Speaker 1: Hi there. Before this episode begins, I want to make
Speaker 1: sure you know that this series gets into some things
Speaker 1: that might be triggering to some listeners, specifically depression and suicide.
Speaker 1: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts,
Speaker 1: please seek assistance from a mental health professional, or visit
Speaker 1: the National Institute of Mental Health website at n I
Speaker 1: m H dot, ni H dot g o V for resources.
Speaker 1: If you're currently in crisis, you can call one hundred
Speaker 1: to seven three talk that's eight to five, or text
Speaker 1: Hello to seven one seven for one to speak to
Speaker 1: someone immediately. Thanks for listening. Oh yeah, I don't understand.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I really don't think Britney Spears would
Speaker 1: go on a tiny jet and talk to you you. But
Speaker 1: I really don't a doubt it. I'm Chris Studman and
Speaker 1: this is unread episode one. Email my heart, call them
Speaker 1: back all the little clothes, open threats. That's still same
Speaker 1: for you. I gathered in sen deviceces faceco breaking the
Speaker 1: eyes floor too so fast. Now. I hope you're having
Speaker 1: a great day. I'm going to camping today. We actually
Speaker 1: I'm only going hiking. See, I'm just a guy guy.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to a pay type racks and in
Speaker 1: one weekend manish in those Spears before a last me days.
Speaker 1: Can I get a want? What? What? Why? That's my
Speaker 1: friend alex In. We spoke over the phone and texted often,
Speaker 1: but he also loved to send me life updates via
Speaker 1: video message, little dispatches from his world. Like most of
Speaker 1: his updates, this one included some news about Britney Spears,
Speaker 1: the pop princess we both loved, who was in the
Speaker 1: middle of her very successful Las Vegas residency. Piece of me.
Speaker 1: This is probably obvious, but yes, his voice is altered
Speaker 1: by an Instagram filter in that video. Here he is
Speaker 1: without a filter from another video message he sent me,
Speaker 1: this one four years later. Oh we're rolling well. Um,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. You
Speaker 1: know this is a big year for you. Whoo whoop whoop? Whoop?
Speaker 1: Whoop whoop? Can I get a whoop? Whoop? Can I
Speaker 1: get a whoo whoop? I just got a whoop whoop?
Speaker 1: Too much? Some people thought Alex was, as he said,
Speaker 1: too much, but me I couldn't get enough of his intensity,
Speaker 1: his zeal for life. As someone who sometimes struggles to
Speaker 1: embrace my own passions or interests to be myself. A
Speaker 1: big part of what drew me to Alex when we
Speaker 1: first met back in two thousand nine was how much
Speaker 1: he was truly himself. Some people, though, definitely made him
Speaker 1: feel like he was too much. It was a thing
Speaker 1: he and his sister show she connected over. Both my
Speaker 1: mom and my dad and Alex Andy all have dealt
Speaker 1: with mental illness issues our whole life. I think that
Speaker 1: just knowing that there's a stigma makes you feel different
Speaker 1: and like an outsider and like you're too much for
Speaker 1: people to handle, and that gets into your psyche and
Speaker 1: it starts to wear on your confidence. Even the most
Speaker 1: confident person in the world like Alex. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like eventually you hear it enough and you start to
Speaker 1: ask yourself to be true, you know. But anyone who
Speaker 1: thought that about Alex didn't see the full picture. He
Speaker 1: was a lot in all the best ways. He was
Speaker 1: a lot because he chased his joy, went all in
Speaker 1: on it. He was a prolific creator of the dumbest memes.
Speaker 1: A viral red carpet photo of Dakota Fanning grimacing uncomfortably
Speaker 1: would be fodder for weeks. Sample caption when he's been
Speaker 1: your boyfriend for two days and says he wants to
Speaker 1: open the relationship. Then there were his infamous Taco Bell orders.
Speaker 1: I'd list one of them, but we'd be here all day.
Speaker 1: Just know it came out to about seventy nine dollars,
Speaker 1: which is hard to do it Taco Bell. And he
Speaker 1: was utterly obsessed with roller coasters. When visiting my home
Speaker 1: state of Minnesota with me, he practically belined for the
Speaker 1: indoor coasters at the Mall of America. When Alex loved something,
Speaker 1: a hobby, a joke, a topic, he loved it hard.
Speaker 1: It consumed him. This was especially true of the people
Speaker 1: Alex loved. He loved me hard, especially from ten to
Speaker 1: a difficult few years of transition and change for me.
