Episode 1: Email My Heart

If you're currently in crisis, you can call one hundred to seven three talk that's eight to five, or text Hello to seven one seven for one to speak to someone immediately. Thanks for listening. Oh yeah, I don't understand. I don't think. I really don't think Britney Spears would go on a tiny jet and talk to you you. But I really don't a doubt it. I'm Chris Studman and this is unread episode one. Email my heart, call them back all the little clothes, open threats. That's still same

for you. I gathered in sen deviceces faceco breaking the eyes floor too so fast. Now. I hope you're having a great day. I'm going to camping today. We actually I'm only going hiking. See, I'm just a guy guy. I'm gonna go to a pay type racks and in one weekend manish in those Spears before a last me days. Can I get a want? What? What? Why? That's my friend alex In. We spoke over the phone and texted often, but he also loved to send me life updates via

video message, little dispatches from his world. Like most of his updates, this one included some news about Britney Spears, the pop princess we both loved, who was in the middle of her very successful Las Vegas residency. Piece of me. This is probably obvious, but yes, his voice is altered by an Instagram filter in that video. Here he is without a filter from another video message he sent me, this one four years later. Oh we're rolling well. Um, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. You

know this is a big year for you. Whoo whoop whoop? Whoop? Whoop whoop? Can I get a whoop? Whoop? Can I get a whoo whoop? I just got a whoop whoop? Too much? Some people thought Alex was, as he said, too much, but me I couldn't get enough of his intensity, his zeal for life. As someone who sometimes struggles to embrace my own passions or interests to be myself. A big part of what drew me to Alex when we first met back in two thousand nine was how much

he was truly himself. Some people, though, definitely made him feel like he was too much. It was a thing he and his sister show she connected over. Both my mom and my dad and Alex Andy all have dealt with mental illness issues our whole life. I think that just knowing that there's a stigma makes you feel different and like an outsider and like you're too much for people to handle, and that gets into your psyche and it starts to wear on your confidence. Even the most

confident person in the world like Alex. You know. It's like eventually you hear it enough and you start to ask yourself to be true, you know. But anyone who thought that about Alex didn't see the full picture. He was a lot in all the best ways. He was a lot because he chased his joy, went all in on it. He was a prolific creator of the dumbest memes. A viral red carpet photo of Dakota Fanning grimacing uncomfortably

would be fodder for weeks. Sample caption when he's been your boyfriend for two days and says he wants to open the relationship. Then there were his infamous Taco Bell orders. I'd list one of them, but we'd be here all day. Just know it came out to about seventy nine dollars, which is hard to do it Taco Bell. And he was utterly obsessed with roller coasters. When visiting my home state of Minnesota with me, he practically belined for the

indoor coasters at the Mall of America. When Alex loved something, a hobby, a joke, a topic, he loved it hard. It consumed him. This was especially true of the people Alex loved. He loved me hard, especially from ten to a difficult few years of transition and change for me. During that time. He was always sending little videos or messages, things intended to put a smile on my face and

remind me I was loved. But I don't think he loved anyone, not me, not his sister or parents, not his best friends since childhood, no one harder than he loved Britney Spears. When I say Alex loved Brittany, I don't mean he saw her in concert every tour or his wall was plastered with posters and magazine cutouts. I mean, sure he knew every obscure fact about her, had entire folders of photos of her on his laptop, had memorized the choreography to all of her music videos. But even

that isn't really what I mean. What I really mean is that he identified with her, felt he understood her, felt her path in life had been like his in some way, even though their lives were very different in all of the obvious surface level respects, or, as Alex would probably put it, even though he was much much hairier than her. Well, first of all, he loved her music first and foremost loved her music. That's Alex's best friend, Lexie. I think he loved just her innocence, how she is

such a sweet person and this megastar. And I think that like he sort of, like everybody else, idolizes her, but then also sees she's a real person and felt like deeply connected to that aspect of her. And he loved the fact that she was so real, despite the fact that she was like this mega star and iconic,

