Britney Spears wrote a memoir called “The Woman In Me” that was released last Tuesday. I was so captivated by the book that I couldn’t put it down. I read most of it until I had to go to bed, finishing it up the following day.
I have been following Britney’s career since I was four-years old, making up dances to her cassette tape and performing for my family. She was my first favorite singer. She inspired me to take dance lessons and join my school’s chorus, which brought me so much joy in life. And she encouraged me to express myself and have confidence, even in my lowest times.
I also vividly remember all of the intense criticism she received in the media. I remember being twelve-years old, buying lip gloss at Claire’s, and the cash register lady saying, “did you hear about Britney Spears shaving her head?” I remember everyone making fun of her mental health, making fun of her postpartum body, and so forth.
Around 2008, following a public breakdown, her team maintained the image that she had made a “comeback.” When in reality, she had been put into a conservatorship in which she lost all of her human rights. No one knew at the time that they were controlling what she ate, when she was going to the bathroom, forcing her to be on birth control – all in the hands of a family that only saw her as a cash cow.
After thirteen years of her conservatorship, with the help of her loyal fans, she was able to escape. However, she still has to live through recovering from a life full of trauma. I’m so happy to see her use this memoir as a platform to use her voice and take back her dignity. I have hope, from reading this book, that she still has a good future ahead of her.
In “The Woman In Me,” Britney takes us through her childhood, into her relationships, as well as her career highlights and lowlights, up to escaping from a thirteen-year conservatorship and present day.
Britney was born in Louisiana: a small, rural town where everybody knew each other, left their doors unlocked, and always went to church on Sundays. Her middle name, Jean, is after her grandma – her father’s mom. Long before she was born, Jean and June suffered the loss of their infant child. June, who was very abusive, sent Jean to a mental institution. Eight years after the death of their baby, Jean shot herself on their baby’s grave. Britney’s dad was thirteen-years old at the time.
Britney’s parents always had a rough marriage and her dad, Jamie, was an alcoholic. Their family was very poor. She loved singing and dancing as a kid, and her parents really pushed her to pursue it. At only age four, she was performing shows for audiences. Her mom was constantly looking for opportunities to join singing and dancing competitions; Britney often won or came close-second.
She auditioned for The Mickey Mouse Club at eight-years old, but was told that she was too young and should try again later. In the meantime, she performed broadway in NYC. However, she didn’t like the demanding style of broadway. A year or so later, she re-auditioned for the Mickey Mouse show and was cast along with Justin Timberlake and other future-stars like Ryan Gosling and Christina Aguilera.
Once the show ended, many cast members went on to pursue music and acting. However, Britney wanted to move back to Louisiana. She felt very torn between wanting to live a normal life verses finding stardom. She joined her school’s basketball team, which she loved to play. In some ways she even preferred basketball over dance, because there was more freedom and spontaneity in her moves. She feels very grateful for that time of simply being a kid – going to prom, making friends, and playing sports.
But even during that small break from chasing stardom, it seems like Britney never had a fully “normal” childhood – and this is something that she severely underplays in her memoir. At age thirteen, Britney’s mom gave her alcohol, taught her to drive, and had her work as a waitress. This is also the age when Britney began smoking – the same cigarette brand that her mom smoked. Even to this day, Britney doesn’t seem to fully understand that this isn’t what a thirteen-year old’s life should be.
Her mom remained on the lookout for opportunities for Britney to pursue a singing career. Britney states in her memoir that singing and dancing was her dream, however, from what she writes, it sounds like her parents were especially pushy towards this dream. I believe that this dream was much more of her parent’s, than it was hers. You can see that Britney herself had no role in jumpstarting her music career.
Britney signed a record deal at age fifteen, and her first album was released when she was seventeen. It was MASSIVELY successful!