Speaker 1: During that time. He was always sending little videos or messages,
Speaker 1: things intended to put a smile on my face and
Speaker 1: remind me I was loved. But I don't think he
Speaker 1: loved anyone, not me, not his sister or parents, not
Speaker 1: his best friends since childhood, no one harder than he
Speaker 1: loved Britney Spears. When I say Alex loved Brittany, I
Speaker 1: don't mean he saw her in concert every tour or
Speaker 1: his wall was plastered with posters and magazine cutouts. I mean,
Speaker 1: sure he knew every obscure fact about her, had entire
Speaker 1: folders of photos of her on his laptop, had memorized
Speaker 1: the choreography to all of her music videos. But even
Speaker 1: that isn't really what I mean. What I really mean
Speaker 1: is that he identified with her, felt he understood her,
Speaker 1: felt her path in life had been like his in
Speaker 1: some way, even though their lives were very different in
Speaker 1: all of the obvious surface level respects, or, as Alex
Speaker 1: would probably put it, even though he was much much
Speaker 1: hairier than her. Well, first of all, he loved her
Speaker 1: music first and foremost loved her music. That's Alex's best friend, Lexie.
Speaker 1: I think he loved just her innocence, how she is
Speaker 1: such a sweet person and this megastar. And I think
Speaker 1: that like he sort of, like everybody else, idolizes her,
Speaker 1: but then also sees she's a real person and felt
Speaker 1: like deeply connected to that aspect of her. And he
Speaker 1: loved the fact that she was so real, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that she was like this mega star and iconic,
Speaker 1: she had faults, like a real person. She loved McDonald,
Speaker 1: her life choices, were like not only hilarious and entertaining
Speaker 1: to him, but also so relatable and like, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that he loved that, like she could embody
Speaker 1: all these different things at once, and I think that
Speaker 1: maybe he related to that too, and her struggles with
Speaker 1: mental health. I think he felt deeply connected to and
Speaker 1: I think that he felt like he knew her and
Speaker 1: that they were friends or something. You know. Alex's relationships
Speaker 1: with the people he loved most could be fraught. He'd
Speaker 1: easily fall out of touch or even cut people off
Speaker 1: completely sometimes. And though he and I didn't fight much,
Speaker 1: I'm from Minnesota, a land of notoriously conflict avoidant people.
Speaker 1: We could go periods without talking to. But while some
Speaker 1: of his closest relationships ebbed and flowed, Brittany was his constant.
Speaker 1: His adoration of her never wavered. She was the great,
Speaker 1: unchanging love of his life. M found now the going
Speaker 1: I know you kind of glue what to do with
Speaker 1: the check what you are, what you are saying? That's
Speaker 1: Alex singing Britney song Womanizer. Over the years, he sent
Speaker 1: me so many clips of him singing Brittaney songs, or
Speaker 1: even more often doing the choreography from her music videos.
Speaker 1: I once tweeted out a compilation of video clips of
Speaker 1: him performing the choreography from the music video for Britney
Speaker 1: single Work Bitch, with his permission and encouragement. The compilation
Speaker 1: is incredible, and it's also hilarious. In some of the clips,
Speaker 1: he's doing the choreography in front of a gigantic canyon
Speaker 1: and commands your attention away from the awesome view. In others,
Speaker 1: he's wearing a terrible cheap wig and makes it look glamorous.
Speaker 1: In another, he's sitting in the back of a movie
Speaker 1: pickup truck, not the backseat, the bed of the truck,
Speaker 1: and still doing the choreography flawlessly. Don't try this at home.
Speaker 1: My favorite of the clips, though, is one where he's
Speaker 1: house in dogs sitting for someone, and the dogs he's
Speaker 1: watching keep getting in the way, especially when he gets
Speaker 1: to the part of the choreography that calls for floor work.
Speaker 1: He keeps moving through the routine even as dogtails swat
Speaker 1: his face. Alex was pretty much always thinking about Brittany,
Speaker 1: her heart, her life, her very public struggles. He knew
Speaker 1: her moves, her music, the events of her career inside
Speaker 1: out for you Britney fans. Yes, that's a reference. Alex
Speaker 1: was obsessed with working her song titles into everyday conversation.
