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The Woman in Me
Goodreads Choice Award
Winner for Best Memoir & Autobiography (2023)The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.
In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.
Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.
In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.
Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published October 24, 2023
About the author
Britney Spears
35 books1,010 followersBritney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer, dancer, songwriter, actress and author. She has sold over 83 million records worldwide according to Zomba Label Group. The RIAA ranks her as the eighth best-selling female artist in American music history, having sold 32 million albums in the U.S. Her success as a recording artist has allowed her to work in other media; she has acted in film and television, has written two books, and has been contracted to endorse several products, including her own perfume line.
Spears released her debut album ...Baby One More Time in 1999, propelling her to international stardom. It spawned the Billboard topping single "…Baby One More Time". She released her second studio album Oops!… I Did It Again in 2000 with continued success. A third album Britney was released in 2001, followed by the release of her fourth album In the Zone in 2003. The album's breakout single "Toxic" won Spears her first Grammy Award. After the release of a remix album/greatest hits collection, she released her fifth album Blackout in 2007.
As a result of her fame, Spears's personal life has received much media attention. This only escalated after her marriage to Kevin Federline in 2004. She gave birth to her first child, Sean Preston, in 2005 and to her second child, Jayden James, in 2006. The couple's divorce in November of the same year was highly publicized, followed by an ongoing custody battle over their sons.
Spears released her debut album ...Baby One More Time in 1999, propelling her to international stardom. It spawned the Billboard topping single "…Baby One More Time". She released her second studio album Oops!… I Did It Again in 2000 with continued success. A third album Britney was released in 2001, followed by the release of her fourth album In the Zone in 2003. The album's breakout single "Toxic" won Spears her first Grammy Award. After the release of a remix album/greatest hits collection, she released her fifth album Blackout in 2007.
As a result of her fame, Spears's personal life has received much media attention. This only escalated after her marriage to Kevin Federline in 2004. She gave birth to her first child, Sean Preston, in 2005 and to her second child, Jayden James, in 2006. The couple's divorce in November of the same year was highly publicized, followed by an ongoing custody battle over their sons.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45,660 reviews
January 7, 2024
At what point did I promise to stay seventeen for the rest of my life?
Growing up, I remember being fascinated by Britney Spears. Not only did I love her music—I'm a pop fan through and through—but at a time when I was an awkward teenager, she seemed to have it all: the voice, the confidence, the adulation of millions. Now looking back, I realize it must've all been a façade.
Reading Britney's words was so sad and heartbreaking. How is it that this girl had no one in her corner? Every single person she loved and trusted would go on to eventually stab her in the back in the most awful and exploitative ways possible. Let's enumerate, shall we?
Her father — Definitely a shoo-in for Most Awful Father of the Year Award. Took her money, committed her to psychiatric wards for no reason, kept her from her kids, gaslighted her, dictated every big and small thing in her life. The list goes on. And this went on for 13 years. What the fuck. How is this legal and why is this guy not in jail?
Her mother — Just stood by and watched it all happen. Tried to profit off of her name and fame.
Her siblings — Ditto.
Ex-husband K-Fed — The ultimate deadbeat. Took her kids from her and prevented her from seeing them. Clearly sought sole custody to squeeze as much child support money from her as possible. And apparently a judge went along with it.
Justin Timberlake — Made a big fucking deal out of her cheating on him and breaking his heart. Turns out, he's the serial cheater in their relationship. Also made her have an abortion because he wasn't ready to be a dad. Then went on to break up with her over text, paint her as a harlot, and profit off of her public shaming. Well, can't listen to his music anymore, that's for sure.
Over the years, there were things that puzzled me about Britney. But reading what she went through and what these people did to her, it all makes sense. I would've shaved my head too if it was the only way I could show some small amount of autonomy, that I wasn't just a body on display, a cash cow existing solely to make money for my parents.
Thirteen years is a long time to lose control of your life. How can she get back the time she lost, to have the relationship she wanted with her kids or the career she imagined? She can't. That's what's so heartbreaking about all this. She can only look ahead and move forward, hopefully without bitterness or regret.
The writing style is simple and straightforward. Even though Britney used a ghostwriter, it sounds very much like her real voice. There is a rawness and vulnerability that permeates the pages. Though the book never holds back on revelations, it does feel at times like it's just scratching the surface. Even though she talks about all the horrible things that have happened to her, it still comes across so polite, as if she's holding back, afraid to offend those who have done her wrong.
I had trouble getting through the book even though it isn't long. Parts of it were so gut-wrenching and horrible that I had to take frequent breaks. Especially when she talks about how her ex-husband and her family would keep her away from her young babies for weeks at a time, it made my heart hurt so bad for her.
This memoir is a long time coming. After enduring so much and keeping her silence, I'm glad Britney finally has a chance to speak out and tell her truth. Everyone has the right to live the life they want, and after everything, I hope she finally finds the peace and happiness she's been searching for for so long.
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November 25, 2023
11/25: UPDATE because it feels necessary to say after a few incredibly rude comments. You can respectfully disagree with my review all you want but if you are leaving a disparaging comment towards me, don't waste your time. The moment that you start personally attacking me, your comment will be deleted and you will be blocked because I won't tolerate it :) We can have different opinions on a book and still respect each other AND each others' opinions. Let's act like adults.
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Nobody wants to be the bad guy and give this memoir a low rating so I guess it will be me.
Britney has been through hell and reading this story is incredibly sad. God, I feel for her. Imagine being locked up for all of your 30s, never being able to make a decision for yourself, and being re-released into the world in your 40s; imagine having to reinvent yourself and reshape your identity after all of that… It’s unfortunate that, when she was younger, she never had someone to hold her hand and help her when she was going through her darkest moments and clearly suffering from mental illness. Hallelujah that she made it out on the other side of her conservatorship. I'm proud of her BUT
This isn't even close to a five star read for me. People are going to call this the best memoir of the year and they are entitled to that opinion. As someone who spends a lot of time reading memoirs though, I can't help but feel that this one doesn't even come close to "the best". But I get it... I get the urge to give five stars regardless because her life was extremely challenging and it's impossible to imagine how someone could make it through something like she did. I almost did. But I am not rating her life or worthiness here, my friends. I never am when I rate a memoir. I am here to rate the BOOK and the book alone. With that said...
→ Even with a ghostwriter, this was a mess. It reads like a young girl's journal and extremely lacked the emotional depth and introspection that you typically see in memoirs. The writing was elementary and fragmented and a lot of it felt like she wrote it just to diss to certain people. Don't get me wrong, these people more than deserved the diss, but the point still stands. As someone who said that she gets upset because people are talking behind her back, giving interviews about her without her permission, it's just an interesting approach is all I'm saying.
Parts of the story feel missing or only scrape the surface. I don’t feel that readers can gain a sense of who the real Britney is from this.
There are certainly takeaways that I got from this book but I'm left with more questions than anything. I would have loved to have seen more backstory about her rise to fame because she hardly spent any time on it at all. Her real-life story is truly remarkable and I admire her courage, strength, and resilience. I’m happy she’s free now but I could have done without this book at this time. Had this been written with more time away from her trauma (and therefore more time for healing), I think it would have felt more powerful for me. Sometimes people want/need a story in the messy middle of trauma though and that's what this book was.
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Nobody wants to be the bad guy and give this memoir a low rating so I guess it will be me.
Britney has been through hell and reading this story is incredibly sad. God, I feel for her. Imagine being locked up for all of your 30s, never being able to make a decision for yourself, and being re-released into the world in your 40s; imagine having to reinvent yourself and reshape your identity after all of that… It’s unfortunate that, when she was younger, she never had someone to hold her hand and help her when she was going through her darkest moments and clearly suffering from mental illness. Hallelujah that she made it out on the other side of her conservatorship. I'm proud of her BUT
This isn't even close to a five star read for me. People are going to call this the best memoir of the year and they are entitled to that opinion. As someone who spends a lot of time reading memoirs though, I can't help but feel that this one doesn't even come close to "the best". But I get it... I get the urge to give five stars regardless because her life was extremely challenging and it's impossible to imagine how someone could make it through something like she did. I almost did. But I am not rating her life or worthiness here, my friends. I never am when I rate a memoir. I am here to rate the BOOK and the book alone. With that said...
→ Even with a ghostwriter, this was a mess. It reads like a young girl's journal and extremely lacked the emotional depth and introspection that you typically see in memoirs. The writing was elementary and fragmented and a lot of it felt like she wrote it just to diss to certain people. Don't get me wrong, these people more than deserved the diss, but the point still stands. As someone who said that she gets upset because people are talking behind her back, giving interviews about her without her permission, it's just an interesting approach is all I'm saying.
Parts of the story feel missing or only scrape the surface. I don’t feel that readers can gain a sense of who the real Britney is from this.
There are certainly takeaways that I got from this book but I'm left with more questions than anything. I would have loved to have seen more backstory about her rise to fame because she hardly spent any time on it at all. Her real-life story is truly remarkable and I admire her courage, strength, and resilience. I’m happy she’s free now but I could have done without this book at this time. Had this been written with more time away from her trauma (and therefore more time for healing), I think it would have felt more powerful for me. Sometimes people want/need a story in the messy middle of trauma though and that's what this book was.
Read
April 14, 2024*no rating —this is not a bedtime story for me to judge whether or not I liked it and had a good time; this is her telling me about her life and how she experienced it.
