May 29, 2024, 9 a.m. "There was just this nastiness that emerged in the way celebrities were covered in the 2000s." Britney Spears became famous in the late 1990s and underwent a major — and very public — mental health crisis in the early aughts that drew headlines not just in tabloids and gossip magazines like US Weekly but also publications like The Atlantic and The New York Times — and a universal punchline for jokes about "crazy" women. Spears' story goes beyond tabloid fodder. In 2008, she was placed under a legal conservatorship that gave her father, Jamie Spears, complete control over her personal affairs and her finances. This also meant that he also had control over Spears's performance and recording schedule and the millions of dollars that she earned. There's a larger story here, about conservatorship abuse and the rights of people with mental health issues. But as Joanna Arcieri , a PhD candidate at Columbia Journalism School who i...