Speaker 1: It was like he cared about her as much as
Speaker 1: he cared about himself. I'm sure you've noticed that I'm
Speaker 1: talking about Alex in the past tense. Well. He could
Speaker 1: get through the choreography to work Bitch without stumbling, matter
Speaker 1: what obstacles, Dogtail or otherwise got in his way. The
Speaker 1: obstacles of his life proved a lot more challenging. As
Speaker 1: much space as Brittany took up in his head, something
Speaker 1: else loomed even larger, his depression. He would get on
Speaker 1: top of it, sometimes even for extended stretches, times when
Speaker 1: he would seem like he was getting better, but it
Speaker 1: was always there, waiting to pull him back down. One
Speaker 1: December evening in I received a message that changed my
Speaker 1: life forever, a message that would send me on the
Speaker 1: journey I'm on now. It was a week after I
Speaker 1: turned in my second book to my editor and got
Speaker 1: back online after a three month social media break. I
Speaker 1: was in my tiny studio apartment, cherishing the first three
Speaker 1: days I had had in months. I sat at the
Speaker 1: kitchen counter, my dog tuna asleep on the bed a
Speaker 1: few feet away. As I mindlessly scrolled through Twitter, I
Speaker 1: noticed an unread email from a few minutes earlier, delivered
Speaker 1: at seven pm exactly. It was from Alex, who I
Speaker 1: hadn't heard from all year, the longest we've ever gone
Speaker 1: without talking. Actually, I had felt a steady drip of
Speaker 1: worry over his prolonged absence, for sure, but I was
Speaker 1: struggling with some major obstacles of my own at the time,
Speaker 1: and for Alex disappearing was not unheard of. It was concerning,
Speaker 1: but it also felt kind of par for the course
Speaker 1: another one of his off the grid periods. Seeing the
Speaker 1: emails subject line my name repeated three times, all in
Speaker 1: lower case Chris. Chris. Chris filled me with a strange
Speaker 1: mix of relief, finally a sign of him, and also dread.
Speaker 1: Is this an email to tell me off for being absent?
Speaker 1: I wondered, for being a bad friend. But it wasn't that, Chris.
Speaker 1: The email began. Listen, I'm writing to let you know
Speaker 1: that when you receive this scheduled email, I will no
Speaker 1: longer be alive. At first, I couldn't even make sense
Speaker 1: of what I was reading. I just sat in front
Speaker 1: of my computer frozen. When I felt like I could
Speaker 1: move again, I emailed him back right away. I love
Speaker 1: you so fucking much, I wrote, I've been trying to
Speaker 1: reach you. I really hope you see this. Please call me.
Speaker 1: Then I grabbed my phone, scrolled to his contact and
Speaker 1: hit call. Maybe he changed his mind, Maybe he forgot
Speaker 1: to cancel this email. Maybe he was dying but not
Speaker 1: dead and I could intervene. I had to at least try.
Speaker 1: When I couldn't reach him over the phone, I texted
Speaker 1: my friend Carrie. I didn't know what to do next,
Speaker 1: and frankly, I needed someone outside the situation to confirm
Speaker 1: that this was really happening. Kerry, who's a talented investigative journalist,
Speaker 1: offered to help arrange a wellness check, but as I
Speaker 1: spoke with her, I realized that, despite my once frequent
Speaker 1: contact with Alex, I had no idea what his current
Speaker 1: address even was. I found a photo he had sent
Speaker 1: me of a letter from the city about a parking ticket,
Speaker 1: and after zooming in, I deciphered the address. With that
Speaker 1: in hand, Carrie helped me reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline,
Speaker 1: whose volunteers calmly offered to help send someone to check
Speaker 1: at the address. He hadn't lived there in months, though,
Speaker 1: and the new residents had no clue where he had gone.
Speaker 1: Feeling out of options, I sat there rereading his email
Speaker 1: over and over, looking for any sort of clue in
Speaker 1: it that he might be okay, while messaging anyone I
Speaker 1: could find, his friend Beth, who he had connected me
Speaker 1: with over Twitter, strangers he was tagged in photos with
Speaker 1: on Instagram, anyone I could find online, trying to locate
Speaker 1: someone who could track him down and tell me it
Speaker 1: wasn't true. As I did that, Carrie worked to find
Speaker 1: his family's contact information online, and I would eventually reach
Speaker 1: them by the end of the night. But in the
Speaker 1: time in between, while I waited to hear back from someone, anyone,
Speaker 1: I paced the tight space between my computer and my
Speaker 1: bad nauseous, before collapsing onto my sheets, wrapping Tuna in
Speaker 1: my arms and refusing to let go. They wouldn't find
Speaker 1: his body for another day, but as I held my
Speaker 1: normally very aloof dog close, I knew that Alex was gone.