she had faults, like a real person. She loved McDonald, her life choices, were like not only hilarious and entertaining to him, but also so relatable and like, you know, I think that he loved that, like she could embody all these different things at once, and I think that maybe he related to that too, and her struggles with mental health. I think he felt deeply connected to and I think that he felt like he knew her and that they were friends or something. You know. Alex's relationships

with the people he loved most could be fraught. He'd easily fall out of touch or even cut people off completely sometimes. And though he and I didn't fight much, I'm from Minnesota, a land of notoriously conflict avoidant people. We could go periods without talking to. But while some of his closest relationships ebbed and flowed, Brittany was his constant. His adoration of her never wavered. She was the great,

unchanging love of his life. M found now the going I know you kind of glue what to do with the check what you are, what you are saying? That's Alex singing Britney song Womanizer. Over the years, he sent me so many clips of him singing Brittaney songs, or even more often doing the choreography from her music videos. I once tweeted out a compilation of video clips of him performing the choreography from the music video for Britney

single Work Bitch, with his permission and encouragement. The compilation is incredible, and it's also hilarious. In some of the clips, he's doing the choreography in front of a gigantic canyon and commands your attention away from the awesome view. In others, he's wearing a terrible cheap wig and makes it look glamorous. In another, he's sitting in the back of a movie pickup truck, not the backseat, the bed of the truck, and still doing the choreography flawlessly. Don't try this at home.

My favorite of the clips, though, is one where he's house in dogs sitting for someone, and the dogs he's watching keep getting in the way, especially when he gets to the part of the choreography that calls for floor work. He keeps moving through the routine even as dogtails swat his face. Alex was pretty much always thinking about Brittany, her heart, her life, her very public struggles. He knew her moves, her music, the events of her career inside

out for you Britney fans. Yes, that's a reference. Alex was obsessed with working her song titles into everyday conversation. It was like he cared about her as much as he cared about himself. I'm sure you've noticed that I'm talking about Alex in the past tense. Well. He could get through the choreography to work Bitch without stumbling, matter what obstacles, Dogtail or otherwise got in his way. The

obstacles of his life proved a lot more challenging. As much space as Brittany took up in his head, something else loomed even larger, his depression. He would get on top of it, sometimes even for extended stretches, times when he would seem like he was getting better, but it was always there, waiting to pull him back down. One December evening in I received a message that changed my life forever, a message that would send me on the

journey I'm on now. It was a week after I turned in my second book to my editor and got back online after a three month social media break. I was in my tiny studio apartment, cherishing the first three days I had had in months. I sat at the kitchen counter, my dog tuna asleep on the bed a few feet away. As I mindlessly scrolled through Twitter, I noticed an unread email from a few minutes earlier, delivered

at seven pm exactly. It was from Alex, who I hadn't heard from all year, the longest we've ever gone without talking. Actually, I had felt a steady drip of worry over his prolonged absence, for sure, but I was struggling with some major obstacles of my own at the time, and for Alex disappearing was not unheard of. It was concerning, but it also felt kind of par for the course another one of his off the grid periods. Seeing the emails subject line my name repeated three times, all in

lower case Chris. Chris. Chris filled me with a strange mix of relief, finally a sign of him, and also dread. Is this an email to tell me off for being absent? I wondered, for being a bad friend. But it wasn't that, Chris. The email began. Listen, I'm writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, I will no longer be alive. At first, I couldn't even make sense of what I was reading. I just sat in front of my computer frozen. When I felt like I could

move again, I emailed him back right away. I love you so fucking much, I wrote, I've been trying to reach you. I really hope you see this. Please call me. Then I grabbed my phone, scrolled to his contact and hit call. Maybe he changed his mind, Maybe he forgot to cancel this email. Maybe he was dying but not dead and I could intervene. I had to at least try. When I couldn't reach him over the phone, I texted

my friend Carrie. I didn't know what to do next, and frankly, I needed someone outside the situation to confirm that this was really happening. Kerry, who's a talented investigative journalist, offered to help arrange a wellness check, but as I spoke with her, I realized that, despite my once frequent contact with Alex, I had no idea what his current address even was. I found a photo he had sent me of a letter from the city about a parking ticket,

and after zooming in, I deciphered the address. With that in hand, Carrie helped me reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, whose volunteers calmly offered to help send someone to check at the address. He hadn't lived there in months, though, and the new residents had no clue where he had gone.

