{"id":836251,"date":"2026-09-04T13:46:35","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T13:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/836251\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T13:46:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T13:46:35","slug":"remember-when-britney-spears-mesmerized-the-world-at-the-2001-vmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/836251\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember when Britney Spears mesmerized the world at the 2001 VMAs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 Delving into the archives of pop culture history, \u201cRemember When?<\/a>\u201d is a CNN Style series offering a nostalgic look at the celebrity outfits that defined their eras.\n<\/p>\n

\n Britney Spears was ready to drop a new single. But how? It was 2001, and Spears was the biggest pop star in the world, with her 10-time-platinum sophomore album, \u201cOops! I Did It Again\u201d behind her. The public would be expecting something suitably huge.\n <\/p>\n

\n They got something even bigger than that. Spears decided to deliver the new song, \u201cI\u2019m a Slave 4 U,\u201d live on stage at New York City\u2019s Metropolitan Opera house, during the annual MTV Video Music Awards.\n <\/p>\n

\n There would be no concert previews or early radio release or teaser clips to prepare the way. The world had to sit down, tune in, and see what might unfold.\n <\/p>\n

\n What came next set a standard that was genuinely, historically impossible to follow \u2014 a risk-taking spectacle that could only have happened at the turn of this century, in those last years before mass media fragmented into millions of personal screens fed by millions of personal cameras, before constant performing and constant exposure took their painful, visible toll on Spears herself.\n <\/p>\n

\n A 19-year-old Spears stepped casually out of a gilded metal cage, where a white tiger sat behind her. She wore a moss green bra-like top, aquamarine disco shorts, and bedazzled nude-hued boots. Around her was a sea of dancers in animalistic garb \u2014 zebra-striped body paint, dual-toned neon wigs \u2014 as a pulsating beat produced by The Neptunes blared through the venue and television screens nationwide.\n <\/p>\n

\n And there was the snake \u2014 a 7-foot long, 20-pound albino Burmese python named \u201cBanana\u201d that the star seductively draped across her shoulders for the last portion of the performance.\n <\/p>\n

\n That image of Spears in jaw-dropping form, wielding a magnetic stare, and commanding not just the stage but the entire world watching at home defined the singer\u2019s peak as a performer. It also stands in stark contrast with the life Spears now lives today. Since being released from a years-long conservatorship where her personal and professional life was controlled by her now estranged father Jamie Spears, the singer has expressed countless times \u2014 via social media and her published memoir \u2014 that she has no desire to perform ever again.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe reason this performance has such a legacy is because there\u2019s never been an artist as famous as Britney since Britney,\u201d said Amber Horsburgh, a writer and culture critic. \u201cThe technology at the time, the appointment viewing aspect, the importance of MTV, and the Britney Spears MTV collision of it all \u2014 it had such a chokehold on the culture at the time.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Big Style: Where culture meets clothing<\/p>\n

CNN senior style reporter and advanced outfit anthropologist Rachel Tashjian<\/a> excavates the stylish amusements and contextualizes the world of fashion \u2013 all in your inbox. Sign up for Big Style here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n The jungle-goddess costume was the work of designers Kurt Swanson and Bart Mueller.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBecause we had already done so much together, there was a huge level of trust and how specific looks came together was kind of kinetic,\u201d Mueller wrote in an email. \u201cThe lyrics inspired the choreography, which fueled the concepts, and then there was Britney\u2019s performance and energy. It all shaped our design directions. Everything was custom right down to the nude mesh, lucite wedge heel boots that we had hand-sewn crystal anklets to, including a shining sequined serpent wrapping around one leg to punch up the Eve reference.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Britney<\/p>\n