(edit: maybe don't look at this book as a great piece of literature but as her chosen medium to tell her story in peace on her own terms.)
I am speechless and my chest feels tight after reading this book —her side of the story.
I was on a concert of her Onyx Hotel Tour back in 2004 and it pains me to learn now that this one was so rough for her to do at the time she even describes it as a mistake. That I was celebrating a great performer that night while she was already suffering inside, putting on a brave face.
As a Britney fan of 25 years I loved the opportunity to finally listen to her story as a whole in her own voice and I am grateful that she told it. It was certainly not easy to read. It was actually pretty heavy and even brutal at times and I’m amazed by Britney’s strength that she survived all these years at all considering what she’s been through in her private life, with the media and professionally. And I don’t only mean the conservatorship. Even before this book released I was, but even more so now.
As a book lover I must say the reading experience was, sadly, rather meh, to be honest. The first third of the book reads a bit like a confusing wikipedia page; I guess the purpose of it was to just bring us up to speed of what her life was like and what lead up to the events she really wanted to tell us about. The “storytelling” went smoother after that, though. But I don’t want to judge the writing of this book too harshly because I honestly don’t have much experience with memoirs and very little to compare it to. And also, just because. (see first note above)
So yeah, despite the bumpy start I can only recommend to listen to what she has to say about her life and the time when no one seemed interested to listen or later when she had no voice at all.
Yes, do exactly that, girl. Enjoy. You more than deserve it. ♡
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pre-release note July, 15th 2023
Never hit the pre-order button faster!
(edit: maybe don't look at this book as a great piece of literature but as her chosen medium to tell her story in peace on her own terms.)
I am speechless and my chest feels tight after reading this book —her side of the story.
I was on a concert of her Onyx Hotel Tour back in 2004 and it pains me to learn now that this one was so rough for her to do at the time she even describes it as a mistake. That I was celebrating a great performer that night while she was already suffering inside, putting on a brave face.
As a Britney fan of 25 years I loved the opportunity to finally listen to her story as a whole in her own voice and I am grateful that she told it. It was certainly not easy to read. It was actually pretty heavy and even brutal at times and I’m amazed by Britney’s strength that she survived all these years at all considering what she’s been through in her private life, with the media and professionally. And I don’t only mean the conservatorship. Even before this book released I was, but even more so now.
Even though I was being described as so rebellious and such a wild girl, all my best work was accomplished during that time [*]. All in all, though, it was a terrible time.
[*while I was supposedly so incapacitated that I had to be controlled by my family]
As a book lover I must say the reading experience was, sadly, rather meh, to be honest. The first third of the book reads a bit like a confusing wikipedia page; I guess the purpose of it was to just bring us up to speed of what her life was like and what lead up to the events she really wanted to tell us about. The “storytelling” went smoother after that, though. But I don’t want to judge the writing of this book too harshly because I honestly don’t have much experience with memoirs and very little to compare it to. And also, just because. (see first note above)
So yeah, despite the bumpy start I can only recommend to listen to what she has to say about her life and the time when no one seemed interested to listen or later when she had no voice at all.
Freedom means being goofy, silly, and having fun on social media. Freedom means taking a break from Instagram without people calling 911. Freedom means being able to make mistakes, and learning from them. Freedom means I don’t have to perform for anyone—onstage or offstage. Freedom means that I get to be as beautifully imperfect as everyone else. And freedom means the ability, and the right, to search for joy, in my own way, on my own terms.
Yes, do exactly that, girl. Enjoy. You more than deserve it. ♡
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pre-release note July, 15th 2023
Never hit the pre-order button faster!
October 24, 2023
First of all, FUCK YOU JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE.
Second, I loved this book, the only reason it wasn’t five stars for me is because I was hoping for it to be more in depth than it was. It was a very quick read. It felt like it just scratched the surface, but I understand that I am not entitled to all the details of Britney’s life.
Sexism in pop culture, mental health, and unfair/unjust conservatorships are the big talking points here and I think this book will bring awareness to these topics and hopefully spark change.
I truly hope Britney finds the happiness and peace she deserves.
Second, I loved this book, the only reason it wasn’t five stars for me is because I was hoping for it to be more in depth than it was. It was a very quick read. It felt like it just scratched the surface, but I understand that I am not entitled to all the details of Britney’s life.
Sexism in pop culture, mental health, and unfair/unjust conservatorships are the big talking points here and I think this book will bring awareness to these topics and hopefully spark change.
I truly hope Britney finds the happiness and peace she deserves.
Read
October 26, 2023I'm glad Britney was finally able to tell her story on her own terms. It was heartbreaking learning just how horrible her family was to her. Money can truly make people do horrendous things. I hope she's able to find healing and live a life filled with freedom.
December 5, 2023
FUCK HER MOTHER, FUCK HER SISTER, FUCK HER EX HUSBAND KEVIN, FUCK JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, FUCK THE MEDIA AND MOST IMPORTANTLY FUCK HER FATHER!!!
October 27, 2023
Where to start with this book? After reading this, I am angry!! I am angry at her pathetic, non-supportive, and controlling family for what they have put Britney through. I am angry at all the loser men that have preyed upon her kindness and naivety. I am angry at the media and paparazzi for exposing her as a mad woman. I am angry that it took years for anyone to finally help her. I am angry that someone this rich and famous can be taken advantage of.
This was a fast story to read, but believe me it told enough. I’m so glad that Britney was able to finally tell her side of the story. This story starts off with Britney as a young girl and her upbringing. Right away, I knew her parents weren’t right because she told stories of how her father (Mr. Conservator), was an alcoholic and could never keep a job or pay the bills when she was growing up. Britney’s “wonderful” mother would also take her out drinking when she was only 13 years old. Her mom also had her driving the car around at 13. Oh, and don’t worry- because they were so poor, they got Britney into show business so she could pay the bills. Yay Mom and Dad 👏
Even though Britney bought her parents, and that little sister Jamie Lynn Spears everything they could ever want or need- that still wasn’t enough. They wanted total control of Britney. And if anyone is familiar with dysfunctional families and the family scapegoat, it’s quite obvious Britney was and always will be the family scapegoat. No matter how great or famous she is, they will always find something wrong with her no matter what. (Sad to say, but I’ve lived through this family dynamic my whole life as well).
When Britney went through the worst times of her life- her breakup with Justin Timberlake, her divorce from Kevin Federline (K-Fed- total douchebag), her meltdowns in and due to the paparazzi. No one was there for her. No. One. All her family did was tell her she was crazy and a disgrace. They watched her every move through a microscope (just like the paparazzi)- so they could put her in a conservatorship for 13 years and control everything about her.
While in the conservatorship, her father controlled what she wore, what time she went to bed, her phone was monitored, she was given a measly weekly allowance, and he even controlled what she ate. For two years straight, Britney only ate chicken and vegetables from a can. And through this time her dad continuously told her she was fat! Ughhhh!!
I could really go on much longer, but I would spoil the whole book. I didn’t go into too much detail about my thoughts on Justin Timberlake (okay, I did previously mention that he was a weird looking little weasel), and K-Fed 🤮. During the writing of this book she was still married to Hesam (Sam) Asghari, and still very much in love. But we all know, Britney and Sam have since divorced.
I hope Britney gets to be the woman she wants to be, and to live the life she deserves moving forward. I pray that she stays far away from her toxic, evil, manipulative family. I pray that she has a loving relationship with her sons, and hopefully her family and K-Fed haven’t gaslighted and brainwashed them against their mother too bad. I hope her sons read this book, and build a relationship with Britney. I also hope Britney stays single for a while to heal and find herself…
In case you haven’t noticed- yes, I highly recommend this book!! I also hope Britney gets a ton of money from this book and laughs all the way to the bank while her family sits and rots!
This was a fast story to read, but believe me it told enough. I’m so glad that Britney was able to finally tell her side of the story. This story starts off with Britney as a young girl and her upbringing. Right away, I knew her parents weren’t right because she told stories of how her father (Mr. Conservator), was an alcoholic and could never keep a job or pay the bills when she was growing up. Britney’s “wonderful” mother would also take her out drinking when she was only 13 years old. Her mom also had her driving the car around at 13. Oh, and don’t worry- because they were so poor, they got Britney into show business so she could pay the bills. Yay Mom and Dad 👏
Even though Britney bought her parents, and that little sister Jamie Lynn Spears everything they could ever want or need- that still wasn’t enough. They wanted total control of Britney. And if anyone is familiar with dysfunctional families and the family scapegoat, it’s quite obvious Britney was and always will be the family scapegoat. No matter how great or famous she is, they will always find something wrong with her no matter what. (Sad to say, but I’ve lived through this family dynamic my whole life as well).
When Britney went through the worst times of her life- her breakup with Justin Timberlake, her divorce from Kevin Federline (K-Fed- total douchebag), her meltdowns in and due to the paparazzi. No one was there for her. No. One. All her family did was tell her she was crazy and a disgrace. They watched her every move through a microscope (just like the paparazzi)- so they could put her in a conservatorship for 13 years and control everything about her.
While in the conservatorship, her father controlled what she wore, what time she went to bed, her phone was monitored, she was given a measly weekly allowance, and he even controlled what she ate. For two years straight, Britney only ate chicken and vegetables from a can. And through this time her dad continuously told her she was fat! Ughhhh!!