Feeling out of options, I sat there rereading his email over and over, looking for any sort of clue in it that he might be okay, while messaging anyone I could find, his friend Beth, who he had connected me with over Twitter, strangers he was tagged in photos with on Instagram, anyone I could find online, trying to locate someone who could track him down and tell me it wasn't true. As I did that, Carrie worked to find his family's contact information online, and I would eventually reach

them by the end of the night. But in the time in between, while I waited to hear back from someone, anyone, I paced the tight space between my computer and my bad nauseous, before collapsing onto my sheets, wrapping Tuna in my arms and refusing to let go. They wouldn't find his body for another day, but as I held my normally very aloof dog close, I knew that Alex was gone. Even now, the immensity of what I felt in that moment evades words. It was the thing Alex sometimes feared

he was. It was too much. Outside of the shock of its very existence. Much of Alex's goodbye email to me was unsurprising. He even did his signature thing of working Brittany references into the text. But near the end of his email, almost as a kind of afterthought, was a SoundCloud link. Oh, he wrote, here's Alice Recordings. I didn't click the link in the overwhelming panic of that first night, but the next day I followed it to a private SoundCloud page, one only accessible to someone given

the link. The page was simple, just two audio files. The account's display name was all in lower case Hillary d I assume for the Disney star and musician Hillary Duff. He loved using celebrity names for random things like this. One time he created a profile on Venmo under the name Nicole Ritchie and used it to send me three cents out of the blue, just so I'd get a

notification that Nicole Ritchie had sent me money. In the space where you put with the payments for he wrote Savage Garden c D. The first of the two audio files had Part two in the file name, even though there was no sign of a part one. Very Alex, I hit play on the second clip, the one that didn't say part in case it was part one, it wasn't. The first thing I heard was her my Twitter. My Twitter is Banana Alan and I created it today and

um Banana Allen Alice. Hearing her that voice, that laugh, I was immediately flooded with memories of Alex telling me about her, this mysterious figure he met online, A mysterious figure who happens to sound eerily similar to Britney Spears. Yeah, I didn't understand. I don't think. I really don't think Britney Spears would go on a tiny chat and talking to her. I really don't doubt it. Alex had told me about Alice, but before receiving his goodbye email, I

hadn't thought about her in years. For a period of time in the early Alice would appear in online spaces frequented by obsessed Britney fans, talking with them in a voice chat room and tweeting under the handle Banana Alice Banana as in the name of the snake used in Brittany's iconic two thous performance. Alice would coyly deny being Brittany when asked, before laughing exactly like the elusive pop star.

Oh my god, that was Alice. Here's Brittany. Brittany laughs a lot, and her laughter is infectious, but there have been stretches where her fans have gone without hearing it as much, especially since two thousand seven, one of the most tumultuous years of her career. In two thousand seven, Brittany was everywhere, on the cover of every celebrity magazine,

the top of every gossip blog. Cable news covered her every move, every outing, every court date, every outrageous joke she made to whichever member of the paparazzi was within earshot to make a turn out. What would they let you in Britney? What do you think, Air, I mean I can get on the hop? Yeah right. This time in Britney's life is seared in the minds of those

of us who came of age with her. The custody battles, head shaving, supposedly disastrous Vimes performance of Give Me More, which for the record, I really enjoyed, and all the signs of distress that talk show hosts and comedians used as low hanging joke fodder. You know, Britney still thinks the earth is flat, We're going to tune in to see her, you know, if she can sort of function through the thing right, something Britney Spears has lost in

the past year. Her eyes were open, her lips were moving, She remade conscious the entire time. It was the greatest impression of an office worker embarrassing themselves at a holiday party I have ever seen. Brittany emerged with a bang as the biggest star in the world, but less than a decade later, to the world she was coming undone. Newspapers readied her obituary to go to press at a moment's notice, as the public settled in with popcorn to witness the spectacle of her dark night of the soul.

