The touching letter Björk sent Britney Spears
Despite being one of the world’s biggest and most beloved pop stars for decades, Britney Spears has not led an enviable life.
Sure, you’d be a rich and famous pop star, you’d have given the world hits like ‘Stronger’ and ‘Toxic’, you’d be loved by millions of people from Brisbane to Berlin. It’s just after that, there’s everything else, there’s the constant, relentless media and public scrutiny.
The body-shaming. The mental health struggles. The conservatorship. The forced separation from your kids. The knowledge that a large number of those people who claim to ‘love’ you think you deserve it, and then, the cherry on top of it all, the knowledge that the majority of this is the fault of your own family.
The highs of Spears’ life are the kind that people wish for. The lows are the kind that would only be granted by a monkey’s paw.
On the surface, you might think that these are all champagne problems to have. One would assume that we know enough about Spears’ situation to know that this goes far beyond rich people’s problems and into a never-ending psychodrama.
I mean, after all, the money wasn’t hers, neither was the mansion, and she couldn’t leave it without written permission from her father, but no one ever lost money betting on people being callous dickholes, did they?
No, trust someone who’s always had an air of inhumanity about her to be genuinely understanding regarding the situation Britney Spears has spent a large chunk of her adult life in. On the surface, comparing Björk to the ‘Oops… I Did It Again’ megastar sounds ludicrous. The Icelandic singer-songwriter is famous, sure, but not Britney-level. Nevertheless, she could still feel sympathy for the star and reached out to her with genuine compassion.
Björk detailed this in an interview with the Daily Star, saying, “I feel so sorry for her, I have sent some of my thoughts that I wrote down when I was going through similar stuff… I was able to move away, but she can’t, but she can always stay in Iceland at my place,” and given some of the things that fame did to Björk and her young family, one can easily imagine this coming from a place of good faith.
As of 2021, Spears’ conservatorship ended, and she’s been steadily regaining control over her own life and career. However, a cursory Google search of her name still shows that a lot of very powerful people are trying to turn public opinion against her again. One can only hope there are a few more people like Björk in this world who can view this with empathy, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.