When the money came flowing in, Britney gave a lot of it back to her family. She bought her parents a new house – so that her younger sister, Jamie Lynn, could have a better life than she had. Jamie Lynn, ten years younger than Britney, was described as “a doll” who Britney loved to dress up and play with when she was a kid. But as Jamie Lynn grew up, Britney noticed a very ungrateful attitude from her, who didn’t understand the value of money. She was shocked at how much Jamie Lynn bossed her mom around, who gave her anything she wanted.
Shortly after her first album came out, Britney reunited with Justin and they became a couple. I was very shocked to hear the truth about their relationship. For the past twenty years, Justin has lived off of the narrative that Britney broke his heart by cheating on him, and that he was completely innocent. This is what he implied to the world when their breakup happened. He also announced to the world that they had a sexual relationship, while she had been pressured to maintain a virginal image. Meanwhile, at the time, Britney never fought back or defended herself against him.
What’s first revealed is that Justin cheated on her multiple times. She admits to kissing one of her backup dancers, but this happened after several events of Justin sleeping with other women and openly talking about it to mutual friends. What’s also revealed is that Britney got pregnant and was heavily pressured by him into getting an abortion. In order to keep the abortion private, it happened at home with the use of pills, because she couldn’t go to a hospital and get proper medical care.
Britney also talks about her relationship, marriage, and divorce with Kevin Federline. After they already began dating, she had found out through someone else that he had a kid with someone else, who was eight-months pregnant with their second, when they first met. Kevin was a jerk towards her and she couldn’t see that until it was too late.
Britney and Kevin had two babies together. He was rarely present, instead, he was busy pursuing a rapping career and handling his new fame in the most obnoxious way. When Britney told friends and family that she was going to divorce, everyone was super relieved – and their reaction made her sad. She only filed for divorce because her lawyer said that if she didn’t, then Kevin would first, and that was going to make her look bad.
After their divorce, Kevin completely screwed her in their custody battle, and she didn’t get to see much of her babies anymore. This was devastating and pushed her into a deep depression. She hardly ever left her four-story apartment in NYC, and had takeout for every meal. She only had one guest, Madonna, come visit. Otherwise, she didn’t have many friends, and felt very alone.
Despite her troubled romances, Britney also writes in detail about positive moments in her career – when she performed with a giant snake, when she kissed Madonna on stage, and how much she enjoyed filming the Pepsi commercials. Keep in mind that, Britney maintains a very optimistic and gracious attitude throughout her memoir. She truly was passionate about singing and dancing – but her team worked her so hard, to a total breaking point.
P.S. She’s right, the Pepsi commercial is SO GOOD! I’m just gonna leave this here:
During her divorce with Kevin and custody battle with her two sons, Britney was feeling so depressed that she prayed that she would break a bone. During filming for her “Outrageous” music video, she ended up severely injuring her knee. Because of this, she had to stop touring – and this was a great relief.
Britney also talks about being in her mid-twenties and going out with friends like Paris Hilton. She says how the media completely over sensationalized this in the news – calling her “out of control” when in reality, she was simply going out to drink and dance, like most normal twenty-somethings do. She explained that wasn’t taking drugs like ecstasy or coke; although she did use Adderall, a prescription stimulant given to people with ADHD.
In her darkest time, she ended up recording her best album, “Blackout.” At the time of its release, in 2007, it was initially seen as a “flop.” However, a few years later, it became platinum and also her first album to make it into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame. The record was very much ahead of its time. It was an EDM genre that wasn’t mainstream at the time, but would become all the rage in the following years.
She explained that recording this album felt natural and effortless. But she couldn’t stay at the studio for more than thirty minutes at a time, because paparazzi would figure out where she was and swarm her. I don’t think many people can understand how much harassment she was dealing with from the paparazzi, how much fear it gave her.
Her VMAs performance for “Gimme More” was mocked by all of the news outlets. She admits that it was not her best work – she was going through divorce and custody battle, facing Justin Timberlake backstage who was currently at the height of his career – she was mortified. She’s also ashamed of her cheap production for the music video. But as just mentioned, it would actually end up being one of her best albums, in time. (P.S. – shame on you news people who called her fat and made fun of her stomach – you disgust me.)