Speaker 1: Even now, the immensity of what I felt in that
Speaker 1: moment evades words. It was the thing Alex sometimes feared
Speaker 1: he was. It was too much. Outside of the shock
Speaker 1: of its very existence. Much of Alex's goodbye email to
Speaker 1: me was unsurprising. He even did his signature thing of
Speaker 1: working Brittany references into the text. But near the end
Speaker 1: of his email, almost as a kind of afterthought, was
Speaker 1: a SoundCloud link. Oh, he wrote, here's Alice Recordings. I
Speaker 1: didn't click the link in the overwhelming panic of that
Speaker 1: first night, but the next day I followed it to
Speaker 1: a private SoundCloud page, one only accessible to someone given
Speaker 1: the link. The page was simple, just two audio files.
Speaker 1: The account's display name was all in lower case Hillary
Speaker 1: d I assume for the Disney star and musician Hillary Duff.
Speaker 1: He loved using celebrity names for random things like this.
Speaker 1: One time he created a profile on Venmo under the
Speaker 1: name Nicole Ritchie and used it to send me three
Speaker 1: cents out of the blue, just so I'd get a
Speaker 1: notification that Nicole Ritchie had sent me money. In the
Speaker 1: space where you put with the payments for he wrote
Speaker 1: Savage Garden c D. The first of the two audio
Speaker 1: files had Part two in the file name, even though
Speaker 1: there was no sign of a part one. Very Alex,
Speaker 1: I hit play on the second clip, the one that
Speaker 1: didn't say part in case it was part one, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: The first thing I heard was her my Twitter. My
Speaker 1: Twitter is Banana Alan and I created it today and
Speaker 1: um Banana Allen Alice. Hearing her that voice, that laugh,
Speaker 1: I was immediately flooded with memories of Alex telling me
Speaker 1: about her, this mysterious figure he met online, A mysterious
Speaker 1: figure who happens to sound eerily similar to Britney Spears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't understand. I don't think. I really don't think
Speaker 1: Britney Spears would go on a tiny chat and talking
Speaker 1: to her. I really don't doubt it. Alex had told
Speaker 1: me about Alice, but before receiving his goodbye email, I
Speaker 1: hadn't thought about her in years. For a period of
Speaker 1: time in the early Alice would appear in online spaces
Speaker 1: frequented by obsessed Britney fans, talking with them in a
Speaker 1: voice chat room and tweeting under the handle Banana Alice
Speaker 1: Banana as in the name of the snake used in
Speaker 1: Brittany's iconic two thous performance. Alice would coyly deny being
Speaker 1: Brittany when asked, before laughing exactly like the elusive pop star.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that was Alice. Here's Brittany. Brittany laughs
Speaker 1: a lot, and her laughter is infectious, but there have
Speaker 1: been stretches where her fans have gone without hearing it
Speaker 1: as much, especially since two thousand seven, one of the
Speaker 1: most tumultuous years of her career. In two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: Brittany was everywhere, on the cover of every celebrity magazine,
Speaker 1: the top of every gossip blog. Cable news covered her
Speaker 1: every move, every outing, every court date, every outrageous joke
Speaker 1: she made to whichever member of the paparazzi was within
Speaker 1: earshot to make a turn out. What would they let
Speaker 1: you in Britney? What do you think, Air, I mean
Speaker 1: I can get on the hop? Yeah right. This time
Speaker 1: in Britney's life is seared in the minds of those
Speaker 1: of us who came of age with her. The custody battles,
Speaker 1: head shaving, supposedly disastrous Vimes performance of Give Me More,
Speaker 1: which for the record, I really enjoyed, and all the
Speaker 1: signs of distress that talk show hosts and comedians used
Speaker 1: as low hanging joke fodder. You know, Britney still thinks
Speaker 1: the earth is flat, We're going to tune in to
Speaker 1: see her, you know, if she can sort of function
Speaker 1: through the thing right, something Britney Spears has lost in
Speaker 1: the past year. Her eyes were open, her lips were moving,
Speaker 1: She remade conscious the entire time. It was the greatest
Speaker 1: impression of an office worker embarrassing themselves at a holiday
Speaker 1: party I have ever seen. Brittany emerged with a bang
Speaker 1: as the biggest star in the world, but less than
Speaker 1: a decade later, to the world she was coming undone.
Speaker 1: Newspapers readied her obituary to go to press at a
Speaker 1: moment's notice, as the public settled in with popcorn to
Speaker 1: witness the spectacle of her dark night of the soul.
