The Atlantic
The more vulnerable she became, the greater the public’s interest was in watching her disintegrate.
Dave Allocca / DMI / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty
In a video that recently went viral after it was dug out of the aughts time capsule, the former late-night host Craig Ferguson brings up Britney Spears. TV viewers have become accustomed over the past few years to talk-show hosts digesting difficult news and processing it for a nation to grasp, but in early 2007, when Spears’s erratic behavior and self-administered buzz cut consumed the public, Ferguson did something unexpected: He declared that he wouldn’t be making jokes about Spears. But his whole monologue is remarkable. He opens by invoking the media, and says that, lately, he’s had a similar feeling watching the news to when he used to watch