If you were alive in 2011, it was hard to be online without seeing the words “winning” and “tiger blood” memed into oblivion.
Over a decade ago, a series of bizarre interviews publicly showcased a fraught time in Charlie Sheen’s life, plagued by addiction and mental illness.
Now, in a two-part documentary, Netflix’s AKA Charlie Sheen sees the titular troubled star finally speak candidly about his public rise and fall.
But if you’re itching for more celeb insight after watching, not to worry – Watch With Us has you covered.
Here are three celebrity exposés to check out next.
‘Amy’ (2015)
The months leading up to the death of English soul singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse back in 2011 have come to define the famously troubled star. But Asif Kapadia’s documentary attempts to humanize a struggling woman who had become the butt of jokes in this riveting and revealing look at her rise and fall.
Using archival footage and over 100 interviews with family and friends, Amy takes a look at Winehouse’s life chronologically, starting from childhood, showcasing her pure passion for music leading to her breakout success with her debut album ‘Frank.’ But fast fame ultimately overwhelms the talented young woman, and a life in the spotlight leads to a series of self-destructive behaviors while being actively failed by the people in her life meant to protect her.
Amy is available to rent on Prime Video.
‘Framing Britney Spears’ (2021)
The ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ singer’s infamous conservatorship is put into sharp relief in Samantha Stark’s empathetic portrait of an embattled pop star and the systems of public abuse endured by young female celebrities. The film brought her conservatorship and the “Free Britney” movement further into the mainstream when it hit Hulu back in 2021.
The documentary re-examines Britney Spears’ career, charting her rise from a small-town Louisiana girl to a 16-year-old global superstar, to a woman who cannot leave her home without being viciously attacked by paparazzi, to her 2007 mental breakdown and being put under a conservatorship by her father. Framing Britney Spears not only takes a look at the way society actively antagonized the pop star for years, but how women in the public eye are forced to weather gratuitous abuse and misogyny.
Watch Framing Britney Spears on Hulu.
‘Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields’ (2023)
When Brooke Shields was only 11 years old, she starred in Pretty Baby, the 1978 film from French director Louis Malle that was widely controversial at the time for its portrayal of Shields as a child sex worker. 45 years later, Shields looks back on her own life in Lana Wilson’s searing documentary, re-examining the exploitation she endured as an over-sexualized child actress and model.
In his fascinating two-part documentary, Wilson documents Shields’ star as an actress and model in childhood through adolescence, her often fraught relationship with her mother and manager, Teri Shields, and her work on films like Pretty Baby, Blue Lagoon and Endless Love. It leads to Shields’ decision to step away from the spotlight and pursue academic studies at Princeton University, where she can find herself and regain her agency.
The doc ultimately concludes by looking at Shields’ struggles with motherhood and consideration of whether the culture of misogyny has improved at all for young women in the years since the height of her fame.
Watch Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields on Hulu.