I could really go on much longer, but I would spoil the whole book. I didn’t go into too much detail about my thoughts on Justin Timberlake (okay, I did previously mention that he was a weird looking little weasel), and K-Fed 🤮. During the writing of this book she was still married to Hesam (Sam) Asghari, and still very much in love. But we all know, Britney and Sam have since divorced.
I hope Britney gets to be the woman she wants to be, and to live the life she deserves moving forward. I pray that she stays far away from her toxic, evil, manipulative family. I pray that she has a loving relationship with her sons, and hopefully her family and K-Fed haven’t gaslighted and brainwashed them against their mother too bad. I hope her sons read this book, and build a relationship with Britney. I also hope Britney stays single for a while to heal and find herself…
In case you haven’t noticed- yes, I highly recommend this book!! I also hope Britney gets a ton of money from this book and laughs all the way to the bank while her family sits and rots!
March 27, 2024
As much as society loves to build up an idol they love to watch one fall and burn. This is especially true when the celebrity icon is a woman and one that can become a symbol of castigation such as the case of Britney Spears. Having been molded into an icon that was both highly sexualized yet also virginal and youthful, Spears skyrocketed to stardom and made many rich folks far richer but then that same celebrity image was turned into a weapon against her. But who is Spears behind the image that was created of her? ‘It’s time for me not to be someone who other people want,’ she writes in The Woman in Me, her new memoir, ‘it’s time to actually find myself.’ While it reads like a slow burn horror of a woman exploited, shamed and imprisoned by those closest to her, Spears never comes across as angry and the book feels less like a tell-all than it does a search for who she that is asking the same question her fans have been asking while pouring over her Instagram for clues: is she okay? This book is also an tragic example in the long history of how fragile women's rights over financial and bodily control are and that mental health has long been used against them as a way to remove those rights. A quick read that seems to fly through events at the same pace that her career seemed to be moving, it is hard to not feel compassion and sadness for Spears as she finds her voice and gives us insight into her mind during the whirlwind of a life that practically made as many headlines as the number of records she sold. ‘I wanted to hide, but I also wanted to be seen,’ she says, ‘both things could be true,’ and here we can finally see Spears on her terms as she deserves to be seen.
‘Music stopped the noise, made me feel confident, and took me to a pure place of expressing myself exactly as I wanted to be seen and heard.’
Britney Spears was everywhere when I was growing up, she was impossible to not know and even if you didn’t want to know you couldn’t escape the media’s narrative of her rise and unraveling. I was the right age where I could pretend I didn’t love her music and that I only knew every lyric to every song because my younger sister was a huge fan, but lets face it: Britney was an icon, her music was catchy, she WAS pop culture. There’s no way I’m not reading her memoir, I’m too invested in this story simply from being alive and into music when I was. It’s lovely to know she has been freed from her conservatorship, where her own father and lawyers took complete control over her for 13 years, but the whole story seems a large metaphor for what celebrity means in capitalism: you are less you and more a product to be controlled by corporate lawyers and marketing execs (remember when John Foggerty lost a lawsuit suing him over plagiarising the sounds of John Foggerty, since his voice and style were technically owned by a record company?). While this book leaves a long list of names to be angry and appalled at, Spears never comes across as angry. More sad, almost apologetic, and merely telling what happened. In fact so much of this feels dispassionate, as if she is tired beyond the capacity for rightful rage. But also it seems a lesson long beaten into her that women don’t get to be angry, that anything other than passive acceptance makes her a villain. Which is truly tragic and so much of this book reminds us of the long history of misogyny, of policing women’s bodies, words, tone, actions, and any other aspect of their lives. And how, because of this, women are shamed into feeling they deserve the abuse, as Spears shows when she writes 'the sadness and the loneliness that would hit me felt like my fault somehow, like I deserved unhappiness and bad luck.' Which is just so heartbreaking.
‘Why did my managers work so hard to claim I was some kind of young-girl virgin even into my twenties?’
Much has been written about the way Spears image was to take a young, virginal image of a girl and sexualize her for the sake of men’s lusts. She has often been discussed in comparison with Dolores Haze from Nabokov’s Lolita for the sexualization of a teenage girl (such as the music video with Spears in a risque school girl outfit dancing in the halls of a high school, though Spears admits here that the outfit was her idea). In her article on the recent documentary series, Framing Britney Spears, Grace O’Neil writes that ‘Britney is Dolores and we—the public who voraciously consumed her—are a pack of Humberts,’ and that her image was a “safe” way for men to satisfy a taboo lust. Though Tavi Gevinson, in an article you should definitely read as it is not just about Spears but power dynamics in general, points out that the documentary is ‘ eager to characterize Spears’s early image as an expression of female power rather than the corporation-sanctioned sexualization of a 16-year-old’ Which is a key thing, it was an image created to give the feeling that she was in control and sexually liberated, but as we all saw, it was also the way she was demonized and we should ‘engage the messier implications of the virginal-but-sexy archetype: Here is a girl who can perform sex for an audience’s benefit, but who, thank God, has not yet been tainted by experience. America’s response to Spears was puritanical, but so was the fantasy her image fulfilled.’ We also see in this book how breaking from the 'fantasy' is a reason to condemn her, but also remove her agency. It should be noted that the "hysteria" was a mental disorder that was attributed to women (until 1980), and was often used as a way to strip women of their rights and autonomy. Being labeled as "crazy" did just this to Spears.
Spears shows how so much of her life was controlled by a very calculated misogyny, such as the Rolling Stones photoshoot with David LaChapelle that captilazied on the sexualization of a teenage girl. As Gevinson argues that Spears was never in control, and this was also calculated in order to allow people to turn a blind eye from the ways she was abused.
The first half of Spears book very quickly takes us through her career, though it is less an autopsy of her stardom and more a litany of harms. If this were a film we would cut directly from her telling Ed McMahon on Star Search at age 10 that she doesn’t have a boyfriend because ‘boys are mean’ to a montage of the her relationships with Justin Timeberlake and Kevin Federline. ‘Looking back, I think that both Justin and Kevin were very clever. They knew what they were doing, and I played right into it,” she writes, and shows how her desire to be loved became an opening to be exploited (OKAY but the moment she got to Timberlake being all ‘let me play you some soothing guitar’ as shes crying on the floor from the pain of her abortion she was very much pressured into having--not great JT). We also see how she was just access to fame for Federline and that he had no interest in being a father. And it all ends poorly for Spears, especially once the conservatorship begins. And if there is anyone to truly be mad at, it is her parents and management that failed to protect her and instead capitalized on all the drama.
‘ I was so beaten down by all of it that I just surrendered.’
All these events happened at a time of really heightened celebrity in the US spurred by channels like MTV that shifted the focus away from the actual music and into a celebration of privileged lifestyles. While shows like Jackass turned men with massive drug, alcohol and mental health problems into household names to laugh WITH while celebrity women became icons to laugh AT (and shamed for alcohol, drugs, sex or mental health struggles). Everyone seemed way too eager to see Spears have a public breakdown, everyone was excited for cameras to capture the next Lindsey Lohan binge, everyone enjoyed calling Paris Hilton dumb a bit too much to consider it harmless fun. Being joyful at someone’s supposed shortcomings is never cool but it became a commodity, and much of this seemed to be orchestrated to mock women who rose to stardom almost as some gross patriarchal lesson. It happens all the time but it was practically the focus of US entertainment aimed at youth culture. And it’s because the industry saw them all as products not people.
That’s why reading this felt like a damning indictment against the way patriarchal societies objectify, commoditize, consume and control women. Britney was caged into a message to young women to be commoditized, to be docile and nice, to be exploited and happy for it or be punished. In her book Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women, Dr. Kate Manne lays out the various ways men feel entitled to women’s bodies, labor, affection, etc. and this book practically goes through each of her points to check the boxes. On women’s bodies, for example:
There is a similar message in Emily Ratajkowski’s memoir My Body. Sure, people will say that is the price of fame, but that is not okay and is just a way to hold an umbrella for abuse. Hop on social media right now and you’ll see plenty of people shaming Britney for this book and especially for having aborted the baby without acknowledging the emotional pressures put on her to do so or the way her whole life she was coached to not have any agency. She talks about how she notices the questions Timberlake was asked in interviews were very different than the type she got, which often asked about her body. It also plays into Dr. Manne’s idea on himpathy—that is the way people tend to sympathize with a man over a woman even when he is the abuser and demand she prove she isn’t somehow complicit in her own abuse—which we see in the way society rallied around Justin and his Cry Me A River song and began to look at Spears as a heartless heartbreaker when in reality I was shattered…I don’t think Justin realised the power he had in shaming me. I don’t think he understands to this day.’ And when things started to come apart, she was labeled as crazy and deserving of scorn instead of recognizing the mental health issues ‘because I now know that I was displaying just about every symptom of perinatal depression: sadness, anxiety, fatigue.’
What did anyone expect when she was treated as unable to take care of herself and like a perpetual 17 year old sex icon her whole life. ‘I’d begin to think in some ways like a child,’ she admits. But it was also a rage against the world.
