Why Am I Still Thinking About How The View Celebrated Britney Spears' Divorce?

The View has received my full attention on three separate occasions: when Lady Gaga wore a checkered suit and talked incessantly about how she's Italian (2011), when Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck had that huge fight with the finger-pointing (2007), and when the show's hosts celebrated Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's divorce (2006). That last one is ingrained in my memory more than my mother's name, because it encapsulates my vision of the mid-2000s perfectly.

You remember that era: People thought it was ridiculously cool to wear fuzzy boots with frayed jean skirts; Paris Hilton had a starring role in the House of Wax remake; and, oh yes, Britney Spears was dating a backup dancer named Kevin Federline, who seemed to have a real affinity for white tank tops. The couple met in April 2004, during a sweaty night at Joseph's, a then popular Hollywood club that Spears frequented on Mondays. "He was like a magnet," the pop star said in 2004 about meeting Federline. "I was being pulled. It was so beyond my control."

The couple soon became magnets for the media too, attracting headlines every time they wore matching trucker hats, bought Fanta at gas stations, or burped in hotel rooms. It's unclear how much of this "de-glamming" was Spears' choice or the product of Federline's influence, but regardless, it caused her forward-facing golden-child image to tarnish. Unfair, I realize, but it was indicative of the early aughts: a time when a young starlet's public perception rested solely on how well she "behaved." And Spears obviously wasn't meeting society's expectations anymore.

After a surprise marriage in September 2004 and two kids over the span of two years, people feared the Britney Spears they knew and loved was gone forever. Her main priority was now a white dude who thought he could break into the rap game with a song called "PopoZao." Times were tough.

That's why everyone let out a massive sigh of relief in November 2006, when news broke that Spears was leaving Federline. Finally, we'd get our Brit-Brit back. No one, however, was more elated than the women of The View, who kicked off their November 8 show with the news.

"I just want to say I never expected anything like this; I'm over-the-moon excited," host Rosie O'Donnell said, her voice shaking with pleasure. "But it's the biggest news in the country: Ladies and gentleman, Britney Spears is leaving K-Fed!"

Then O'Donnell said the word that will forever symbolize our culture's elation about this divorce: "Confetti!" Soon, the entire View studio was covered with it, and the audience was hugging and hollering as if Spears were their best friend. It's quite the sight. "Britney! Britney! Britney!" O'Donnell shouts from the top of her lungs. "Let me just say on behalf of a happy America: Welcome back, Britney. We love you!"

The segment is a cultural artifact that's both ridiculous and illuminating. On the one hand, you can't take it that seriously. Britney Spears is a celebrity, after all, and The View just used her divorce to create a buzzy on-air moment. The hosts were likely trying to drum up publicity around a hot topic—and it worked. Here I am, talking about it 12 years later.

But there's also something quietly sinister about the whole thing. It was just a few months prior that Spears had sat down for a teary-eyed interview with Matt Lauer during which she said, point-blank, that the media's treatment of Federline deeply upset her. "It makes me wanna cry," she said, actually holding back tears. Watch five minutes of the hour-long chat, and you'll clearly see Spears was just a 24-year-old woman desperately trying to make her marriage work, even though the world wanted the exact opposite. One headline at the time even read, "Can she work it out with Kevin? We hope not!" There was seriously a bounty on the demise of this marriage (and, by proxy, Spears' happiness), and when it imploded, The View was right there to celebrate.

Why was the public so against this union? Snarky jokes about Spears' Red Bull–swilling image aside, it didn't seem like she was hurting anyone by being with Federline. Making quips about his music "career" or the couple's trips to Taco Bell is one thing, but actively hoping for a marriage we know nothing about to fail is something else entirely. When Spears was with Federline, she was more unfiltered, vocal, and human—things our culture still has trouble digesting when they come from women, let alone those as famous as Spears.

"All of us—men and women both—are raised to believe that we have the right to judge and control women’s lives and decisions," Sady Doyle, the author of Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear… and Why, told Glamour last year when we chatted with her about pop culture's obsession with female celebrities failing. "That is a perfect recipe for mob hatred and punitive vigilante cruelty."

Fans and spectators alike were convinced the former Spears—the "good" Britney—would magically return when she left Federline, and they could put her back in a box that made them feel comfortable. Of course, this didn't happen: Spears' divorce was presumably one of the triggers that led to her very public breakdown in 2007, which spawned a slate of all new, equally uncomfortable headlines about her "behavior."

Yes, The View's stunt is funny, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum, either. The chatter and gossip and judgment surrounding Spears' relationship is why the show's announcement was cathartic to many. It's what we felt we deserved after enduring months of bizarre Britney headlines that depicted her acting in a way we didn't approve. When Spears divorced Federline, she was devastated. She's said that on multiple occasions. While she was in crisis, though, we cheered and celebrated on daytime television. "Welcome back, Britney" was, in many ways, code for "Get back in line." That's not a pretty picture—even if it does include confetti.

Christopher Rosa is the Glamour entertainment staff writer.