Revisiting Rolling Stone s The Tragedy of Britney Spears
On February 21, 2008, the first of two Rolling Stone covers starring Britney Spears that year hit newsstands. Using a portrait of Spears taken in 2004, it invited readers inside an American tragedy, by way of a nine-page story by then-contributing editor Vanessa Grigoriadis.
Unable to secure a sit-down with her troubled subject, the journalist s contact with Spears, a perfectly-proportioned porcelain doll with a nasty weave, was limited to distant encounters as she tagged along with paparazzi from Hollywood.tv. (Grigoriadis would later cite the website s founder, Sheeraz Hasan, as her primary source.) The Tragedy of Britney Spears seemed to confirm several longstanding rumors about Spears