This book very well explores the way she was built into this image and then silenced for breaking it. And the latter half about the 13 years under the conservatorship are horrifying. ‘For thirteen years, I wasn't allowed to eat what I wanted, to drive, to spend my money how I wanted, to drink alcohol or even coffee,’ she says, but now she has ‘freedom to do what I want to do has given me back my womanhood. In my forties, I'm trying things for what feels like the first time. I feel like the woman in me was pushed down for so long.’ I’m glad to see she is able to feel she has a voice and search for what freedom means for her, but also for who she is. This is a quick read, a sad one too, but it is nice to hear her side and remember how harsh society is on women. Especially the ones they prop up for profit and then profit off of watching them burn down. I hope for nothing but the best and inner peace for Spears.
⅘
‘I've started to experience the riches of being an adult woman for the first time in many years. I feel like I've been underwater for so long, only rarely swimming up to the surface to gasp for air and a little food. When I regained my freedom, that was my cue to step out onto dry land and, any time I want, to take vacations, sip a cocktail, drive my car, go to a resort, or stare out at the ocean.’
‘Music stopped the noise, made me feel confident, and took me to a pure place of expressing myself exactly as I wanted to be seen and heard.’
Britney Spears was everywhere when I was growing up, she was impossible to not know and even if you didn’t want to know you couldn’t escape the media’s narrative of her rise and unraveling. I was the right age where I could pretend I didn’t love her music and that I only knew every lyric to every song because my younger sister was a huge fan, but lets face it: Britney was an icon, her music was catchy, she WAS pop culture. There’s no way I’m not reading her memoir, I’m too invested in this story simply from being alive and into music when I was. It’s lovely to know she has been freed from her conservatorship, where her own father and lawyers took complete control over her for 13 years, but the whole story seems a large metaphor for what celebrity means in capitalism: you are less you and more a product to be controlled by corporate lawyers and marketing execs (remember when John Foggerty lost a lawsuit suing him over plagiarising the sounds of John Foggerty, since his voice and style were technically owned by a record company?). While this book leaves a long list of names to be angry and appalled at, Spears never comes across as angry. More sad, almost apologetic, and merely telling what happened. In fact so much of this feels dispassionate, as if she is tired beyond the capacity for rightful rage. But also it seems a lesson long beaten into her that women don’t get to be angry, that anything other than passive acceptance makes her a villain. Which is truly tragic and so much of this book reminds us of the long history of misogyny, of policing women’s bodies, words, tone, actions, and any other aspect of their lives. And how, because of this, women are shamed into feeling they deserve the abuse, as Spears shows when she writes 'the sadness and the loneliness that would hit me felt like my fault somehow, like I deserved unhappiness and bad luck.' Which is just so heartbreaking.
‘Why did my managers work so hard to claim I was some kind of young-girl virgin even into my twenties?’
Much has been written about the way Spears image was to take a young, virginal image of a girl and sexualize her for the sake of men’s lusts. She has often been discussed in comparison with Dolores Haze from Nabokov’s Lolita for the sexualization of a teenage girl (such as the music video with Spears in a risque school girl outfit dancing in the halls of a high school, though Spears admits here that the outfit was her idea). In her article on the recent documentary series, Framing Britney Spears, Grace O’Neil writes that ‘Britney is Dolores and we—the public who voraciously consumed her—are a pack of Humberts,’ and that her image was a “safe” way for men to satisfy a taboo lust. Though Tavi Gevinson, in an article you should definitely read as it is not just about Spears but power dynamics in general, points out that the documentary is ‘ eager to characterize Spears’s early image as an expression of female power rather than the corporation-sanctioned sexualization of a 16-year-old’ Which is a key thing, it was an image created to give the feeling that she was in control and sexually liberated, but as we all saw, it was also the way she was demonized and we should ‘engage the messier implications of the virginal-but-sexy archetype: Here is a girl who can perform sex for an audience’s benefit, but who, thank God, has not yet been tainted by experience. America’s response to Spears was puritanical, but so was the fantasy her image fulfilled.’ We also see in this book how breaking from the 'fantasy' is a reason to condemn her, but also remove her agency. It should be noted that the "hysteria" was a mental disorder that was attributed to women (until 1980), and was often used as a way to strip women of their rights and autonomy. Being labeled as "crazy" did just this to Spears.
Spears shows how so much of her life was controlled by a very calculated misogyny, such as the Rolling Stones photoshoot with David LaChapelle that captilazied on the sexualization of a teenage girl. As Gevinson argues that Spears was never in control, and this was also calculated in order to allow people to turn a blind eye from the ways she was abused.
‘There is no need to believe it’s either Everything was Britney’s choice, and therefore she was always a sex-positive feminist or Nothing was Britney’s choice, and the evil adults made all her decisions. Both assertions sound desperate to protect her respectability — another version of her purity, in fact — as a prerequisite for compassion. They remind me of how readily conversations about abuse and assault focus on the moral character of the victim in order to confirm that they have indeed been victimized.’
The first half of Spears book very quickly takes us through her career, though it is less an autopsy of her stardom and more a litany of harms. If this were a film we would cut directly from her telling Ed McMahon on Star Search at age 10 that she doesn’t have a boyfriend because ‘boys are mean’ to a montage of the her relationships with Justin Timeberlake and Kevin Federline. ‘Looking back, I think that both Justin and Kevin were very clever. They knew what they were doing, and I played right into it,” she writes, and shows how her desire to be loved became an opening to be exploited (OKAY but the moment she got to Timberlake being all ‘let me play you some soothing guitar’ as shes crying on the floor from the pain of her abortion she was very much pressured into having--not great JT). We also see how she was just access to fame for Federline and that he had no interest in being a father. And it all ends poorly for Spears, especially once the conservatorship begins. And if there is anyone to truly be mad at, it is her parents and management that failed to protect her and instead capitalized on all the drama.
‘ I was so beaten down by all of it that I just surrendered.’
All these events happened at a time of really heightened celebrity in the US spurred by channels like MTV that shifted the focus away from the actual music and into a celebration of privileged lifestyles. While shows like Jackass turned men with massive drug, alcohol and mental health problems into household names to laugh WITH while celebrity women became icons to laugh AT (and shamed for alcohol, drugs, sex or mental health struggles). Everyone seemed way too eager to see Spears have a public breakdown, everyone was excited for cameras to capture the next Lindsey Lohan binge, everyone enjoyed calling Paris Hilton dumb a bit too much to consider it harmless fun. Being joyful at someone’s supposed shortcomings is never cool but it became a commodity, and much of this seemed to be orchestrated to mock women who rose to stardom almost as some gross patriarchal lesson. It happens all the time but it was practically the focus of US entertainment aimed at youth culture. And it’s because the industry saw them all as products not people.
That’s why reading this felt like a damning indictment against the way patriarchal societies objectify, commoditize, consume and control women. Britney was caged into a message to young women to be commoditized, to be docile and nice, to be exploited and happy for it or be punished. In her book Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women, Dr. Kate Manne lays out the various ways men feel entitled to women’s bodies, labor, affection, etc. and this book practically goes through each of her points to check the boxes. On women’s bodies, for example:
‘It was always incredible to me that so many people felt so comfortable talking about my body. It had started when I was young. Whether it was strangers in the media or within my own family, people seemed to experience my body as public property: something they could police, control, criticize, or use as a weapon. My body was strong enough to carry two children and agile enough to execute every choreographed move perfectly onstage. And now here I was, having every calorie recorded so people could continue to get rich off my body.’
There is a similar message in Emily Ratajkowski’s memoir My Body. Sure, people will say that is the price of fame, but that is not okay and is just a way to hold an umbrella for abuse. Hop on social media right now and you’ll see plenty of people shaming Britney for this book and especially for having aborted the baby without acknowledging the emotional pressures put on her to do so or the way her whole life she was coached to not have any agency. She talks about how she notices the questions Timberlake was asked in interviews were very different than the type she got, which often asked about her body. It also plays into Dr. Manne’s idea on himpathy—that is the way people tend to sympathize with a man over a woman even when he is the abuser and demand she prove she isn’t somehow complicit in her own abuse—which we see in the way society rallied around Justin and his Cry Me A River song and began to look at Spears as a heartless heartbreaker when in reality I was shattered…I don’t think Justin realised the power he had in shaming me. I don’t think he understands to this day.’ And when things started to come apart, she was labeled as crazy and deserving of scorn instead of recognizing the mental health issues ‘because I now know that I was displaying just about every symptom of perinatal depression: sadness, anxiety, fatigue.’
What did anyone expect when she was treated as unable to take care of herself and like a perpetual 17 year old sex icon her whole life. ‘I’d begin to think in some ways like a child,’ she admits. But it was also a rage against the world.
‘Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you. I’d been the good girl for years.’
This book very well explores the way she was built into this image and then silenced for breaking it. And the latter half about the 13 years under the conservatorship are horrifying. ‘For thirteen years, I wasn't allowed to eat what I wanted, to drive, to spend my money how I wanted, to drink alcohol or even coffee,’ she says, but now she has ‘freedom to do what I want to do has given me back my womanhood. In my forties, I'm trying things for what feels like the first time. I feel like the woman in me was pushed down for so long.’ I’m glad to see she is able to feel she has a voice and search for what freedom means for her, but also for who she is. This is a quick read, a sad one too, but it is nice to hear her side and remember how harsh society is on women. Especially the ones they prop up for profit and then profit off of watching them burn down. I hope for nothing but the best and inner peace for Spears.
