John Mayer says he ‘almost cried five times’ watching Framing Britney Spears

In a chat with Andy Cohen on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy this week, John Mayer revealed that he “almost cried five times” while watching Framing Britney Spears. Like Britney Spears, the singer shot to fame in the early 2000s. He told Cohen that he was struck by just how different his experience with stardom has been in comparison.

“To go through this and come out the other side OK is to have infinite grace for those who struggle with it,” Mayer said. “I came out OK. … I have a very strong feeling that part of that is because I’m a man. And I have a very strong feeling that a lot of these things that happen to female performers is endemic to being female.”

Mayer said he watched the documentary “with such grace for [Spears], who got much more maligned by the inhuman experiment of fame than I did.”

“If you’re a man, you’re an outlaw,” he said, pointing to the ways in which media shapes public perception of entertainers.

“If you’re a woman, you’re kind of crazy. And when I watched that through that lens, my heart just ached the whole time.”

After these comments aired, several Twitter users called out John’s alleged treatment of Taylor Swift. John Mayer and Taylor Swift dated in the year 2009 for a brief time. The former was 32 years old and she was 19.

A user wrote that it’s too bad that he was “part of the problem,” and that he spoke about Jessica Simpson and Taylor the same way Justin did about Britney. Another one suggested “yelling” at John and make him apologize, just like Justin Timberlake.

John Mayer talks Framing Britney Spears