\n Showing skin was a key part of the overall look, but there were also a number of blink-and-you\u2019d-miss it details that brought the ensemble together together. Every piece \u2014 the pleated wrap top, the shorts adorned with trailing shards of silk chiffon \u2014 was hand-dyed or painted and then covered in Swarovski crystals. \u201cWe were crystal- obsessed back then,\u201d said Swanson. \u201cWe even had Swarovski tattoo body jewelry applied to her skin.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n What the designers hadn\u2019t considered in putting the outfit together was that a live tiger would be joining the singer on stage.\n <\/p>\n

\n The rehearsals in the leadup to the show had been human-only, Swanson said. \u201cThe day of the VMAs at the tech rehearsal was the first time any of us had been with the wild animals,\u201d he recalled. The tiger\u2019s trainer \u2014 Bhagavan \u201cDoc\u201d Antle, long before his appearance in \u201cTiger King\u201d made him famous \u2014 instructed them on the protocol for sharing the stage with a huge, inherently wild animal.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt kind of boiled down to staying out of the animal\u2019s sight lines and that there couldn\u2019t be anything to distract it,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cNothing that dangled or moved in a way that might attract the tiger\u2019s attention.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Spears<\/p>\n

\"Spears<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWell,\u201d Mueller said, \u201cBritney\u2019s entire look, with the dancing trailing fabric and feathers, her hair\u2026.Britney was basically a shiny life-sized cat toy for one giant cat!\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Spears\u2019s head choreographer, the 18-year-old Wade Robson, slightly reworked the staging with Antle to keep Spears out of the siteline.\n <\/p>\n

\n Swanson and Mueller were eager to be a part of shaping a new sartorial era for the singer. They also designed her look in the \u201cI\u2019m a Slave 4 U\u201d music video that premiered weeks later, incorporating similar motifs \u2014 like bold jewel hues and flowing chiffon detailing \u2014 so the two projects could feel connected.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe loved the colors of the jungle, iridescent beetle green, electric colors of exotic birds, insects, flowers,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cFuschia, emerald, turquoise, acid yellow all became the palette for this performance. We loved the iconic curvy silhouettes of jungle warrior princesses in the art of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. We were obsessed with traditional belly dancing and the way fabric moved and jewelry and ornamentation would jingle and accentuate the shape of the choreography.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe way that Britney moves was always what pushed our design,\u201d Mueller said. \u201cThe way she performed \u2018Slave\u2019 specifically, shaped the look.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Spears\u2019 MTV performance was also one of the first set-designing jobs led by Ray Winkler, the CEO and design director of STUFISH Entertainment Architects. Winkler recalled having only three weeks to work with MTV and Spears\u2019s creative team to produce the stage design, at a time when digital collaboration was in its early infancy. There were no pre-production Zoom meetings, but rather the juggle of scheduling international calls and waiting for another part of the world to wake up in order to receive vital feedback.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThose days meant hard core sketching, sketching again, scanning, and believe it or not, we had to fax things,\u201d Winkler said. \u201cLA, New York, London. How do you align? You didn\u2019t have the internet to tell you what time it was exactly where, you know, or people couldn\u2019t just respond, say, \u201cOh, I can\u2019t do this..\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n What Winkler landed on with Robson, was the concept of elevated welded cages that the singer and her crew of dancers would dance around on.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI was very worried about the welds of the cage being strong enough to contain the tiger,\u201d said Winkler. Ahead of the televised performance, he said, the animal handlers fed the feline \u201ca lot of raw steaks\u201d to ensure it wouldn\u2019t be hungry on stage. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you would get away with that in this day and age.\u201d \u201cI call that time sort of within an envelope of innocence because social media didn\u2019t exist,\u201d Winkler said. \u201cWe \u2014 the team, producers, artists, production \u2014 had pretty much exclusive access to how this would be portrayed to the wider audiences because nobody in the live audience had a mobile phone that they could record it. The director\u2019s cut was the only cut that was made available.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Costume<\/p>\n