⅘
‘I've started to experience the riches of being an adult woman for the first time in many years. I feel like I've been underwater for so long, only rarely swimming up to the surface to gasp for air and a little food. When I regained my freedom, that was my cue to step out onto dry land and, any time I want, to take vacations, sip a cocktail, drive my car, go to a resort, or stare out at the ocean.’
January 23, 2024
I was a huge spears friend when I was a teenager, even trying to learn her dance in one more time (spoiler alert: I made my parents laugh). I’ve loved a lot of her work, but I stopped buying spears products or styling my hair like she did. I’ve knew some of what happened to her later in life, but not the extent of her imprisonment. I found that part really heartbreaking and shocking.
What I didn’t like was the writing style. Her life was described like ticking off her experiences from a list, and it lacked the emotional depth I would have preferred.
All in all it gave you what you needed to know about her, but some parts of it felt off and disappointed me somewhat.
What I didn’t like was the writing style. Her life was described like ticking off her experiences from a list, and it lacked the emotional depth I would have preferred.
All in all it gave you what you needed to know about her, but some parts of it felt off and disappointed me somewhat.
October 27, 2023
i don’t have words to do britney’s story justice, but i do have a bit to say. what an insightful, shocking, heavy yet inspiring read.
you really have to go into this with no one else’s opinion in your head and that’s what i did. i remember as a child seeing when britney shaved her head and thinking well duh?? after being harassed by paparazzi your whole life wouldn’t you be fed up too?? she describes those times as her “wild years” and there wasn’t too much information on that time but i respect that this is her story to tell how she decides to. there is so much in this book i never knew…so much hidden from the headlines that i’m glad she brought to light. she even stated in the end that she hopes her family reads this and can somewhat understand. my heart. may God bless britney with all she needs to thrive and have a heart full of true joy!! i will say i am still concerned if she’s completely safe, but that could be me overanalyzing. all i have to say is i want to give this southern sweetheart a big, big hug and talk for hours through the night. you want to know one of my favorite parts of this book? when britney said the #FreeBritney movement is actually WHAT FREED HER. it wasn’t just a show of support; it worked. it made the doctors in her facility suspicious of the family. it made her father release her from there. it made her have hope to raise her voice with millions of fans backing her up. a big thank you to this beautiful WOMAN for sharing her story! keep going babygirl!
*trigger warning for suicide, deaths, substance abuse, detailed abortion*
-
pre-read: i’m not a huge A list celeb person, but i would love to hear britney’s story 🥹
you really have to go into this with no one else’s opinion in your head and that’s what i did. i remember as a child seeing when britney shaved her head and thinking well duh?? after being harassed by paparazzi your whole life wouldn’t you be fed up too?? she describes those times as her “wild years” and there wasn’t too much information on that time but i respect that this is her story to tell how she decides to. there is so much in this book i never knew…so much hidden from the headlines that i’m glad she brought to light. she even stated in the end that she hopes her family reads this and can somewhat understand. my heart. may God bless britney with all she needs to thrive and have a heart full of true joy!! i will say i am still concerned if she’s completely safe, but that could be me overanalyzing. all i have to say is i want to give this southern sweetheart a big, big hug and talk for hours through the night. you want to know one of my favorite parts of this book? when britney said the #FreeBritney movement is actually WHAT FREED HER. it wasn’t just a show of support; it worked. it made the doctors in her facility suspicious of the family. it made her father release her from there. it made her have hope to raise her voice with millions of fans backing her up. a big thank you to this beautiful WOMAN for sharing her story! keep going babygirl!
*trigger warning for suicide, deaths, substance abuse, detailed abortion*
-
pre-read: i’m not a huge A list celeb person, but i would love to hear britney’s story 🥹
April 25, 2024
(A-) 80% | Very Good
Notes: A kind of jailed-princess tale (bit Nineteen Eighty-Four), on wounding feuds, abusive dudes, relentless grief and more.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary:
Notes: A kind of jailed-princess tale (bit Nineteen Eighty-Four), on wounding feuds, abusive dudes, relentless grief and more.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary:
November 18, 2023
It’s hard to rate a heartfelt memoir that is basically a long-repressed confession and an attempt to come to grasp what the hell actually happened to life. You can’t help but feel that in judging the book you’re judging the person behind it, the person who just poured her soul out in a very vulnerable and a bit messy way. So, instead of judging I’d rather give a big warm hug and a reassurance that yes, Britney, I think you’ve finally been seen how you want to be seen.
I remember that in my adolescence and young adulthood Britney Spears seemed to be everywhere - or at least everywhere where the attention of a teenage girl went, ever since “…Baby One More Time” catchy lyrics and equally catchy video made me stare at the TV in my living room in fascination when I was 15. TV, glossy magazines, radio — and not just the music but relentless gossip, scrutiny, speculations, gleeful schadenfreude whenever there was any real or perceived blunder, and vitriolic mocking delight when something went wrong with the Princess of Pop. We love to build them up but we equally love to tear them down, I suppose.
Here, however, Britney Spears, having lived through 13 years of absolutely ridiculous conservatorship (when she was well enough to earn millions but legally not well enough to spend them, or do most things an adult independent woman would take for granted - like determine her contraception or use her phone when she wanted to, or choose to say “no”) shows what was going on behind the glitz and sparkles and occasional denim-on-denim outfit. What comes through in a still very young-sounding voice is a sensitive person who’s conditioned to be sweet and nice, and often a bit confused, and quite lonely, who spent a long time learning how to be intimidated and even be angry politely, and strangely over-reliant on her family even as an adult despite emotional abuse — and whose natural development seems to be artificially stunted somewhat by the unnatural cage she ended up in — in a true medieval fashion made to be a property of her father.
She’s not going to win any writing awards any time soon, but that’s not the point of her story. Where she succeeds is at the emotional level, just so plainly wanting to be heard and give us *her* view of her own story. What you’re left with is the admiration that she wasn’t fully broken, that she is out free to live her life and make her choices, and choose to be carefree and reckless if she wants, or just enjoy the quiet peace if she so chooses. But she can choose it for herself, without ending up someone else’s property. Maybe she’ll make choices others disagree with or judge, but she has the freedom to make them — the freedom that should have never been taken away from her in the first place.
And it’s still so polite, this book. Still reserved and sweet at the times where I’d expect anyone to start screaming in bloody rage at the world. And I’m not sure if that’s just a careful editorial decision or Britney’s personality, but in any way it’s striking. And perhaps says more by its restraint than it would have done otherwise. Because her conservatorship was mindlessly cruel and ridiculous, and I am horrified at the thought that others may be in the same situation but without Britney’s means to get out, broken without much hope.
4 stars and a hug. I’m judging it on its own separate scale since it managed to hit me right in the feels.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
“Thirteen years went by with me feeling like a shadow of myself. I think back now on my father and his associates having control over my body and my money for that long and it makes me feel sick.
Think of how many male artists gambled all their money away; how many had substance abuse or mental health issues. No one tried to take away their control over their body and money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”
I remember that in my adolescence and young adulthood Britney Spears seemed to be everywhere - or at least everywhere where the attention of a teenage girl went, ever since “…Baby One More Time” catchy lyrics and equally catchy video made me stare at the TV in my living room in fascination when I was 15. TV, glossy magazines, radio — and not just the music but relentless gossip, scrutiny, speculations, gleeful schadenfreude whenever there was any real or perceived blunder, and vitriolic mocking delight when something went wrong with the Princess of Pop. We love to build them up but we equally love to tear them down, I suppose.
“That’s the thing about this industry. I never knew how to play the game. I didn’t know how to present myself on any level. […] I can see now that you have to be smart enough, vicious enough, deliberate enough to play the game, and I did not know the game. I was truly innocent—just clueless. […]
So I was young, and I made a lot of mistakes. But I will say this: I wasn’t manipulative. I was just stupid.”
Here, however, Britney Spears, having lived through 13 years of absolutely ridiculous conservatorship (when she was well enough to earn millions but legally not well enough to spend them, or do most things an adult independent woman would take for granted - like determine her contraception or use her phone when she wanted to, or choose to say “no”) shows what was going on behind the glitz and sparkles and occasional denim-on-denim outfit. What comes through in a still very young-sounding voice is a sensitive person who’s conditioned to be sweet and nice, and often a bit confused, and quite lonely, who spent a long time learning how to be intimidated and even be angry politely, and strangely over-reliant on her family even as an adult despite emotional abuse — and whose natural development seems to be artificially stunted somewhat by the unnatural cage she ended up in — in a true medieval fashion made to be a property of her father.
“The woman in me was pushed down for a long time. They wanted me to be wild onstage, the way they told me to be, and to be a robot the rest of the time. I felt like I was being deprived of those good secrets of life—those fundamental supposed sins of indulgence and adventure that make us human. They wanted to take away that specialness and keep everything as rote as possible. It was death to my creativity as an artist.”
She’s not going to win any writing awards any time soon, but that’s not the point of her story. Where she succeeds is at the emotional level, just so plainly wanting to be heard and give us *her* view of her own story. What you’re left with is the admiration that she wasn’t fully broken, that she is out free to live her life and make her choices, and choose to be carefree and reckless if she wants, or just enjoy the quiet peace if she so chooses. But she can choose it for herself, without ending up someone else’s property. Maybe she’ll make choices others disagree with or judge, but she has the freedom to make them — the freedom that should have never been taken away from her in the first place.
