Britney's Rolling Stone Cover at 17.

[Brit52]

Having been a teenage girl, I can confidently say I wouldn't have thought anything of doing this myself at 17. I'm sure the adults in my life would've thought it was inappropriate but I'm pretty sure I would've told them "it's no big deal" because as a teenager you don't think it is

Now in my almost mid thirties I can see that ya it is a big deal because my perspective has changed but at the time, in that moment, it WAS iconic and it was a risk which ultimately did contribute to Britneys rising star and success

[MikeHunt]

I was sucking D & C since I was in 6th grade so to me, this wouldn’t have been a big deal for a 17 year old ME, but would I want someone I know at 17 being photographed in their underwear in a segxual manner- No. 

I can see now why parents hated this. I think it’s less jarring because she doesn’t look like a minor, she looks older but although it’s iconic, I def feel different about this photo shoot now.

[Isla]

I'm in two minds about this. On one hand this is an iconic photoshoot and I read Britney herself had a lot of involvement too. On the other hand, it comes across as slightly creepy as Britney was still 17 when these photos were taken. 

[J45x]

1 hour ago, ivosoares said:

She really doesn't look 17, she looks like 25... and she was taken advantage of. She looks amazing, but at the same time, realize that in front of her are like 10 older men photographing her.

It was only one photographer, David LaChapelle and he is gay but yeah doesnt make it any better.  And Britney had more involvement in this shoot than we give her credit for. 

Quote

Spears and LaChapelle both say they knew the photo would cause a bit of commotion, but they figured it was worth it. “I said to her, ‘You don’t want to be buttoned up, like Debbie Gibson,’ ” LaChapelle recalls. “I said, ‘Let’s push it further and do this whole Lolita thing.’ She got it. She knew it would get people talking and excited.” Spears proved, even then, that she was going to take charge of crafting her own image. One night while they were shooting, LaChapelle says, Spears’ manager, Larry Rudolph, walked in at 2 a.m. to find her posing in her bra and panties. Rudolph demanded to know what was going on. “Britney said, ‘Yeah, I don’t feel comfortable,’ ” says the photographer. “At first I felt betrayed. But as soon as Larry walked out, Britney said, ‘Lock the door’ and unbuttoned her shirt wide open.”

 

Quote

All I did was tie up my shirt! I’m wearing a sports bra under it. Sure, I’m wearing thigh-highs, but kids wear those — it’s the style. Have you seen MTV — all those in thongs?

–Britney Spears to Rolling Stone, 1999

Quote

n many ways, what Britney was wearing and what she was doing was really quite unremarkable. I think the thing that was specifically remarkable was the way people chose to go straight to the “dirty old man” place. I read an article in Q Magazine about 12 months afterward, which said that Britney was designed by a bunch of dirty old men wearing raincoats in a record company office, you know, that this outfit and this look had been carefully created by a bunch of dirty old guys sitting around a table. But that was absolutely not the case at all. There was an honest discussion between three people at a wardrobe meeting about whether this was an okay way to go. Two of those people were women. Eventually, we reached the conclusion that some people might choose to go there, but most of the people who saw it would say it’s a girl at school being a 16 year old. I think people chose to read a lot into it, but it was not necessarily as overt as they’d like to believe.

–Nigel **** on directing …Baby One More Time, 2013

 

[PinkBarbie]

1 hour ago, Garrett James said:

to the ones saying it's "hot or iconic" to y'all cause shes a pop star but if it were a average teenage girl i bet yall wouldnt think so 

Exactly, it's iconic cause she's a popstar, but it's just something high school girls do

When I was in high school the girls would take bra pics to make boys fall for them

[Rachel Green Geller]

Tbh.. I kinda agree.

As iconic as this cover turned out to be, she was underage and it wasn't really approppriate.

Not that I think a 17-year-old can't be ****. If a 17-year-old wants to take hot pictures for herself or her boyfriend or whatever, I think it's alright. It's part of her privacy. But these pictures were published for everyone to see them.. And some may argue that there's no real difference between a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old but the line's got to be drawn somewhere..