While much of the world pointed and laughed, this difficult time in Brittany's life had a different impact on some. It not only endeared her to many of her already adoring fans, it also cracked open the hard exterior of some people like me, who either hadn't paid her much notice or had even dismissed her growing up. We became invested in her and her well being after seeing her struggle. We watched in worry as she spiraled and felt immense joy as she seemed to climb her way back out.

Alice denied being Brittany, but some of the fans who spent full days on Brittany fan forums were convinced otherwise because of her voice, but also smaller things, subtle mannerisms, little moments that betrayed a vulnerability like the kind they saw in Brittany. And these were the fans, like Alex, who felt that they knew Brittany best. The prospect that Alice and Brittany were one and the same would have been thrilling. Here perhaps was a chance to connect with

the unreachable star that they felt they already knew. Even I have to admit, Alice sounds just like Brittany. The light, vocal fry, the playful candor, every word almost like a wink. If I ever said her name, yeah, would I continued listening to the audio. At one point, the other people in the chat room with Alice begin discussing the rumors that, under her strict conservatorship. More on that in a minute, Brittany doesn't have access to a phone or computer, an

idea that's persisted among many Britney fans for years. It's a computer, Uh, I think Brittany knows that computer she doesn't have all, and she didn't have a computer, I'm sure she has like a mac bug or something. Listening to this clip, it's strange to hear them talk about Brittany as if she isn't there well at the same time knowing some of them think, or at least hope, that Alice is Brittany. It's like they're trying to wink and nudge her into confessing who she is. The pokes

almost work. Alice clears her throat in that clip, like she wants to correct them or just remind them that she's still there listening, but the winks and nudges continue. So, Alice, do people ever think you're Brittany? Like when you're just out and about on your daily routine that I think your Brittany. Ever? Alice doesn't take the bait though, No, because I don't look like her at all. They're playing a kind of tug of war with Alice, but behind

the prodding there are serious concerns. This idea that Brittany either doesn't know how to work a computer or doesn't have one at all, is driven by years of speculation about Britney's lack of freedom and how isolated she may be. In two thousand eight, Brittany was placed under a conservatorship, which put her under the care of her father and essentially gave him full legal control over her life, her career,

and with a co conservator, her finances. If you're not familiar, a conservatorship is a legal arrangement typically reserved for people living with dementia or a profound mental illness that makes everyday functioning difficult. In other words, it's really only instituted in the most extreme circumstances where a person cannot care

for themselves or make sound decisions in their own best interest. Yet, less than a year after being placed under her conservatorship, Brittany kicked off a massive comeback, reaching heights she hadn't since her debut, several number one singles, multiple album releases, world tours, and eventually an immensely profitable Las Vegas residency. With each passing year of Brittany's conservatorship, her fans grew

more concerned. They started scouring her social media for clues that she was trying to signal displeasure with the arrangement to the world, discussing some of her leaked songs like Rebellion and trying to decode messages in the lyrics, circulating handwritten notes purportedly authored by Brittany herself early on in her conservatorship, in which she says she wants to be out of it, tweeting clips from for the Record, a documentary produced for her comeback in two thousand eight, which

is full of moments where Brittney talks about how controlled and orchestrated her life feels. Fan concerns reached a fever pitch in the final year of Alex's life when Brittany canceled her second Las Vegas residency not long after it was announced and went quiet on social media. Months later, it was reported she had checked into a mental health facility, and some thought she was made to do so against

her will. There was speculation that her Instagram account, one of the few places she seemed to present her unvarnished self, wasn't run by Brittany anymore. Her captions, for instance, were known for being littered with emojis, but a post after checking into the facility featured an out of place, low fi emoticon. It was a small detail, but to die hard fans something felt off. From then on, her Instagram comments were dominated by people picking apart her posts and

digging for meaning. Three emojis mean s O S and red always means alarm. If you need help, wear yellow in your next video. Brittany post a picture of a painting. Next if you're not okay. See this was posted into December, but I think it's really from the trip posted in October. There's something with that tree. Guys, She's always near that tree, praying for your freedom. You're not alone. We'd love you.