“I’d been taught through the conservatorship to feel almost too fragile, too scared. That’s the price I paid under the conservatorship. They took a lot of my womanhood, my sword, my core, my voice, the ability to say “Fuck you.” And I know that sounds bad, but there is something crucial about this. Don’t underestimate your power.”
And it’s still so polite, this book. Still reserved and sweet at the times where I’d expect anyone to start screaming in bloody rage at the world. And I’m not sure if that’s just a careful editorial decision or Britney’s personality, but in any way it’s striking. And perhaps says more by its restraint than it would have done otherwise. Because her conservatorship was mindlessly cruel and ridiculous, and I am horrified at the thought that others may be in the same situation but without Britney’s means to get out, broken without much hope.
“I sometimes thought that it was almost funny how I won those awards for the album I made while I was supposedly so incapacitated that I had to be controlled by my family.
The truth was, though, when I stopped to think about it for very long, it wasn’t funny at all.”
4 stars and a hug. I’m judging it on its own separate scale since it managed to hit me right in the feels.
“Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you. I’d been the good girl for years. I’d smiled politely while TV show hosts leered at my breasts, while American parents said I was destroying their children by wearing a crop top, while executives patted my hand condescendingly and second-guessed my career choices even though I’d sold millions of records, while my family acted like I was evil. And I was tired of it.”
——————
Also posted on my blog.
December 18, 2023
“My father shoved aside my bowl of receipts, setting up his things on the bar. “I just want to let you know,” he said, “I call the shots. You sit right there in that chair and I’ll tell you what goes on.”
I looked at him with a growing sense of horror.
“I’m Britney Spears now,” he said.” pg. 182
Britney Spears, The Princess of Pop, is arguably one of the most mistreated people in Hollywood, and especially after the events in the past few years, I was highly anticipating this memoir. It was equal parts happy, because Britney is finally able to share, in her own words, what she went through the past 15 years, and equal parts horrific because the abuse she experienced isn't something anyone should be put through.
“The saddest part to me was that what I always wanted was a dad who would love me as I was—somebody who would say, “I just love you. You could do anything right now. I’d still love you with unconditional love.” pg. 23
Although The Woman in Me does not explain everything, it gives context to a lot of the situations that the media focused on throughout the 2000s, including her relationship with Justin Timberlake, the shaved head/hitting a paparazzi car with an umbrella incident (which I don't think anyone will ever forget), and her marriage to Kevin Federline. Most importantly, she discussed her experience with the conservatorship, which as we know was perpetrated by her dad, Jamie Spears, for 13 years! It was heartbreaking to read about the enablers of the conservatorship, including her mom, Lynne Spears, and how much everyone, including the court system, misled and took advantage of her during these years. She is so brave for making the final 911 call which ultimately led to the end of the conservatorship. Wendy Williams said it best...
“Why was it so easy for everyone to forget that I was a human being—vulnerable enough that these headlines could leave a bruise?” pg. 100
The memoir felt more authentic than I anticipated, even though she worked with ghostwriters (like most celebrities do when writing memoirs), which pleasantly surprised me! I personally have fallen down the rabbit hole of Britney Spears conspiracy theories multiple times in the past few years, and I am not sure if this memoir convinced me that she is 100% safe. I was hoping she would talk about her marriage with Hesam Asghari, and their "wedding" (If you know, you know. If you don't, look it up on TikTok LOL), but from the sections where he is mentioned, it seems like she wrote this when they were still together. Overall, it was a really enjoyable read, I would recommend it not only to fans of Britney Spears and celebrity memoirs but to anyone looking to pick up a quick read because Britney deserves for her truth to be heard. #FreeBritney
October 25, 2023
From scrolling through the reviews, it seems as though everyone is just review-bombing without reading. I really wanted to like this book but there was nothing to it. If you want a book that makes you feel like you’re reading a 12-year-old’s diary; this is the book for you.
October 30, 2023
Insights Behind the Headlines
Kudos to Britney Spears for speaking publicly about her conservatorship!
This is the second book this year where I have read about guardians gone wrong. In Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper, Brooke Astor had a very difficult time in her later years. Her son, Tony Marshall, was accused of allowing her to live in squalor and reduced necessary medications.
Luckily, Ms. Astor (who was worth an estimated $192 million upon her death) had some friends in very high places. Her grandsons teamed up with Annette de la Renta, billionaire David Rockefeller, and Henry Kissinger. The very next day after filing the affidavits, the judge signed guardianship over to Annette de la Renta and JP Morgan Chase guardian over her assets.
Why in the world was Britney’s father put in charge of her assets? How in the world is he qualified? JP Morgan Chase or an alcoholic with a history of bankruptcy?
The Woman In Me is an interesting behind-the-scenes view of the major events of Britney’s life, primarily focusing on Britney’s conservatorship.
Although the book is riveting, the book felt a bit high-level, and it felt like some things were missing.
For example, Britney is locked up in a rehab facility for months at a time against her will. Presumably, Britney was dating Sam Asghari at this point.
Personally, I trust approximately four people in my life, but these four people would do literally anything to help me. If I was Britney, I would be desperately trying to get in contact with Sam Asghari. However, she never talks about whether she attempted to reach Sam during her time in confinement.
It seems to me that Britney Spears is one of the loneliest people in the world. Any time she meets anyone, she must think, “Does this person like me because they like me or is this person trying to be nice to me for money?” Her family should have been the one group of people that she could rely on, but even they turned on her. How could she feel safe and secure with the years of constantly traveling to perform and with her father’s mean comments?
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Kudos to Britney Spears for speaking publicly about her conservatorship!
This is the second book this year where I have read about guardians gone wrong. In Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune by Anderson Cooper, Brooke Astor had a very difficult time in her later years. Her son, Tony Marshall, was accused of allowing her to live in squalor and reduced necessary medications.
Luckily, Ms. Astor (who was worth an estimated $192 million upon her death) had some friends in very high places. Her grandsons teamed up with Annette de la Renta, billionaire David Rockefeller, and Henry Kissinger. The very next day after filing the affidavits, the judge signed guardianship over to Annette de la Renta and JP Morgan Chase guardian over her assets.
Why in the world was Britney’s father put in charge of her assets? How in the world is he qualified? JP Morgan Chase or an alcoholic with a history of bankruptcy?
The Woman In Me is an interesting behind-the-scenes view of the major events of Britney’s life, primarily focusing on Britney’s conservatorship.
Although the book is riveting, the book felt a bit high-level, and it felt like some things were missing.
For example, Britney is locked up in a rehab facility for months at a time against her will. Presumably, Britney was dating Sam Asghari at this point.
Personally, I trust approximately four people in my life, but these four people would do literally anything to help me. If I was Britney, I would be desperately trying to get in contact with Sam Asghari. However, she never talks about whether she attempted to reach Sam during her time in confinement.
It seems to me that Britney Spears is one of the loneliest people in the world. Any time she meets anyone, she must think, “Does this person like me because they like me or is this person trying to be nice to me for money?” Her family should have been the one group of people that she could rely on, but even they turned on her. How could she feel safe and secure with the years of constantly traveling to perform and with her father’s mean comments?
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October 26, 2023
I was in high school when Britney shaved her head. There were sixty kids in my small-town graduating class. We were all "celebrities" in our own way. We gossiped about each other, spread rumors, knew every intimate detail. I still remember who lost their virginity to who, at least according to legend. Now I realize half the stuff we said about each other couldn't possibly be true. But rumors, especially the salacious ones, stick around.
I'd always loved Britney's music, but it was her tabloid scandal era when I connected to her personally. Maybe because I had my own weekly barrage of lies to fend off. Mostly the other kids said I was a faggot. That didn't bother me because it was true. When I didn't cry, my tormentors invented new things to say. The most widespread rumor was that I had sex with poodles and was furthermore riddled with venereal diseases from them. This was so ridiculous it was easy to laugh off. I never expected anyone would actually believe it, but some did. Years later I learned a small number of classmates—grown-ass adults now—still thought this about me.
A lot has been said about Britney Spears. Intuitively, most of us realize the rumors must be far from the truth. Likely that’s why her book is such a bestseller. What is the real story behind the iconic photographs, front-page break-ups and altered stage presence? What's the deal with her family?
This book doesn't answer every question, but it does provide context for major events that even non-fans will remember: What (if anything) did Britney do to Justin? Why did she shave her head and attack paparazzi with an umbrella? What was going through her mind during the infamous "Gimme More" VMA performance? Why did she cancel her successful Vegas residency?
Britney’s explanations range from in-depth to predictably vague. At times she seems to be a revisionist, such as when she explains that the “Gimme More” music video appears low-budget because it was casually filmed with friends while they popped in and out of bars. In actuality, the video was directed by Jake Sarfaty and shot in a warehouse—or at least that was previously considered a fact. Either way, she shouldn’t apologize. It’s a great video.
I do think trauma perhaps misconstrued some of her memories. Like when she writes she didn’t mind Justin bragging about banging her, because it allowed her to “come out” as a non-virgin. It’s hard for me to imagine her being totally okay with what he said. My basis for thinking this is from personal experience.
Previously I wrote that I didn’t mind being called homophobic slurs and could “laugh off” repulsive rumors. Almost certainly that’s not true. I’m sure I was destroyed, but over time my mind has altered these memories for my own benefit. Reliving trauma can be as deadly as heart disease. To fix this, the mind might reshape memories to mend the injury, like putting a scab over a wound. I’m not a doctor, but that’s how it feels to me.
