What (and Why) Britney Spears Smokes

I knew Britney Spears was in trouble when I saw her smoking a Marlboro and holding on to the full-blooded Marlboro red pack. Those aren’t the kind of cigarettes you’d expect to see in the hands of a professional singer-dancer. For one thing, it takes a lot of stamina to keep up with the demands of just one 3 ½ minute dance. Imagine a 90 minute performance – its close to an Olympic performance. So it’s a huge act of defiance on her part to be out there smoking.

The fact that she chose full-blooded Marlboro was a compelling statement that she was morbidly defiant of the regimentation of her life. This is the soldier’s brand and she was saying, I want to go AWOL. And in a lot of ways she did. She may be a kind of latter day Michael Jackson – someone whose childhood was taken from them while they performed, and now they are pining in a sadly dysfunctional way, for their loss.