on her past in her memoir The Woman In Me, Spears described the psychological toll of her 13-year conservatorship. “I became a robot. But not just a robot – a sort of child robot. I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself,” she wrote.
After years of being under a strict legal conservatorship, which was terminated in November 2021, Britney has been working to reclaim her autonomy and live life outside the public eye, despite the constant attention from the paparazzi.