After that, the speculation had gained enough traction that the digitally driven Free Brittany movement, once a fringe idea among her most dedicated fans, began breaking into the mainstream. It's the Battle over Brittany. Pop star Britney Spears parents faced off in court as they fight over conservatorship of their daughter Leslie Marinez live in downtown l A. With the tails on the battle over conservatorship and the fan movement

to Free Brittany. By six months after I got Alex's email, questions about Britney's well being were all over the Internet. They reached far beyond a core group of fans like those in Alice's chat room, or the handful of protesters who picketed conservatorship or at hearings. Even before New York Times documentary on Brittany's Conservatorship launched the movement to the next level, hashtag free Brittany would regularly trend on Twitter and TikTok's suggesting she has no control over her life

accumulated millions of views. The comments that flood Brittany's Instagram posts now are primarily focused on her well being. They are passionate and mostly sympathetic. By and large, the conversation about Britney's mental health looks and feels very different now than it did just a decade ago. When Alex and I first bonded over how much we loved her. We were very defensive of her back then, fiercely protective after

how much she and her mental health had been ridiculed. Today, while far from perfect, public discussions about Brittany at least have a lot more of that tenderness that once felt so unique to my conversations with Alex. But while the comments on Brittany's and Graham posts are rife with messages from fans inquiring if she's okay, and asking her to

communicate secret messages by wearing certain colors of clothing. Brittany herself mostly broadcasts her love of dance, does Hallway fashion shows full of twirls and hair tosses, and posts wholesome themes and Bible verses. She is sharing, but mostly stuff that stays safely at the surface, kind of like how Alex would post funny content online while reserving more difficult subjects for our phone calls. Scrolling through her Instagram after

Alex's death, I wonder how okay Brittany really is. And like her other fans, I searched her posts for clues, but I'm looking for something else. Unlike her other fans, I search for hints of another sort, hints that she might have known my friend. Would it really be so surprising that a star as reclusive as Brittany, one who has been hurt by the public as much as she has, might go online in search of connection, and that this

search could have led her to Alex. If Brittany did go seeking anonymous connection, she wouldn't be the first celebrity to do so. There's actually a long history of it. Here's Dave Holmes, who as an MTV VJ back in the TRL era had a front row seat to Brittany's meteoric rise and the struggles that soon followed. I mean, Michael Jackson used to dress up and go door to door as a Jehovah's Witness, like in a fat suit and prosthetics and stuff like, just to have quote unquote

normal conversations with people. Michael Jackson, who grew up as a Jehovah's Witness, couldn't connect with anyone about his faith or about anything really without his celebrity getting in the way. Today, thanks to the Internet, famous people have an even easier time flying under the radar when they need to know prosthetics needed. Stars like Donald Glover have spoken about trying to find community online under the relief of anonymity, and

he's definitely not alone. For celebrities who want to connect and feel normal, the Internet can provide a way to reach out and find people who can see the human behind the hype. For a star as misunderstood as Brittany,

the appeal seems obvious. I can absolutely see someone like her whose face and name and image she's a little bit lost control of talking anonymously to somebody and saying what she really thinks, in not having to second guess it, and figuring out who she is outside of the industry that has sprung up around name. Yeah, I mean that that actually seems really healthy. I'm not a global superstar, but I've done the same thing as a closeted queer teenager.

I sought out Internet strangers who might understand me better than the people around me. But I've done this as an adult too. More and more of us turned to the Internet to experiment with identity, confess our secrets, and find consolation. If people in our situations turned to the Internet for connection and community, I can only imagine Brittany, who is pretty much unable to meet anyone who doesn't already have all kinds of ideas about who she is,

might see the Internet as a safe place too. As I started thinking about why Brittany might seek out online connection, I suddenly remembered that Alex didn't just follow Alice on Twitter or join in on her group voice chats. He also texted with her years ago. He sent me screenshots of some of their exchanges. As soon as I remembered this, I went back through our texts and found them in

a near frenzy. The funny, tender snippets of conversation I uncovered made me all the more curious about what all they had shared and what sides of Alex Alice saw. After all, as I learned from a small group of Alex's friends in the weeks and months after his death, we all got different pieces of him. Which pieces of Alex did Alice get? Alex would pretend to believe in a number of Brittany fan conspiracies, and you sometimes couldn't tell how serious he was being. He was never one

