Britney Spears wrote in an Instagram post on October 4 to tease her new short hairstyle:
"I cut all my hair off."
"I don’t want to show it yet!!!"
In the post, Spears posed on the beach in a video while donning a hat. Her hair was above or around her shoulders. Only a little while earlier, the star had hair that was almost halfway down her torso.
The reactions Spears received after she teased her new haircut alarmed and shocked her, however. She ended up taking the post down.
In a follow-up post she wrote in more detail about how she felt.
"I was shocked to see how many comments there were under my post l did yesterday."
"I looked and good god people are absolutely hateful !!!"
"It saddens me to realize a person who watches something on Instagram that doesn’t even know me takes the time to even comment and say such hateful words !!!"
"What a sad life !!! Yes I’m sensitive so it hurt my feelings.”
The original post was deleted, but her reaction shows how awful the comments must have been.
Spears' fanbase came to her defense vociferously.
There were those who just supported the decision in general, or posted pictures of other times Spears has had short hair of roughly the length implied in the post.
Some did point out that in the picture it looks like she needs some sunscreen.
There were still some negative reactions floating around. Here's a pretty representative example.
Some people are taking this shorter hair as a sign that she might be bringing back some of her energy from 2006 and they are here for this.
....As long as the cultural-powers-that-be don't make this like 2007.
Finally there are those who are, frankly, fed up with culturally obsessing over a pop star's hair length.
This is true. It's her hair, and her look. No wonder she took the original post down, if people were responding to it so much.
@LeeMerrittesq/X
@bob_moss/X
@jelanijones/Bluesky
@Aurkayne/X
@sadcommunistdog; @froglok/Bluesky