Of course not all wounds are easy to heal. Britney’s memoirs grow particularly dark when she gets into the conservatorship. This section receives the most pages and feels like the part she wrote on her own, with the least help from editors and ghostwriters. It’s heartbreaking to read, even after being familiar with her legal testimony.
You don’t have to be a global superstar to learn from Britney that family can be dangerous. The people who are supposed to love you unconditionally are also the ones who can be the most evil, the most controlling, and the worst for mental health. And it’s always so obvious to outsiders. Of course Britney’s family only care about the money. It’s even tempting to blame Britney herself for staying in that situation as long as she did.
But when it’s you—your family who’s gaslighting and manipulating—you put up with the abuse. You don’t even see it. You wait for them to change—because of the happy memories, or out of blind devotion. Because That’s What Family Is For, or some bullshit.
I say ‘you’ but I really mean me. No, I don’t have money, so my family isn’t interested in that, but they are obsessed with changing me—trying to mold me into whatever straight religious Frankenstein monster of a creation they have in mind. In the animal kingdom, it seems cruel when mama birds push their babies out of the nest. Now I wonder if that’s a major evolutionary advantage. At a certain point, parents turn rancid. It’s best to fly away as fast as you can.
Overall, this book was emotional, a little triggering, and perhaps unnecessary. I will always love Britney because her music and personal strength got me through my own tough times, but I also understand that she is a product of pop culture and we may never truly understand what it’s like to be her.
In the copyright section, there is this puzzling note: "The right of Britney Jean Spears to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.” This is not the kind of note that assures readers Britney herself was the sole author of this book. That’s not to say another writer can’t articulate her feelings, and I’m sure she signed off on everything, but this is far from the “tell-all” big reveal fans, psychologists and pop culture fanatics have been dreaming of.
Of course it’s hard to tell all when you’re still processing years of abuse. Also, things change. The book must have been finalized some months back, since it ends on the pleasant note of implied martial success with Sam Asghari. They officially divorced back in August.
I think the rosy Sam sections were probably what Britney had in mind when she thought it would be “too hard” to read the audiobook herself. Fortunately Michelle Williams put in a stellar performance that not only breathes life into the text, but mimics Britney’s tonal quality so that it’s easy to imagine it’s her.
While The Woman in Me doesn’t always live up to the hype, it is still a must-read case study of American stardom and the dangers of relationships that anyone can find themselves in, to one degree or another.
I'd always loved Britney's music, but it was her tabloid scandal era when I connected to her personally. Maybe because I had my own weekly barrage of lies to fend off. Mostly the other kids said I was a faggot. That didn't bother me because it was true. When I didn't cry, my tormentors invented new things to say. The most widespread rumor was that I had sex with poodles and was furthermore riddled with venereal diseases from them. This was so ridiculous it was easy to laugh off. I never expected anyone would actually believe it, but some did. Years later I learned a small number of classmates—grown-ass adults now—still thought this about me.
A lot has been said about Britney Spears. Intuitively, most of us realize the rumors must be far from the truth. Likely that’s why her book is such a bestseller. What is the real story behind the iconic photographs, front-page break-ups and altered stage presence? What's the deal with her family?
This book doesn't answer every question, but it does provide context for major events that even non-fans will remember: What (if anything) did Britney do to Justin? Why did she shave her head and attack paparazzi with an umbrella? What was going through her mind during the infamous "Gimme More" VMA performance? Why did she cancel her successful Vegas residency?
Britney’s explanations range from in-depth to predictably vague. At times she seems to be a revisionist, such as when she explains that the “Gimme More” music video appears low-budget because it was casually filmed with friends while they popped in and out of bars. In actuality, the video was directed by Jake Sarfaty and shot in a warehouse—or at least that was previously considered a fact. Either way, she shouldn’t apologize. It’s a great video.
I do think trauma perhaps misconstrued some of her memories. Like when she writes she didn’t mind Justin bragging about banging her, because it allowed her to “come out” as a non-virgin. It’s hard for me to imagine her being totally okay with what he said. My basis for thinking this is from personal experience.
Previously I wrote that I didn’t mind being called homophobic slurs and could “laugh off” repulsive rumors. Almost certainly that’s not true. I’m sure I was destroyed, but over time my mind has altered these memories for my own benefit. Reliving trauma can be as deadly as heart disease. To fix this, the mind might reshape memories to mend the injury, like putting a scab over a wound. I’m not a doctor, but that’s how it feels to me.
Of course not all wounds are easy to heal. Britney’s memoirs grow particularly dark when she gets into the conservatorship. This section receives the most pages and feels like the part she wrote on her own, with the least help from editors and ghostwriters. It’s heartbreaking to read, even after being familiar with her legal testimony.
You don’t have to be a global superstar to learn from Britney that family can be dangerous. The people who are supposed to love you unconditionally are also the ones who can be the most evil, the most controlling, and the worst for mental health. And it’s always so obvious to outsiders. Of course Britney’s family only care about the money. It’s even tempting to blame Britney herself for staying in that situation as long as she did.
But when it’s you—your family who’s gaslighting and manipulating—you put up with the abuse. You don’t even see it. You wait for them to change—because of the happy memories, or out of blind devotion. Because That’s What Family Is For, or some bullshit.
I say ‘you’ but I really mean me. No, I don’t have money, so my family isn’t interested in that, but they are obsessed with changing me—trying to mold me into whatever straight religious Frankenstein monster of a creation they have in mind. In the animal kingdom, it seems cruel when mama birds push their babies out of the nest. Now I wonder if that’s a major evolutionary advantage. At a certain point, parents turn rancid. It’s best to fly away as fast as you can.
Overall, this book was emotional, a little triggering, and perhaps unnecessary. I will always love Britney because her music and personal strength got me through my own tough times, but I also understand that she is a product of pop culture and we may never truly understand what it’s like to be her.
In the copyright section, there is this puzzling note: "The right of Britney Jean Spears to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.” This is not the kind of note that assures readers Britney herself was the sole author of this book. That’s not to say another writer can’t articulate her feelings, and I’m sure she signed off on everything, but this is far from the “tell-all” big reveal fans, psychologists and pop culture fanatics have been dreaming of.
Of course it’s hard to tell all when you’re still processing years of abuse. Also, things change. The book must have been finalized some months back, since it ends on the pleasant note of implied martial success with Sam Asghari. They officially divorced back in August.
I think the rosy Sam sections were probably what Britney had in mind when she thought it would be “too hard” to read the audiobook herself. Fortunately Michelle Williams put in a stellar performance that not only breathes life into the text, but mimics Britney’s tonal quality so that it’s easy to imagine it’s her.
While The Woman in Me doesn’t always live up to the hype, it is still a must-read case study of American stardom and the dangers of relationships that anyone can find themselves in, to one degree or another.
February 23, 2024
Just imagine how strong a person has to be with a very toxic parasitic family (both parents, her own younger sister); the hyenas exploiting her all throughout these years and no one thought differently.
*Best memoir of 2023 **Most favourite new release of the year (fiction and non fiction combined) ***Best book which delivered much, much, much more than anticipated
Now her music video “Everytime” which came out 14 years ago hits differently in 2023 now we know exactly what she tried to say in the lyrics. Blood in her hands….dying…becoming alive again.
Oops! She did it again! You are an icon. And the other icons are the fans who made the #freebritney movement who could sense that she was held captive by her family.
*Best memoir of 2023 **Most favourite new release of the year (fiction and non fiction combined) ***Best book which delivered much, much, much more than anticipated
Now her music video “Everytime” which came out 14 years ago hits differently in 2023 now we know exactly what she tried to say in the lyrics. Blood in her hands….dying…becoming alive again.
Oops! She did it again! You are an icon. And the other icons are the fans who made the #freebritney movement who could sense that she was held captive by her family.
December 15, 2023
4 Stars
To be clear, this rating is not a review or judgment of Britney’s life, struggles, or journey. It’s just a reflection on how much I enjoyed the book as a reading experience.
I am almost the same exact age as Britney, so I feel like we grew up together. I was very much a fan of her, NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Backstreet...basically ALL the chart topping pop performers and bands of that time and genre (among others too, mind you). I remember having so much teenage envy for her life and her romance with Justin Timberlake.
Obviously we all watched from the outside as her life has unfolded since that time, whatever our perceptions.
This book reminded me that fame and fortune are not all they are cracked up to be. Britney has been treated like a cash register show pony for so many years of her life. Like a commodity of the world. The way she was targeted and treated by the media was virtually criminal.
Shame on the paparazzi.
Shame on people like Diane Sawyer.
Shame on all of us for creating the demand that prompted this treatment of another human being.
Who knows what the truth of anything really is...but this book is Britney's perception of her life and the ways things played out. And based on this book and just watching her story in the media for many years, it definitely seems like Britney has never (or at least not for many years) really had anyone in her life who wasn't there for ulterior motives. And that makes me sad for her.
I'm really happy she finally got to tell her story. I hope she finds happiness.
To be clear, this rating is not a review or judgment of Britney’s life, struggles, or journey. It’s just a reflection on how much I enjoyed the book as a reading experience.
I am almost the same exact age as Britney, so I feel like we grew up together. I was very much a fan of her, NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Backstreet...basically ALL the chart topping pop performers and bands of that time and genre (among others too, mind you). I remember having so much teenage envy for her life and her romance with Justin Timberlake.
