A director who once worked with Britney Spears is pushing back against the public misconceptions about the star’s personality.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy on Friday (April 7), Fenton Bailey opened up about what he learned about the superstar while helming Spears’ 2013 documentary I Am Britney Jean. “She’s really not this kind of … We think that, you know, because of ‘Oops!…I Did It Again’ or ‘[I’m a] Slave 4 U,’ we think she’s just, like, this charged up sex strumpet,” he told host Andy Cohen. “That’s not who she is.
“On the stage she is,” Bailey continued, “but in real life, she’s shy, very introverted. And as she has kept on saying, ‘I’m just a normal, boring person.’”
The World of Wonder co-founder, who’s currently promoting his new book ScreenAge: How TV Shaped Our Reality, From Tammy Faye to RuPaul’s Drag Race, also made a point to reflect on the legal conservatorship Spears was under at the time they worked together. “I didn’t think while we were making that documentary that she was being constrained against her will, I didn’t get that,” he said. “I got the impression that Larry Rudolph, her manager, and Adam Leber and her dad were also on her side, and that working was really good for her.”
Since being freed from her conservatorship in late 2021, Spears has gotten married to longtime love Sam Asghari and scored her highest charting single in more than a decade thanks to Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit “Hold Me Closer,” her comeback collab with Elton John.
Watch Bailey reflect on working with Spears below.
