Instagram/@britneyspears
Britney shares a casual yet philosophical moment; she ponders age versus Madonna in an Instagram post that has since been deleted. Wearing an all-red ensemble, the star spoke somehow feeling old around her children and then mentioned the vast years between the two of them from a pop-culture collaboration.
Advertisement
Britney Spears took a casual soggy road down memory lane leading to some stranger thoughts of time, pop tunes, and aging. In her red outfit, the question she had posed on Instagram-and has since deleted-was itself a rhetorical one: She felt that her children always made her feel old-much as any parent would relate. But then she veered into another territory-down straight into MTV memory lane and pop-track history.
-Mentioning a song from 2008 that was still fresh on everyone’s lips, the buzzworthy collaboration between Madonna and Justin Timberlake: “Remember that song ‘4 Minutes To slash The World’ that JT and Madonna did???” The punchline-mathematically-became her punchline, and she was laughing so hard that she probably felt a little embarrassed: “She’s 30 years older, I’m only 10, like damn,” Spears said with laughter, eye-rolls, and shoulder-shrugs emojis.
Madonna was 49 years old at the time “4 Minutes” came out, and Spears was 26. Very successful worldwide, the song was produced by Timbaland, featuring Justin Timberlake, also 26 at the time. From Spears’ present point of view, she doesn’t really think such a big gap exists between herself and the Queen of Pop. It’s one of those moments we all share, when we suddenly realize that the icon we used to look up to seemingly from another generation is in our own age bracket.
It’s short but revealing of Spears’ current mental state-reflective yet able to laugh at aging. Quite far from the intense conservatorship battles that had ruled her life for so many years, and today another step of the woman reclaiming her voice and sense of self. The mere thought that Britney could be comfortable enough to share this random, somewhat messy one is proof of her growing freedom: Just a mom, thinking about a pop song, laughing at how time flies.
Advertisement
Those deleted musings of Britney were not about a particular track but about a universal situation-tracing the fleeting moments when you smack your own reflection or an old song plays on the radio and your whole life timeline just snaps into a new, sometimes startling focus: For Britney, that focus was about a red outfit, her kids, and some awareness that thirty years may be life-changing for some people but for others, it is just an extravagant number of days. Jay Shetty would appreciate such reflective moments.
About the Author