\n That level of control helped give the performance its enduring power. \u201cIt was very, very tailor-made to her,\u201d Winkler said. \u201c It was made for what I would still call the analog MTV consumer. And I often wonder whether this had been done in this day and age now if it would have the same impact, just because it has to vie with so many other flashpoints of interest, and the attention span, which was already terrible in the early noughties, is completely evaporated now. She was an icon at the time, and still is, to be clear. But at the time that this happened, it cemented her status as somebody who was willing to take risks, and it was a big risk. But she pulled it off.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Brian Friedman, one of Spears\u2019 longtime choreographers and dancers, knew even before they hit the stage at the VMAs that year that \u201cI\u2019m a Slave 4 U\u201d would strike a chord with listeners. The sultry dance moves seen on stage and in the music video was also one of the first major credited choreographing gigs Friedman had received at that point in his career. Alongside Robson, the pair went on to create some of Spears\u2019 most recognizable dance breaks, still recreated and performed by fans to this day.\n <\/p>\n

\"Spears\u2019s<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI was completely obsessed with the song the second that I heard it and the choreographic process with Wade and I \u2014 it just flowed,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cWhen we first played around with the choreography at her house, it was just undeniable that it was going to be a smash. Never did I think that it was going to be what \u2018Thriller\u2019 and \u2018Rhythm Nation\u2019 were to me as a kid growing up. It truly has stood the test of time and become one of those landmark pop dance moments.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Friedman was clued into every creative update as it came, including the inclusion of the live snake and tiger.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re both maximalists when it comes to visuals,\u201d he said. \u201cShe had done so many performances that it gets to the point where you\u2019re thinking, well, what haven\u2019t we done? What can we do to stand out and make a memorable performance?\u201d Friedman is also acutely aware that now there\u2019s a new lens to look through when people revisit a Britney Spears performance. In her 2023 memoir \u201cThe Woman In Me,\u201d Spears described the conservatorship and her then grueling performance schedule as the \u201cdeath to my creativity as an artist.\u201d<\/a> Friedman remembers a period of time however \u2014 pre-conservatorship \u2014 when Spears was in control of her career, and witnessed her thrive.\n <\/p>\n

\"In\u201cdeath to my creativity as an artist.\u201d” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1378″ width=”2100″ loading=’lazy’\/><\/p>\n

\n \u201cA lot of people feel that she was some sort of manufactured pop star or a puppet in some sort of way, and that couldn\u2019t have been further from the truth. Especially in that era, she was such a hard worker,\u201d he shared. \u201cHer schedule was being pushed on her, but the work ethic wasn\u2019t. She truly loved what she was doing. She loved being on stage, and she loved to sweat and be in the dance studio in rehearsals with the dancers.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Could there be another Britney Spears? Should there be one? Latter-day stars politely shrug off the comparisons; fans are chastened by having witnessed how fame \u2014 and a craving for control \u2014 undid their favorite performer.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n \u201cShe has made it very clear that she doesn\u2019t want to be performing right now, so I honor that in her and respect her wishes,\u201d Friedman said. Still, he said, the sight of Spears\u2019s idol Madonna flourishing at the age of 68 leaves him hoping Britney might someday get back onstage again.\n <\/p>\n

\n Horsburgh, the writer and culture critic, said that Spears\u2019s past triumphs stand on their own.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOf course you miss Britney Spears, and of course you want another album, and you want another tour \u2014 but I actually hope that she never goes back to the stage ever again if she doesn\u2019t want to, and her fanbase and the general public can understand and respect that,\u201d said Horbough. \u201cClearly, she doesn\u2019t communicate often, but when she does, she\u2019s been very clear \u2014 \u2018I\u2019m not performing ever again. I\u2019m finished.\u2019 We as fans have to ask less right now, not ask more of her. She\u2019s got such a huge legacy and such a catalog of incredible music, incredible visuals, incredible albums \u2014 that legacy should be preserved.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 Delving into the archives of pop culture history, \u201cRemember When?\u201d is a CNN Style series offering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-836251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}