The paparazzi who stalked Britney Spears have no regrets
“I'm here for the money and the story,” Los Angeles paparazzo Rick Mendoza said in a phone interview. "Do you think I'm kidding someone who gets up on the wrong side of the bed and doesn't want their picture taken?" I do not give a - t «.
Paparazzi literally translates to buzzing mosquitoes. No one ever looked at a herd of them and thought that a convention of empathy had broken out. But New York's widely discussed time-consuming documentary on the Spears, “Coaching Britney Spears,” rekindled interest in her iconically bad - some would say the outbreak - interactions with the paparazzi. It seems plausible that some of them have regrets.
But when Insider reached out to several of the photographers who paid their bills selling pictures of Britney Spears, the question of whether they are guilty of breaking the young star's balance almost went unrecorded. reasonable question.
“Hollywood controlled the market. The paparazzi won, ”Mendoza insisted. “We made people of them too. I'll show you when they take out their garbage. I'll show you when they pick their noses. Do people want to see this? Obviously yes.
“If someone is entertained, then the system works,” Mendoza said. (The two have a long history. Mendoza sued Spears over an incident in 2007, where he alleged the pop star intentionally stuck her foot as she left a parking lot after a judge suspended her rights to see her. two young sons. The case was settled two years later, People reported.)
From the perspective of the Hollywood paparazzo, he and Britney Spears - along with Christina Aguilera and Paris Hilton - competed in a fluid and continuous PR tournament that also brings together publicists, magazine editors and producers of entertainment shows.
According to this account, the pop princess wanted cameras trained on her, until she didn't. And how did the photographers know the difference.
“Britney was just as involved in when and how she was seen,” insisted Meg Handler, who started seeing photos of Britney while editing photos in the late '90s Village Voice and couldn't stop to see them when she made a stint on The Picture Bureau of Star magazine. “These photographers have been called. Most of the time his people called. “Britney is going to be there. “Britney is going to be there. This is how it worked.
“I think with Britney it got out of hand,” she says.
A representative for Spears did not respond to a request for comment.
The days of the paparazzi peak
The cat-and-mouse game between celebrities and photographers dates back to 1955, when hypeman Harry Brand alerted the media as blonde ingenuous Marilyn Monroe stood just over a grate in a white dress. By the time Britney shaved her head, the paparazzi game had become unbearable and rich.
Arguably, Peak Paparazzi's opening day took place on August 28, 2003 at Radio City Music Hall. The VMAs. "Celebrities" like Hilary Duff were given record deals - their media demands exceeding those of actual artists - and Paris Hilton's debut album had debuted days earlier. The paparazzi crawled to fill all available spaces. They lined up each outing as shooters sought to capitalize on that parent content. Snoop Dogg was pictured driving two women on a leash in Radio City on a leash; it wasn't a photoshoot Harry Brand would have seen coming.
The 2003 VMAs are however best known for Britney, Christina Aguilera and Madonna who perform "Like a Virgin". You don't need to have a cable to remember the pictures of when these three people kissed.
"That's when he stopped being content," said Julie Farman, an Epic reporter who looked after Michael Jackson. "For me, that was a huge inflection point."
Not much over a year ago the game was smaller. Mendoza started his career photographing, printing and sending photos of 80s metal bands on the Sunset Strip. He started shooting baseball players in Japan in 2000. Upon his return he focused on "all these little girls here playing the game." Paris Hilton, whom he knew, to begin with.
While Mendoza was away, the price of a pro-level digital camera had fallen to less than $ 3,000, from around $ 20,000 when it first started. A photo of Jessica Simpson could pay the investment 10 times as much. The work of the paparazzi was now open to any scammer with an index finger and a dream.
“Photo agency owners were going to hot spots, mainly places where they got their information,” paparazzo Giles Harrison said. "You will find someone parking cars last week at the Spago restaurant."
This lowering of the barrier to entry coincided with an explosion of outlets for celebrity photographic content, such as Ok! And hello! and a US who had just passed every week. Just as significantly, the fees for using informant advice lines - the basis of “we caught so and so” stories - were going, going up, going up. The opportunist / weegee ratio has increased unevenly as point-and-click and emailing swept away reluctant craftsmen and agitated crooks.
“Some photographers are good and some are bad. And some of us weren't good people, ”Harrison said. “You might as well have thrown red meat at a shark,” Harrison said.
As her career exploded, Spears had a lot of competition for media attention, a wave she had learned to ride when few believed in her. Lentils were her traveling companions while she played in the malls of America. Their attention was no less important once she had succeeded. And at that time, many saw her as the opportunity to make a living.
"That's where you had this pandemonium, this fever," said Randy Bauer, whose agency captured and sold the moment Britney Spears shaved her head, "because there were six figures , potentially, at the end of it all. "
He adds: “Those things that she will always be known for was her own action. We were just there to document it.
Some of the hardest moments to watch in "Framing Britney Spears" are the preparation for the collapse that would define her and lead her to the tutelage controlled by her father who is now at the heart of the "Free Britney" movement. The vulnerability has rarely been more tangible, the celebrity machine so out of hand. At that point, Diane Sawyer had asked her on national television "what did you do" to bring her ex Justin Timberlake "so much pain", and she had been dragged down for her mom choices.
"What can you say about misogyny?" New York Times general critic Wesley Morris observes in the documentary. “There is a whole infrastructure to support it and when it's time for people to come, in a misogynistic culture, for a woman, there is a whole machine ready to do it.
The chaotic 2000s scenes of photographers overcrowding Britney wouldn't happen today, insisted those in them. There is greater awareness of mental health and more responsibility for how the media behaves. Money is the question. Fame is too widespread in 2021 to produce many $ 30,000 images, not when stars host their own images on Instagram.
It should be noted that Beyoncé, the peer of Spears - both 39 years old - managed to escape the worst of American celebrity obsession. The R&B star has been touring and shopping with her mother Tina Knowles and her father, R&B music director Matthew Knowles.
A hip-hop flack remembers seeing Britney making her way alone through the Beverly Hills Mondrian lobby - alone - when "Hit Me Baby" was a hot record.
In the footage from this 2003 performance "Like a Virgin" Beyonce can be seen in the front row, clapping and smiling. It was she who ran away.
