While the public and media has been reflecting on how they played a part in failing Britney Spears, so have many of her celebrity peers who went through similar experiences.
On an episode of Watch What Happens Live on May 20, Pink shared her thoughts on Spears' career and ongoing conservatorship battle.
"I love Britney, and here's the thing about all of us voyeurs—none of us know whats going on," she said. "We're not there. And I would like to. I think we all would like to, and we feel this fierce protectiveness over her, for good reason—she's a sweetheart. All I know is she's incredibly sweet, and I want her to be happy."
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The show's host Andy Cohen then asked if Pink had seen the recent revealing Hulu-New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears, which sparked much of the current Spears discourse, and she said she had. "I did, and I felt sad that back then, back in the early days, I didn't know... I'm a strong person—I could have reached out more. I could've—I don't know."
"I don't like feeling helpless or powerless, and I can only imagine how she feels, and she could have used some support," Pink added. "And the media tore her apart, and the paparazzi are scum, and I wish I could have reached out and gave her a hug."
Pink and Spears rose to fame at around the same time in the late '90s and early aughts. However, she and her other peers Christina Aguilera were often pitted against each other — Pink was even positioned as an "anti-Britney" figure, which she recently told People was not at all her intention "It was so unfair to all the girls," she said. "None of us wanted that."
This culture of pitting women against one another wasn't just limited to music — Reese Witherspoon, who shared with TIME that Framing Britney Spears made her reflect on her own traumatic experience with the tabloids in the early 2000s, said that women in Hollywood — then and now — are often given labels they didn't ask for. Women like Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan were considered “bad,” while women like herself and Jennifer Garner were “good,” even though she admitted doing her fair share of screaming at the paparazzi without consequence. “What if the media had decided I was something else? I would be in a totally different position,” she said. “I want to say it’s my decisions or the career choices I made, but it felt very arbitrary. And kind of shitty.”
Now, Pink is getting the documentary treatment herself (though she's actually involved, while Spears wasn't). Her documentary P!nk: All I Know So Far, is on Amazon Prime Video now.
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