Holding up several magazine covers and images from photoshoots in front of Britney, Diane bluntly asked, “What happened to your clothes?”
After Britney attempted to laugh it off by explaining, “I have clothes on now!” Diane, feeling almost like a principal admonishing a student, continued, “No kidding, what’s this about? Is it about shocking people?”
Explaining that she felt “comfortable in her own skin” and that “it’s an OK thing to express yourself,” Britney then pointed to some of her peers as examples of other women posing in a similar manner without receiving the same treatment.
“I hate to bring this up, but Kate Hudson, she’s 22, she’s in sheets,” the “Toxic” singer noted. “Jennifer Lopez poses very provocatively sometimes. Christina Aguilera, what’s the big deal when I do it? [Laughs.] Like, come on!”
The big deal, according to Diane, was the belief that “everybody always thought you had a different relationship to young girls.” In a later voiceover, the ABC anchor really dug in, stating, “The girls who always played it close to the line on how much skin she showed, posed in this for Esquire magazine. Consider the line officially crossed.”