Speaker 1: While much of the world pointed and laughed, this difficult
Speaker 1: time in Brittany's life had a different impact on some.
Speaker 1: It not only endeared her to many of her already
Speaker 1: adoring fans, it also cracked open the hard exterior of
Speaker 1: some people like me, who either hadn't paid her much
Speaker 1: notice or had even dismissed her growing up. We became
Speaker 1: invested in her and her well being after seeing her struggle.
Speaker 1: We watched in worry as she spiraled and felt immense
Speaker 1: joy as she seemed to climb her way back out.
Speaker 1: Alice denied being Brittany, but some of the fans who
Speaker 1: spent full days on Brittany fan forums were convinced otherwise
Speaker 1: because of her voice, but also smaller things, subtle mannerisms,
Speaker 1: little moments that betrayed a vulnerability like the kind they
Speaker 1: saw in Brittany. And these were the fans, like Alex,
Speaker 1: who felt that they knew Brittany best. The prospect that
Speaker 1: Alice and Brittany were one and the same would have
Speaker 1: been thrilling. Here perhaps was a chance to connect with
Speaker 1: the unreachable star that they felt they already knew. Even
Speaker 1: I have to admit, Alice sounds just like Brittany. The light,
Speaker 1: vocal fry, the playful candor, every word almost like a wink.
Speaker 1: If I ever said her name, yeah, would I continued
Speaker 1: listening to the audio. At one point, the other people
Speaker 1: in the chat room with Alice begin discussing the rumors that,
Speaker 1: under her strict conservatorship. More on that in a minute,
Speaker 1: Brittany doesn't have access to a phone or computer, an
Speaker 1: idea that's persisted among many Britney fans for years. It's
Speaker 1: a computer, Uh, I think Brittany knows that computer she
Speaker 1: doesn't have all, and she didn't have a computer, I'm
Speaker 1: sure she has like a mac bug or something. Listening
Speaker 1: to this clip, it's strange to hear them talk about
Speaker 1: Brittany as if she isn't there well at the same
Speaker 1: time knowing some of them think, or at least hope,
Speaker 1: that Alice is Brittany. It's like they're trying to wink
Speaker 1: and nudge her into confessing who she is. The pokes
Speaker 1: almost work. Alice clears her throat in that clip, like
Speaker 1: she wants to correct them or just remind them that
Speaker 1: she's still there listening, but the winks and nudges continue. So, Alice,
Speaker 1: do people ever think you're Brittany? Like when you're just
Speaker 1: out and about on your daily routine that I think
Speaker 1: your Brittany. Ever? Alice doesn't take the bait though, No,
Speaker 1: because I don't look like her at all. They're playing
Speaker 1: a kind of tug of war with Alice, but behind
Speaker 1: the prodding there are serious concerns. This idea that Brittany
Speaker 1: either doesn't know how to work a computer or doesn't
Speaker 1: have one at all, is driven by years of speculation
Speaker 1: about Britney's lack of freedom and how isolated she may be.
Speaker 1: In two thousand eight, Brittany was placed under a conservatorship,
Speaker 1: which put her under the care of her father and
Speaker 1: essentially gave him full legal control over her life, her career,
Speaker 1: and with a co conservator, her finances. If you're not familiar,
Speaker 1: a conservatorship is a legal arrangement typically reserved for people
Speaker 1: living with dementia or a profound mental illness that makes
Speaker 1: everyday functioning difficult. In other words, it's really only instituted
Speaker 1: in the most extreme circumstances where a person cannot care
Speaker 1: for themselves or make sound decisions in their own best interest. Yet,
Speaker 1: less than a year after being placed under her conservatorship,
Speaker 1: Brittany kicked off a massive comeback, reaching heights she hadn't
Speaker 1: since her debut, several number one singles, multiple album releases,
Speaker 1: world tours, and eventually an immensely profitable Las Vegas residency.
