Britney Spears was at the top of her game in 2000 when she released Oops…I Did It Again. If …Baby One More Time set her on the path to pop stardom, her second album propelled her straight to the stratosphere. On the chart-topping track “Lucky”, Spears laid bare the true horrors of massive celebrity. But at that time, everyone seemed too busy singing along with the catchy tune to delve deeper into what this said about Spears. If anything, it remains a grim reminder of her unstable future that lurked just ahead.
“Lucky” was co-written by Max Martin and Rami Yacoub, two grown men who had an uncanny ability to get deep into the conflicted psyche of a teen girl. Lyrically, the narrative explores what it’s like for the titular Lucky, a young actress blessed with fame, wealth, and beauty. However, she secretly feels unfulfilled, sad, and desperately lonely.
While Spears didn’t have a hand in the writing, “Lucky” feels eerily similar to how her own life unfolded in the spotlight. The line that often stands out is, “If there’s nothing missing in my life / Then why do these tears come at night?” In retrospect, “Lucky” is terribly tragic. In some ways, it serves as a cautionary tale for young celebrities, especially young women.
The “tragic child star” story is profoundly commonplace. Britney Spears, Macauley Culkin, Raven Simone, Jennette McCurdy, Ariana Grande, Amanda Bynes, and Demi Lovato immediately come to mind. But there are so many more who experienced the kind of loneliness and depression that Lucky did. The reality, however, edged more into abuse and addiction more often than not. Still, many of these stars went on to build successful careers after child stardom. Meanwhile, others disappeared from acting or music altogether.
How Britney Spears’ ‘Lucky’ Serves as a Time Capsule of 2000s Celebrity Culture
“Lucky” does a great job of capturing the essence of 2000s-era celebrity. This was the rise of the celebutante: Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, the Kardashians, and basically any number of reality TV stars. At this time, trashy tabloids were also a big deal. Grocery store check-out lines were stocked with magazines touting the latest celebrity gossip and invasive paparazzi photos. Who’s too skinny, who broke up, who’s too fat, and so on and so forth.
In 2006, the New York Post printed the infamous “Bimbo Summit” photo of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears. Now, this 2000s-era aesthetic has become celebrated and coveted by the next generation of chronically online teens, like some sort of ancient lost art. But really, Britney Spears was subtly predicting the future of celebrity culture when she released “Lucky.” Even if that wasn’t the initial intent.
The second verse in particular hits on something profound: “Lost in an image, in a dream / But there’s no one there to wake her up / And the world is spinning, and she keeps on winning / But tell me, what happens when it stops?”
We’ve seen what happens when it stops, and it’s never pretty. Britney Spears experienced that, notably with a public mental health crisis in 2007. It was publicized as an extravagant breakdown, and she was labeled crazy, erratic, and unstable. This led to her being put under a permanent conservatorship from 2008 until 2021.
There’s truth to the claim of mental instability at that time. But the majority of it was likely a reaction to how almost every detail of her life was being controlled. The solution of controlling her life even more seems like a cruel joke now, especially given how the experience made a lasting impact in the years that followed.
Photo by Jeremy Bembaron/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images
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