[Rachel Green Geller]

40 minutes ago, PinkBarbie said:

Exactly, it's iconic cause she's a popstar, but it's just something high school girls do

When I was in high school the girls would take bra pics to make boys fall for them

I get your point but that's for their fellow high school classmates or boyrfriends to see.. Those pictures are not on magazines.

[Antidote]

[BlurredLover]

3 hours ago, PinkBarbie said:

Omg y'all pretending like you were saints at 17

Bahaha exactly … I was getting banned off of men.com for seducing older men 😋 oops … I did it again ***** lmao 

[GlitterRain]

[blackingouthenegativity]

7 hours ago, grovela said:

My grandma thought she was some 20-something pretending to be younger or something iirc 

Not your Grandma being the first member of B-Anon

[BUWYGF]

7 hours ago, leviathan said:

it was a risk she took, and she isn’t the global superstar she is just by playing it safe. i think we can look back and say: but at what cost? but one thing remains true: the risks she took career-wise paid off career-wise.

now the other side of the coin is that yeah, it’s a bit unsettling now looking back and knowing that she was underage and how much she was ***ualized; it’s a bit bittersweet.

it made me think of that when she talked about that Nickelodeon star yesterday. it is a complex situation, society has changed a lot since then

Society hasn't changed one bit since then, it just learned to disguise its true intentions much better than it did back then. If anything, the society is even worse now because 80% of justice warriors online are people who actually stand against all those values.

[Brit52]

2 hours ago, Antidote said:

I honestly find this cheerleader pic worse than the telletubby one

[GarrettJames]

1 hour ago, BlurredLover said:

Bahaha exactly … I was getting banned off of men.com for seducing older men 😋 oops … I did it again ***** lmao 

says the same guy who had a **** dealer in hs 

[BlurredLover]

10 minutes ago, Garrett James said:

says the same guy who had a **** dealer in hs 

Sorry angel 😇 no one is allowed to have a past unless their a pop star ❤️

[Oprah Winfrey.]

9 hours ago, blackingouthenegativity said:

"They lost control" - because they don't know how to be parents. With them it's either no control or full control. The only consistent thing is that they kept overworking Britney so that they could get their cut of the check. 

How can you control the person paying your bills?

they unfortunately made it happen tho

[Oprah Winfrey.]

I’m conflicted I’m 22 so Britney has clearly always been much older than me so I never had a problem with these pictures when I saw them when I was younger, I always thought it was absolutely bold and iconic the choices she made in the shoot!  She knew what she need to do in order to blow up, I think Britney herself has always liked the controversy too because for her none of it was real she was modeling/acting, basically playing a character. Britney’s also always been very confident when it came to her body!  
 

can we say britney did anything different than any other 17 girl who wants to get TikTok famous these days?

but now that I’m older I can definitely say the adults in charge took advantage of Britney’s ambition and drive and this photoshoot should’ve never been released looks like child **** now to me

 

 

[queenofhearts]

I mean brit's always come across as naive to me, but I do believe the photographer took advantage.

the pics aren't very classy for such a young girl, but I do believe people are overreacting a little bit too.

[queenofhearts]

5 hours ago, Brit52 said:

I honestly find this cheerleader pic worse than the telletubby one

I just realized that's her red bra hanging out

[BraveNewSeth]

I won't lie, this photoshoot used to make me feel very uncomfortable until Britney was freed from the conservatorship. Then once she started spamming us with nude pictures, it just made me realize that Britney is a nudist at heart and views the human body as something natural and beautiful. 

It's clear to me that no one forced her to do this, just like no one has been forcing her to post nude pictures on Instagram and Twitter lately. BUT having said that, it's clear that there were grown adults around her during the 1999 photoshoot who were all too happy to ***ualize a 17 year old, and that makes me feel a bit... yuck. But at the end of the day it was give and take: Britney wanted to appear older and more mature, and the people around her wanted controversy to sell records. Everyone wins.