to say just kidding after a joke. For example, when he sent me that video message wishing me a happy birthday, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. It was actually my thirty one. But based on what he told me and the significance of him including a link to these audio files and his goodbye email, I think Alex might have really thought that Alice was Brittany. Maybe my friends are always making fun of me for being irritating Lee skeptical. They're not wrong. It's an annoyingly large

part of my personality. This is true on a very superficial level. I worked in atheism for my entire twenties, like working on atheists stuff at Harvard and Yale, directing an atheist nonprofit, going on cable news to talk about being an atheist, writing a book on atheism. I'm not kidding. I was literally a professional skeptic, and though it's no longer the full time focus of my career, I continue to be driven by a skeptical impulse in my work today as a professor in a department of religion and

philosophy and a writer on Internet culture. But I'm also just pretty skeptical in general. This can be harmless. For example, I'm always forced to walk at the front anytime a friend group goes through a haunted house because I have the hardest time suspending my disbelief that these aren't just teenagers and cheap masks jumping out from behind even cheaper props.

But my skepticism also gets in the way. Sometimes I questioned myself and my own thinking a lot, and I have a hard time putting my faith in anything but the idea that Alex might have had faith in Alice. It gives me pause. Whoever she was, I want to understand why she compelled him. I want to see what

he saw in her. In the weeks following Alex's email, I ran an online fundraiser so his body could be claimed and his cremation paid for, and I worked with show She and Lexi to plan his memorial or memory whole, as I jokingly proposed, we call it in a moment of severe sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, they loved it and so we used it, which was fitting. It's genuinely what Alex

would have called it himself. I did all this because I loved Alex and I wanted to help, but also because I was trying to stay busy and keep moving as much as I could. If I am a ghost, Alex wrote in his email to me, I will come say hello and will always be a friendly ghost like Casper. But Harry, I won't hunt you unless you're being mean, or if you're like abusing a dog. I haven't seen or sensed Alex since he died, but I am haunted by Alex's death and by the questions it left. I know.

I am so lucky to have his email this goodbye. It answers questions so many people are left with when someone dies, especially when someone dies by suicide. But still there's so much unknown. If only I could explain, Alex wrote, but he couldn't. The questions that linger are ones his email could never answer. But in those first weeks after his death, I couldn't help but wonder or hope if perhaps Alice could. Wondering if Alice could help answer my

sans about Alex gives rise to others. Brittany, like Alex, had been told by the world that she is too much, that she feels too much, does too much, wants too much, that she should be less, smaller, quieter, which is another way of saying that she should be a different person altogether. If Alex really was talking to Brittany, as far fetched as that may sound, did he make her feel valid

the same thing Alex did for me. In one of the texts Alex sent me a screenshot of years ago, during an exchange about their mental health, Alice said to Alex, I've never met anyone who I can relate to on this level. I'm curious what else they shared. Did she know he was going to end his life? Does she even know he's gone? Could she help me understand my friend better? I went back to the SoundCloud clips he sent several more times replaying them again and again, especially

the spots where it's just Alex and Alice talking. Yeah, an echo? I don't hear an echo? How do you call? Do you have like a like an app? Or whatever? Form my fun Before long I began to feel like one of Britney's Instagram followers, obsessively trying to connect the dots. Why was there an echo? Why was Alex asking about a calling app? Eventually, though, my skepticism started to come back. Maybe Alice was just another joke Alex didn't say just kidding after Maybe he didn't believe in her at all

and I just couldn't see it. Maybe there were other things I missed along the way too. Why didn't I know that Alex had gone to such a dark place in the final year of his life. Why didn't I ask him more questions, not about Alice, but about how he was doing when I had the chance. I can't ask Alex anymore, so if I want answers, I'll need

to ask someone else. Maybe this is why. In the days after Alex's death, as I mourned my friend and tried to make sense of what happened, I kept coming back to my questions about this person with a laugh that sounds just like our idols. Who is she? Is it Brittany doesn't matter? Can I find her next time on Unread? Do you feel like that name of like Charlie and always study in Philadelphia in the office, like surrounded by like putting strings in one of my favorite

memes ever. And that's kind of how I picture you making this podcast.