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“Something I never shared when I had that big breakup years ago was that I couldn’t talk afterward. I never spoke to anyone for a long time ...I was in shock,” she added, “pretty lame of my dad and three men to show up at my door when I could hardly speak ... two days later they put Diane Sawyer in my living room ... they forced me to talk !!!”

In 2003 Sawyer hit Britney with her high-profile breakup with boyfriend Justin Timberlake. For some reason, Sawyer seemed to take sides. And she blamed Britney. Sawyer asked Spears, “You did something that caused him so much pain, so much suffering. What did you do?”

ABC spent a lot of time focusing on Spears' body and wardrobe. Sawyer said that the space between the superstar’s midriff and belly button ring was “the most valuable square inch of real estate in the entertainment universe.” 

The interview ended when the star began to cry. But the cameras kept rolling to capture her breakdown after she asked to stop the interview.

A media history of shaming women 

From the 1960s through the 1990s it was all about audience share. And in the early 2000s, it became about clicks and pics with the new wave 24-hour journalism. 

Long before the MeToo Movement went public, media misogyny was on full display. And body shaming, invalidating, and belittling primarily women were tools of the trade. Britney Spears was a focal point. 

Before and after the Sawyer interview there was innuendo directed at Britney Spears. 

There were a few examples in the documentary. A male “shock-jock” radio host asked Timberlake about sleeping with Spears. He was direct “Did you fuck Britney Spears?” to which Timberlake laughed and said, “OK, I did it.”

Timberlake finally apologized to both Britney and Janet Jackson after the documentary was released.  “I failed,” he claimed.

A male journalist asked a teenage Spears about her breasts.  Jay Leno often made Britney the punchline in his late-night jokes. And during her infamous 2008 breakdown, Britney was hounded by the paparazzi. 

The images of helicopters filming the young woman as she was being loaded into an ambulance still remain. She was chased, hounded, and maligned.

It is still debatable if the media was telling her story or trying to destroy her to get a better story.

The media misogyny continues

Women are often treated as objects and sexualized in stories. And there are also nasty and untrue narratives created to garner attention.

Pop culture was always fuelled by the rise of gossipy blogs, online platforms, and celebrity-centric magazines. TMZ, PerezHilton.com, US Weekly, People, and similar fed off of celebrity pain.