Speaker 1: With each passing year of Brittany's conservatorship, her fans grew
Speaker 1: more concerned. They started scouring her social media for clues
Speaker 1: that she was trying to signal displeasure with the arrangement
Speaker 1: to the world, discussing some of her leaked songs like
Speaker 1: Rebellion and trying to decode messages in the lyrics, circulating
Speaker 1: handwritten notes purportedly authored by Brittany herself early on in
Speaker 1: her conservatorship, in which she says she wants to be
Speaker 1: out of it, tweeting clips from for the Record, a
Speaker 1: documentary produced for her comeback in two thousand eight, which
Speaker 1: is full of moments where Brittney talks about how controlled
Speaker 1: and orchestrated her life feels. Fan concerns reached a fever
Speaker 1: pitch in the final year of Alex's life when Brittany
Speaker 1: canceled her second Las Vegas residency not long after it
Speaker 1: was announced and went quiet on social media. Months later,
Speaker 1: it was reported she had checked into a mental health facility,
Speaker 1: and some thought she was made to do so against
Speaker 1: her will. There was speculation that her Instagram account, one
Speaker 1: of the few places she seemed to present her unvarnished self,
Speaker 1: wasn't run by Brittany anymore. Her captions, for instance, were
Speaker 1: known for being littered with emojis, but a post after
Speaker 1: checking into the facility featured an out of place, low
Speaker 1: fi emoticon. It was a small detail, but to die
Speaker 1: hard fans something felt off. From then on, her Instagram
Speaker 1: comments were dominated by people picking apart her posts and
Speaker 1: digging for meaning. Three emojis mean s O S and
Speaker 1: red always means alarm. If you need help, wear yellow
Speaker 1: in your next video. Brittany post a picture of a painting.
Speaker 1: Next if you're not okay. See this was posted into December,
Speaker 1: but I think it's really from the trip posted in October.
Speaker 1: There's something with that tree. Guys, She's always near that tree,
Speaker 1: praying for your freedom. You're not alone. We'd love you.
Speaker 1: After that, the speculation had gained enough traction that the
Speaker 1: digitally driven Free Brittany movement, once a fringe idea among
Speaker 1: her most dedicated fans, began breaking into the mainstream. It's
Speaker 1: the Battle over Brittany. Pop star Britney Spears parents faced
Speaker 1: off in court as they fight over conservatorship of their
Speaker 1: daughter Leslie Marinez live in downtown l A. With the
Speaker 1: tails on the battle over conservatorship and the fan movement
Speaker 1: to Free Brittany. By six months after I got Alex's email,
Speaker 1: questions about Britney's well being were all over the Internet.
Speaker 1: They reached far beyond a core group of fans like
Speaker 1: those in Alice's chat room, or the handful of protesters
Speaker 1: who picketed conservatorship or at hearings. Even before New York
Speaker 1: Times documentary on Brittany's Conservatorship launched the movement to the
Speaker 1: next level, hashtag free Brittany would regularly trend on Twitter
Speaker 1: and TikTok's suggesting she has no control over her life
Speaker 1: accumulated millions of views. The comments that flood Brittany's Instagram
Speaker 1: posts now are primarily focused on her well being. They
Speaker 1: are passionate and mostly sympathetic. By and large, the conversation
Speaker 1: about Britney's mental health looks and feels very different now
Speaker 1: than it did just a decade ago. When Alex and
Speaker 1: I first bonded over how much we loved her. We
Speaker 1: were very defensive of her back then, fiercely protective after
Speaker 1: how much she and her mental health had been ridiculed. Today,
Speaker 1: while far from perfect, public discussions about Brittany at least
Speaker 1: have a lot more of that tenderness that once felt
Speaker 1: so unique to my conversations with Alex. But while the
Speaker 1: comments on Brittany's and Graham posts are rife with messages
Speaker 1: from fans inquiring if she's okay, and asking her to
Speaker 1: communicate secret messages by wearing certain colors of clothing. Brittany
Speaker 1: herself mostly broadcasts her love of dance, does Hallway fashion
Speaker 1: shows full of twirls and hair tosses, and posts wholesome
Speaker 1: themes and Bible verses. She is sharing, but mostly stuff
Speaker 1: that stays safely at the surface, kind of like how
Speaker 1: Alex would post funny content online while reserving more difficult
Speaker 1: subjects for our phone calls. Scrolling through her Instagram after
Speaker 1: Alex's death, I wonder how okay Brittany really is. And
Speaker 1: like her other fans, I searched her posts for clues,
Speaker 1: but I'm looking for something else. Unlike her other fans,
Speaker 1: I search for hints of another sort, hints that she
Speaker 1: might have known my friend. Would it really be so
Speaker 1: surprising that a star as reclusive as Brittany, one who
Speaker 1: has been hurt by the public as much as she has,
Speaker 1: might go online in search of connection, and that this
Speaker 1: search could have led her to Alex. If Brittany did
Speaker 1: go seeking anonymous connection, she wouldn't be the first celebrity
Speaker 1: to do so. There's actually a long history of it.
