Viewpoint by Katie B. Martinez/reporter

What in God’s name has happened to Britney Spears?

Just when we thought we had seen it all, the pop icon shaved her own head at a trendy salon in Los Angeles.
Esther Tognozzi, the salon owner, refused to help Spears, telling reporters she feared being sued.

Tognozzi attempted to dissuade Spears, protesting that she might just be feeling “hormonal” and could quite possibly feel different about it the next day.

It was then that Spears coolly “grabbed the buzzer and started buzzing her own hair off,” Tognozzi said. “I just cleaned it up when she was done with it.”

A few days later, Spears was back on the club scene, appearing at Club Roxy in Hollywood, wearing a blonde wig and sunglasses. Within a week, she was checking herself into rehab for the third time in two weeks.

All America can do is speculate as to what may be going on inside the mind of this once undisputed princess of pop.

Talk show hosts and radio DJs across the nation have turned the situation into a cruel joke, but is it really funny?

Is it funny the way these celebrities are hounded and ridiculed every day of their lives?

In an interview on Today, Dr. Keith Ablow, psychiatrist, and Robin Ludwig, psychotherapist, analyzed Spears’ behavior.

“ I think we really should be concerned because this is an extreme, impulsive action that she took,” Ludwig told Meredith Vieira. “She’s basically saying to the world, ‘I want everybody to see how I really feel.’”

Ablow said, “We just saw the death of one icon in America, Anna Nicole [Smith]. I think it is not lost on any of us that we tend to consume these celebrities until there is nothing left of them.”

Indeed, when we think about these two celebrities, it is difficult not to consider the idea that we as Americans are in some way responsible for their ultimate downfall.

Are they too skinny or are they too fat? Are they dating this guy or that guy?

Our appetite for celebrity gossip seems insatiable, and although it may appear harmless on the surface, what are we really doing to these people?

The freedom of the press is a cornerstone in our society, but when we twist that freedom to hurt other people, what does that say about us?

It’s easy to ask, “What in God’s name has happened to Britney Spears?”

It is more difficult to consider that perhaps we are what happened to Britney Spears.