Piece of Me
Britney Spears Calls Out Paparazzi for "Embarrassing" Her on Vacation by Distorting Photos of Her Body
The pop star has been accusing the paparazzi of Photoshopping her to look heavier than she actually is for years.
By Emily Kirkpatrick
by David Becker/Getty Images
Britney Spears may have been "all smiles" when she left on her Hawaiian vacation earlier this week, but the pop star says that her time off is being turned into a nightmare by all the paparazzi waiting for her outside her hotel room.
On Tuesday, Spears posted a video montage set to Lily Allen's song "Fuck You" on her Instagram account that begins with a title card that reads, "DOS AND DONTS if you are a pap, fan, or ANYONE in my space." The next slide says, "Don't talk to me while I'm texting. It's Rude," before segueing into footage of the singer walking down the beach in a red bikini and surgical mask after which she wrote, "This is my body!!! So stop messing with my pics and editing them to the point where it's embarrassing!!!!" Spears followed that up by sharing a TikTok showing a huge crowd at a Pride march all singing "Oops I Did It Again" in unison, saying "This is what fans & paps should be doing instead!!!"
In case the pop star's message wasn't clear enough from that clip, Spears also wrote in the caption, "So being here in Maui is pretty crazy now…the paps know where I am and it's really not fun!!!! It's pretty hard going anywhere cause these silly faces keep popping up to take my picture…but not only do they take my picture…they distort my body and mess with the image and it's embarrassing!!!!! I know my body is not perfect but I definitely do NOT look like how they portray me. It's rude and it's mean so paps kindly FUCK YOU AND FUCK OFF!!!!"
Spears's feud with the paparazzi over claims they routinely doctor photos of her body has actually been going on for years. In June of 2020, she shared a two-minute video of herself walking back and forth in front of the camera to Billie Eilish's song "You Should See Me in a Crown." The video was meant to be a response to photos that were taken of her riding her bike in that same outfit, demonstrating for fans how different she actually looks compared to those images. She wrote in the caption, "Don't believe everything you read, hear, or see…..follow your heart….remain open to change and educate yourself." And in the summer of 2019, she also accused the paparazzi of using Photoshop to intentionally make her look heavier in the images they sell to tabloids. She once again posted videos of herself in the same outfit alongside the original pap pics, writing, "Good morning, this is the day after me on my boat ride. Do I look any different today than yesterday? People always say people or celebrities cheat with their images, but never do they question the paparazzi for selling your pic that they have messed with!!!! This was all done within the same 17 hours!!!!" Her boyfriend, Sam Asghari, also backed her up, commenting on the post, "The realest #lioness."
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Emily Kirkpatrick
Emily Kirkpatrick is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, specializing in all things pop culture. Her weekly newsletter, "I <3 Mess," rounds up the best of the worst celebrity fashion. You can find more of her many opinions on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
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