Working PR for Britney Spears can’t be an easy gig, though you’d certainly be able to bill some hours. There’d always be an oops-she’s-just-been-snapped- sans-undies-again moment, a been-papped-driving-with-a-baby-in-her-
lap crisis or an unsavoury marriage to cope with. You’d be busy.
The girl can’t even release a fragrance without some controversy these days. The current: was Britney Photoshopped into the ad campaign for Believe?
The celebrity blogs are abuzz. Some cast aspersion that it’s not Britney’s taut and toned bod we’re looking at, but that of an on-set stylist. Others guess it’s Britney alright, just the pre-baby one circa Sometimes as taken from the archives. All of them point the finger at some pretty extensive Photoshopping in any case.
However, Elizabeth Arden, the company behind the Britney Spears fragrance franchise, says that, although a stand-in was used to set up lighting while Brits was off-set, the only person who appears in the print ad is Spears herself. They insist the only bit that’s not all-Britney is the hair, and we all know she’s been wigging out since the buzz cut.
But the idea that her celebrity silhouette has been airbrushed, slenderised and tweaked with technology isn’t really a revelation either, is it? Would you really expect any official advertising photo of anyone famous to be completely untouched?
Even if the body double rumour was right (which, again, Elizabeth Arden states it is not), we doubt the controversy would make Believe any less a convincing hit. In fact, if history is anything to go by, it all but guarantees a bestseller. She made two bad marriages before releasing Curious Britney Spears in 2004 and that became the biggest fragrance launch in Australian history. She and Kevin weren’t exactly pretty in their reality TV show before Fantasy Britney Spears had the same success in 2005 and there was all sorts of out-of-control behaviour (including the baby-dropping and dangerous driving incidents) before In Control Curious Britney Spears did ironically well. Then, barely a month after ditching drug rehab, shaving her head and checking back into rehab in March this year, Midnight Fantasy made it to number one in Myer.
Now that she’s been in custody battles for her kids and been badmouthed for body doubling, we bet wrists around the world are ripe for wearing Believe.
I guess it’s just as the press release for Believe goes: “well behaved women rarely make history”.
