A Dutch interviewer has defended himself after a troubling early interview he conducted with a then-teenage Britney Spears resurfaced in this weeks bombshell doco.In a section of Framing Britney Spears looking at the star’s fraught relationship with the media, she’s shown fielding several personal and overly sexual questions – often from older, male journalists.
One of them was Dutch TV presenter Ivo Niehe, who grilled Spears – then aged 17 – about rumours she’d had breast implants.
“There’s one subject we didn’t discuss. Everyone’s talking about it. Well … your breasts,” he said, to gasps and laughter from the studio audience.
“My breasts?” asked Spears, smiling politely.
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“You seem to get furious when a talk-show host comes up with this subject,” Niehe continued.
“OK, in general, what do you think about breast implants, just in general?”Spears responded that, while she had not had breast implants, she thought people should do whatever makes them happy. “I think it’s sad that people think I’ve done that … the press started that. If you want to do that, that’s fine, but I personally wouldn’t do that.”
It was arguably the most disturbing clip in a section of the doco that also saw Australian reporter Mike Munro accuse Spears of being a “sexy vamp in underwear,” a description she baulked at.
As the vintage clip spread on social media this week, Niehe responded, giving a statement to Dutch News in which he insisted the question was actually pre-organised with Spears’ team to give her an opportunity to address the plastic surgery rumours.
‘We agreed to give her a serious opportunity to react to all the commotion. What did she, as a 17-year old American, think about plastic surgery. Britney was pleased to make extensive use of this. But well, that naturally did not suit the documentary makers, so they only used the one question, which was asked with great irony as we did not want to talk about it anyway,” he insisted.
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“The atmosphere after the interview was good and her management was more than happy. It was a very sympathetic interview, and I have watched the whole thing again, to be sure.”
Neihe’s interview was one of many shocking moments featured in Framing Britney Spears, which traces the singer’s rise to fame and public breakdown before examining the unusual conservatorship arrangement she’s lived under for more than 12 years.
Spears herself is reported to have seen the documentary and found it “emotional” but “hopeful” viewing, as she fights to remove her father Jamie Spears from her conservatorship arrangement.
A court hearing today provided a small but significant win for Spears: A judge overruled her father’s objections to an order that established Bessemer Trust Co. as co-conservator of her estate.
NBC reports that Jamie Spears and Bessemer Trust are now expected to work together “on a budget and investment proposal for Britney Spears’ estate”.