Speaker 1: Here's Dave Holmes, who as an MTV VJ back in
Speaker 1: the TRL era had a front row seat to Brittany's
Speaker 1: meteoric rise and the struggles that soon followed. I mean,
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson used to dress up and go door to
Speaker 1: door as a Jehovah's Witness, like in a fat suit
Speaker 1: and prosthetics and stuff like, just to have quote unquote
Speaker 1: normal conversations with people. Michael Jackson, who grew up as
Speaker 1: a Jehovah's Witness, couldn't connect with anyone about his faith
Speaker 1: or about anything really without his celebrity getting in the way. Today,
Speaker 1: thanks to the Internet, famous people have an even easier
Speaker 1: time flying under the radar when they need to know
Speaker 1: prosthetics needed. Stars like Donald Glover have spoken about trying
Speaker 1: to find community online under the relief of anonymity, and
Speaker 1: he's definitely not alone. For celebrities who want to connect
Speaker 1: and feel normal, the Internet can provide a way to
Speaker 1: reach out and find people who can see the human
Speaker 1: behind the hype. For a star as misunderstood as Brittany,
Speaker 1: the appeal seems obvious. I can absolutely see someone like
Speaker 1: her whose face and name and image she's a little
Speaker 1: bit lost control of talking anonymously to somebody and saying
Speaker 1: what she really thinks, in not having to second guess it,
Speaker 1: and figuring out who she is outside of the industry
Speaker 1: that has sprung up around name. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: that actually seems really healthy. I'm not a global superstar,
Speaker 1: but I've done the same thing as a closeted queer teenager.
Speaker 1: I sought out Internet strangers who might understand me better
Speaker 1: than the people around me. But I've done this as
Speaker 1: an adult too. More and more of us turned to
Speaker 1: the Internet to experiment with identity, confess our secrets, and
Speaker 1: find consolation. If people in our situations turned to the
Speaker 1: Internet for connection and community, I can only imagine Brittany,
Speaker 1: who is pretty much unable to meet anyone who doesn't
Speaker 1: already have all kinds of ideas about who she is,
Speaker 1: might see the Internet as a safe place too. As
Speaker 1: I started thinking about why Brittany might seek out online connection,
Speaker 1: I suddenly remembered that Alex didn't just follow Alice on
Speaker 1: Twitter or join in on her group voice chats. He
Speaker 1: also texted with her years ago. He sent me screenshots
Speaker 1: of some of their exchanges. As soon as I remembered this,
Speaker 1: I went back through our texts and found them in
Speaker 1: a near frenzy. The funny, tender snippets of conversation I
Speaker 1: uncovered made me all the more curious about what all
Speaker 1: they had shared and what sides of Alex Alice saw.
Speaker 1: After all, as I learned from a small group of
Speaker 1: Alex's friends in the weeks and months after his death,
Speaker 1: we all got different pieces of him. Which pieces of
Speaker 1: Alex did Alice get? Alex would pretend to believe in
Speaker 1: a number of Brittany fan conspiracies, and you sometimes couldn't
Speaker 1: tell how serious he was being. He was never one
Speaker 1: to say just kidding after a joke. For example, when
Speaker 1: he sent me that video message wishing me a happy birthday,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. It
Speaker 1: was actually my thirty one. But based on what he
Speaker 1: told me and the significance of him including a link
Speaker 1: to these audio files and his goodbye email, I think
Speaker 1: Alex might have really thought that Alice was Brittany. Maybe
Speaker 1: my friends are always making fun of me for being
Speaker 1: irritating Lee skeptical. They're not wrong. It's an annoyingly large
Speaker 1: part of my personality. This is true on a very
Speaker 1: superficial level. I worked in atheism for my entire twenties,
Speaker 1: like working on atheists stuff at Harvard and Yale, directing
Speaker 1: an atheist nonprofit, going on cable news to talk about
Speaker 1: being an atheist, writing a book on atheism. I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: I was literally a professional skeptic, and though it's no
Speaker 1: longer the full time focus of my career, I continue
Speaker 1: to be driven by a skeptical impulse in my work
Speaker 1: today as a professor in a department of religion and
Speaker 1: philosophy and a writer on Internet culture. But I'm also
Speaker 1: just pretty skeptical in general. This can be harmless. For example,
Speaker 1: I'm always forced to walk at the front anytime a
Speaker 1: friend group goes through a haunted house because I have
Speaker 1: the hardest time suspending my disbelief that these aren't just
Speaker 1: teenagers and cheap masks jumping out from behind even cheaper props.
