Spears experienced a small tabloid scandal after the release of the video for the album’s 5th and last single, “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart,” when it was exposed that its director Gregory Dark had actually formerly dealt with adult movies.
“It’s time to admit that the new teen pop isn’t heavily coded XXX made for and marketed to teenagers,” an article in LA Weekly at the time declared. “In fact, it‘s explicitly made and marketed as such.”
A representative for Spears at the time stated, “As far as I’m aware the director just does music videos. This is a video for young teenage girls and not sexy at all.”
And, in a rather paradoxical twist, the director informed Entertainment Weekly they in fact employed him to tone down her image for the video.
“They wished to re-image her a bit [from the naughty schoolgirl of “…Baby One More Time”],” Dark, who likewise dealt with Mandy Moore on a video, stated to the publication. “They wanted a much more story-oriented video without dance, one that was serious and emotional.”
