When Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake broke up in 2002, the world gasped, pointed angry fingers, and gossiped. They were “America’s Sweethearts” and no one could believe that they just weren’t together. Surely someone was at fault and had done some horrible, hideous, evil thing for the pair to split. Every song they recorded after must’ve been about the breakup. Surely, each new song that the individual stars released must have been a rebuttal to the previous. Nearly 15 years later, there are still more articles written about their breakup, effects, or relationship with each other now than their actual music.
Sometimes relationships don't work out but just because someone is famous doesn't mean it's anyone's business. Singers are there to put out music. They're doing a job. They are still human beings— their personal life is their own, not the world's.
Celebrities are people too, just like anyone else, and contrary to popular belief, their lives aren’t fairytales or a music video. The celebrity relationship gossip ship sails time and time again— with LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian or Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. Now “trending” is the ridiculous Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, and Gwen Stefani circus. Stars are often judged for their own personal lives. Fans speculate about who cheated— they turn celebrity lives into reality shows. Artists’ music is often blacklisted— no longer listened to because people decide that celebrities are supposed to somehow be “holier than thou.” Does a divorce change the way a voice sounds? Is that any of our business?
There has always been some fairyland notion when it comes to celebrities— people look to them as if they are made of stardust. But they have relationship drama, just as we all do. They make mistakes, learn, grow, and are just trying to figure it out too. Yes, some writers have written about their lovers throughout history— Stevie Nicks wrote about Lindsey Buckingham, and he wrote about her. We all wondered for years just who Carly Simon thought was so vain— but these days it’s getting ridiculous. It’s becoming less about listening to the music and mostly about digging for every intimate detail of a singer’s personal life. Just because a singer might have some saucy words in their song does not mean that they are that lyric or that song. They are performers. What fans fail to understand is that many singers don’t even write their own material.
Just because a singer has a bad breakup, took some wrong turns in their life, or are no longer a part of an “American Sweetheart” couple does not mean that their music is no longer worth listening to. They aren’t running for president. In fact, if a singer does write their own lyrics, their music just might become even better if they are facing struggles in their life. They may draw from that. But the fact is that those struggles are still their own. They are people, like all of us, and they have their own private lives that don’t need to be public knowledge— don’t need to be pried into, explained, or talked about, for that matter, if they don’t want to talk about it. Fans need to realize that artists are people too, putting out a product, and they don’t owe anyone anything else except perhaps a “thank you” for buying and supporting that product. Let’s make music about the music again and less about who's dating whom.