Britney talks about her head shaving incident as a moment of flipping off the critics and reclaiming her freedom. She knew that her hair made her beautiful, and by making herself “ugly” with a shaved head, she was rebelling from the exploitation of her looks. She was fed up with being seen as this “dumb slut” character, this assumption that all she could offer to the world was her beauty. Her family was enraged by her shaved head, which further proved to her that they were also exploiting her.
Shortly afterwards, Britney was put into a conservatorship, in which her family (mostly her father) had total control over her life – and her money. Britney was put to work even harder than ever, and her father was making millions out of her, while she was only given $2,000 a week with limitations on what she could buy for herself. Her dad called her fat, constantly told her that she needed to lose more weight, and never let her eat anything like burgers, fries, chocolate, etc. She had parental locks placed on her cell phone. She was forced into having an IUD. And that’s not even the half of it.
Britney was sober for the entire conservatorship. She dated a few other men, but the conservatorship made it very difficult for her to have a real romance, a partnership in which she felt equal. She had a boyfriend who was really into fitness and took energy supplements – Britney started taking these over-the-counter energy supplements, and when her father noticed, he took them away from her and sent her to rehab. That’s right, Britney’s alcoholic father who was still drinking all the time, sent her to rehab for over-the-counter energy supplements.
She talks about losing all of her zest and spark in life. Once, her hairdresser took a look at how busy her schedule was, and advised Britney that she needed to make space for play. After that one comment, her hairdresser was “never seen again.”
The only reason Britney went along with it was for the sake of seeing her kids. Her greatest fear was losing her boys, never being able to see them again, which could likely happen at any moment. She tried speaking about the hardship of her conservatorship in TV interviews, but they would get cut from broadcast. Finally, in 2018, she made a statement by saying nothing at all – there was a live event in which she was set to announce another tour (that she didn’t want to do), and instead of announcing it, she walked right past the microphone and said nothing. This was the first step that would lead her to freedom.
I think that by this point, Britney was completely fed up and finally gained the strength to take a stand. And with her boys now teenagers, she no longer had to fear losing custody over them, because they’d soon be eighteen and legally able to make their own decisions. In those following years, the truth would finally come out to the public, and Britney would stand before a jury demanding justice – which she finally got.
Britney mentions her romance with Sam Asghari, who she met on set for the “Make Me” music video (and also mentions how much she enjoyed co-writing and recording the album “Glory”). They tried for a baby, but unfortunately she miscarried – after already announcing her pregnancy to the world. They also got married. Currently, it’s been reported that they broke up, but it seems like the book was finalized before that happened. We don’t really know the current status of their relationship.
Britney continues to sing her heart out every day because it makes her happy. She posts explicit photos and videos of herself on Instagram as a way of reclaiming her body that so many other people made money off of for so many years. She posts her own dance routines as a way of pushing back against being told what dances to do by others for all her life. Having her own social media account twenty years ago, when the tabloid magazines used to control her narrative, would’ve been so vital.
What I would like to stress, again, is that throughout the memoir, not once does Britney come off as vengeful or self-pitying. She has a lot of anger towards her family (rightfully so!) but emphasizes that she wants to forgive them. She speaks a lot about God and her strong sense of spirituality, how singing connects her to God and how she absolutely believes in the mystical. Of course she had a Christian upbringing, but adulthood has made her more openminded in that she believes in a higher power that all religions connect to.
Britney Spears has been exploited, harassed, stepped on, and taken advantage of by so many people – most devastatingly, her own parents. Regardless of how many people wronged her, Britney has no bitterness in her heart. Of course there’s a lot of anger, but Britney chooses to give people more grace than they deserve. She still manages to focus on finding the light in the darkest of times. Never once does she imply “poor me,” never once does she wish for revenge – she genuinely wants to forgive. It’s clear to see that this woman has a heart of gold.
Rating: 5/5 stars
Crystal Aura Gaze 
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