Speaker 1: But my skepticism also gets in the way. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: questioned myself and my own thinking a lot, and I
Speaker 1: have a hard time putting my faith in anything but
Speaker 1: the idea that Alex might have had faith in Alice.
Speaker 1: It gives me pause. Whoever she was, I want to
Speaker 1: understand why she compelled him. I want to see what
Speaker 1: he saw in her. In the weeks following Alex's email,
Speaker 1: I ran an online fundraiser so his body could be
Speaker 1: claimed and his cremation paid for, and I worked with
Speaker 1: show She and Lexi to plan his memorial or memory whole,
Speaker 1: as I jokingly proposed, we call it in a moment
Speaker 1: of severe sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, they loved it and so
Speaker 1: we used it, which was fitting. It's genuinely what Alex
Speaker 1: would have called it himself. I did all this because
Speaker 1: I loved Alex and I wanted to help, but also
Speaker 1: because I was trying to stay busy and keep moving
Speaker 1: as much as I could. If I am a ghost,
Speaker 1: Alex wrote in his email to me, I will come
Speaker 1: say hello and will always be a friendly ghost like Casper.
Speaker 1: But Harry, I won't hunt you unless you're being mean,
Speaker 1: or if you're like abusing a dog. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: or sensed Alex since he died, but I am haunted
Speaker 1: by Alex's death and by the questions it left. I know.
Speaker 1: I am so lucky to have his email this goodbye.
Speaker 1: It answers questions so many people are left with when
Speaker 1: someone dies, especially when someone dies by suicide. But still
Speaker 1: there's so much unknown. If only I could explain, Alex wrote,
Speaker 1: but he couldn't. The questions that linger are ones his
Speaker 1: email could never answer. But in those first weeks after
Speaker 1: his death, I couldn't help but wonder or hope if
Speaker 1: perhaps Alice could. Wondering if Alice could help answer my
Speaker 1: sans about Alex gives rise to others. Brittany, like Alex,
Speaker 1: had been told by the world that she is too much,
Speaker 1: that she feels too much, does too much, wants too much,
Speaker 1: that she should be less, smaller, quieter, which is another
Speaker 1: way of saying that she should be a different person altogether.
Speaker 1: If Alex really was talking to Brittany, as far fetched
Speaker 1: as that may sound, did he make her feel valid
Speaker 1: the same thing Alex did for me. In one of
Speaker 1: the texts Alex sent me a screenshot of years ago,
Speaker 1: during an exchange about their mental health, Alice said to Alex,
Speaker 1: I've never met anyone who I can relate to on
Speaker 1: this level. I'm curious what else they shared. Did she
Speaker 1: know he was going to end his life? Does she
Speaker 1: even know he's gone? Could she help me understand my
Speaker 1: friend better? I went back to the SoundCloud clips he
Speaker 1: sent several more times replaying them again and again, especially
Speaker 1: the spots where it's just Alex and Alice talking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: an echo? I don't hear an echo? How do you call?
Speaker 1: Do you have like a like an app? Or whatever?
Speaker 1: Form my fun Before long I began to feel like
Speaker 1: one of Britney's Instagram followers, obsessively trying to connect the dots.
Speaker 1: Why was there an echo? Why was Alex asking about
Speaker 1: a calling app? Eventually, though, my skepticism started to come back.
Speaker 1: Maybe Alice was just another joke Alex didn't say just
Speaker 1: kidding after Maybe he didn't believe in her at all
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't see it. Maybe there were other
Speaker 1: things I missed along the way too. Why didn't I
Speaker 1: know that Alex had gone to such a dark place
Speaker 1: in the final year of his life. Why didn't I
Speaker 1: ask him more questions, not about Alice, but about how
Speaker 1: he was doing when I had the chance. I can't
Speaker 1: ask Alex anymore, so if I want answers, I'll need
Speaker 1: to ask someone else. Maybe this is why. In the
Speaker 1: days after Alex's death, as I mourned my friend and
Speaker 1: tried to make sense of what happened, I kept coming
Speaker 1: back to my questions about this person with a laugh
Speaker 1: that sounds just like our idols. Who is she? Is
Speaker 1: it Brittany doesn't matter? Can I find her next time
Speaker 1: on Unread? Do you feel like that name of like
Speaker 1: Charlie and always study in Philadelphia in the office, like
Speaker 1: surrounded by like putting strings in one of my favorite
Speaker 1: memes ever. And that's kind of how I picture you
Speaker 1: making this podcast.