In 2007, the ordeal Britney Spears was going through remained largely invisible to the outside world. What we knew is she'd shaved her head in front of the paparazzi and had some sort of difficult episode causing her to go after a few of them with an umbrella.
Now, with the release of the New York Times produced documentary, Framing Britney Spears, we all really see a newer side of the truth.
In the moment, Britney was getting lambasted by late-night comedians and talk show hosts alike for her erratic behavior, with the notable exception of Craig Ferguson.
Ferguson publicly refused to make fun of her in a resurfaced clip from his late night show making the rounds again after the documentary aired.
Ferguson, citing the then-recent death of Anna Nicole Smith, said he was starting to feel "uncomfortable" going after these people so hard.
When an audience member laughed, he cut them off by saying, "it's not a joke."
" Comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it...It should be about us attacking the powerful people, attacking the politicians and the Trumps and the blowhards, going after them. We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable people."
In the full monologue, Ferguson talked about his own issues with addiction and how it correlated to Britney's situation.
"The kind of weekend she had, she was checking in and out of rehab, she was shaving her head, getting tattoos, that's what she was doing this weekend. This Sunday, I was 15 years sober. So I looked at her weekend and I looked at my own weekend and I thought, 'You know, I'd rather have my weekend.'"
Ferguson also recognized Britney was still very young herself, with two children, and clearly was undergoing something that had spiraled out of her control.
Later on, Ferguson told the Los Angeles Times he thought he would have been fired for taking a clear stance contrary to what most other late-night hosts were doing, but "the opposite happened, and everyone seemed to be very happy about it."
Ferguson's compassion lingers in the air well over a decade later, as the details of Britney's story come to light.
Culture surrounding that moment has changed since thirteen years ago, but many of us have work to do to be Craig Fergusons in our own lives.
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