Obviously we all watched from the outside as her life has unfolded since that time, whatever our perceptions.
This book reminded me that fame and fortune are not all they are cracked up to be. Britney has been treated like a cash register show pony for so many years of her life. Like a commodity of the world. The way she was targeted and treated by the media was virtually criminal.
Shame on the paparazzi.
Shame on people like Diane Sawyer.
Shame on all of us for creating the demand that prompted this treatment of another human being.
Who knows what the truth of anything really is...but this book is Britney's perception of her life and the ways things played out. And based on this book and just watching her story in the media for many years, it definitely seems like Britney has never (or at least not for many years) really had anyone in her life who wasn't there for ulterior motives. And that makes me sad for her.
I'm really happy she finally got to tell her story. I hope she finds happiness.
October 28, 2023
Moved to tears.
Poor Britney! Her highly anticipated memoir expertly read by actress Michelle Williams provides her fans with an insight into her sheltered world. Britney details her desire to make it big so she can escape poverty and an abusive household. As the daughter of a controlling alcoholic father, she longed for fame and fortune. Once she made it big, her family took advantage of her generosity instead of recognizing her loneliness, depression, and sadness.
After her infamous violent outburst where she shaved her head and attacked paparazzi, her father placed her in a conservatorship for thirteen years. During this time, all aspects of her life were strictly dictated by him, while he reaped the profits. The book highlights how she was brutally exploited for thirteen years and her consequent struggle to gain autonomy.
Britney does spill a few secrets, but the main takeaway from this book is that fame comes with a price and if you see something, say something.
While I found myself sobbing over the sad story of such a beloved superstar, I question why she does not mention being diagnosed with a mental illness as it has been widely reported. Is this true? Is she hiding more secrets? Probably.
Regardless, the book is well-written, contains emotional depth, and the audiobook is superb. Chef’s kiss to Michelle Williams!
Congratulations to Britney for all her achievements in the music industry as well as in her personal life. She truly is a superstar for being brave enough to share her story with the world.
I am forever your fan!
5/5 stars
Poor Britney! Her highly anticipated memoir expertly read by actress Michelle Williams provides her fans with an insight into her sheltered world. Britney details her desire to make it big so she can escape poverty and an abusive household. As the daughter of a controlling alcoholic father, she longed for fame and fortune. Once she made it big, her family took advantage of her generosity instead of recognizing her loneliness, depression, and sadness.
After her infamous violent outburst where she shaved her head and attacked paparazzi, her father placed her in a conservatorship for thirteen years. During this time, all aspects of her life were strictly dictated by him, while he reaped the profits. The book highlights how she was brutally exploited for thirteen years and her consequent struggle to gain autonomy.
Britney does spill a few secrets, but the main takeaway from this book is that fame comes with a price and if you see something, say something.
While I found myself sobbing over the sad story of such a beloved superstar, I question why she does not mention being diagnosed with a mental illness as it has been widely reported. Is this true? Is she hiding more secrets? Probably.
Regardless, the book is well-written, contains emotional depth, and the audiobook is superb. Chef’s kiss to Michelle Williams!
Congratulations to Britney for all her achievements in the music industry as well as in her personal life. She truly is a superstar for being brave enough to share her story with the world.
I am forever your fan!
5/5 stars
October 29, 2023
This is a generous 3 Stars..
The writing... honestly painful at times. Maybe about a 5th grade reading level, disjointed and abrupt chapter endings. That's on the ghostwriter, not Britney obv.
But for the story as a whole, I really wanted her to go deeper, into things that you can't really find on the internet.
The whole conservatorship is obviously sad, but we know so much of that story already- there was so much more I wanted from this and I feel like she shied away from it because they are touchy subjects- not saying SHE MUST WRITE THIS OR ELSE- just saying, HAD she .. it would have made for a killer memoir instead of the more surface level one we got- IN MY OPINION.
₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊
What a week for book releases!
As a millennial that grew up during the Britney era- I can't wait to read her story!
The writing... honestly painful at times. Maybe about a 5th grade reading level, disjointed and abrupt chapter endings. That's on the ghostwriter, not Britney obv.
But for the story as a whole, I really wanted her to go deeper, into things that you can't really find on the internet.
The whole conservatorship is obviously sad, but we know so much of that story already- there was so much more I wanted from this and I feel like she shied away from it because they are touchy subjects- not saying SHE MUST WRITE THIS OR ELSE- just saying, HAD she .. it would have made for a killer memoir instead of the more surface level one we got- IN MY OPINION.
₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊
What a week for book releases!
As a millennial that grew up during the Britney era- I can't wait to read her story!
November 15, 2023
sentindo ódio de muita gente
te amo britoca
te amo britoca
Read
November 9, 2023Oh Britney....
There aren't enough words to describe the heartache I feel for Britney Spears. I grew up listening to Britney and owned a few of her CD's that I would keep on replay. Unfortunately, as I grew older, I didn't keep up with her life. I remember hearing things here and there about some of her lowest points as portrayed by the media, but it wasn't until I began learning more about the conservatorship that I realized the amount of trauma she experienced. The amount of neglect and abuse experienced at the hands of her family, the media, and Justin just blew me away. Her story and legacy is the perfect example of "you never know what someone is going through." While she was getting taunted by the media and portrayed as the "harlot" that broke Justin's heart, Britney, in my opinion, was literally searching for an ideal situation or environment where she would not only be able to make decisions for herself, but thrive as a healthy adult. Coming from a family that showed no remorse in using her for personal gain, it does not surprise me that she sought comfort in situations that weren't always that great. It explains why she took the break up with Justin so hard and continued to protect him after he single-handedly launched his solo career while dragging her through the pits of hell to the media and anyone else that would listen. After reading this book, it amazes me that Britney has such determination to be such a kind and peaceful person. While some may look at this as a betrayal to Justin and her family, I find it empowering to know that she had the courage and willpower to share some of the most intimate moments of life while revealing the true nature of all parties involved. This book isn't about them or some immaculate revenge plot. It's Britney's space to work through and illustrate how the industry, her family, friends, and partners changed her into the person that she is now. It's the opportunity to create questions about what could have been had she just had one ounce of support from those closest to her. It must have been such a painful experience to draft the many ways in which so many people failed you as a person. But it must have given her so much pride to see how she pushed and fought to have her voice heard. I'm not sure if she knew that her book was going to garner such a positive response, but good for her. As I always say, it's not our job to dictate when someone should share their story. I don't care if it's a long after the fact. It's not fair to tell a victim how to process and heal.
Overall, I found this read to be both compelling and heartbreaking. Britney isn't the greatest writer, but it feels like an honor to be able to read what seems like a such a personal, intimate recollection of events. I hope that she continues to find peace and remain in it.
There aren't enough words to describe the heartache I feel for Britney Spears. I grew up listening to Britney and owned a few of her CD's that I would keep on replay. Unfortunately, as I grew older, I didn't keep up with her life. I remember hearing things here and there about some of her lowest points as portrayed by the media, but it wasn't until I began learning more about the conservatorship that I realized the amount of trauma she experienced. The amount of neglect and abuse experienced at the hands of her family, the media, and Justin just blew me away. Her story and legacy is the perfect example of "you never know what someone is going through." While she was getting taunted by the media and portrayed as the "harlot" that broke Justin's heart, Britney, in my opinion, was literally searching for an ideal situation or environment where she would not only be able to make decisions for herself, but thrive as a healthy adult. Coming from a family that showed no remorse in using her for personal gain, it does not surprise me that she sought comfort in situations that weren't always that great. It explains why she took the break up with Justin so hard and continued to protect him after he single-handedly launched his solo career while dragging her through the pits of hell to the media and anyone else that would listen. After reading this book, it amazes me that Britney has such determination to be such a kind and peaceful person. While some may look at this as a betrayal to Justin and her family, I find it empowering to know that she had the courage and willpower to share some of the most intimate moments of life while revealing the true nature of all parties involved. This book isn't about them or some immaculate revenge plot. It's Britney's space to work through and illustrate how the industry, her family, friends, and partners changed her into the person that she is now. It's the opportunity to create questions about what could have been had she just had one ounce of support from those closest to her. It must have been such a painful experience to draft the many ways in which so many people failed you as a person. But it must have given her so much pride to see how she pushed and fought to have her voice heard. I'm not sure if she knew that her book was going to garner such a positive response, but good for her. As I always say, it's not our job to dictate when someone should share their story. I don't care if it's a long after the fact. It's not fair to tell a victim how to process and heal.
Overall, I found this read to be both compelling and heartbreaking. Britney isn't the greatest writer, but it feels like an honor to be able to read what seems like a such a personal, intimate recollection of events. I hope that she continues to find peace and remain in it.
November 21, 2023
3 "thank you for the music and fun and clean house" stars !!!
Dear Britney....
As somebody who has distantly followed you for many years I knew very little about your life.
You see I so enjoyed listening to your pop bubblegum and dance grooves that I wanted to keep it to the music.
I saw how upset and irate you could become, heard distantly about family dysfunction and heartbreak as well as struggles with both substances and mental health.
I continued to dance. Your pretty brown eyes and routines brought me the simplest of joys. I heard you at the clubs and saw four of your concert shows and loved them all. The simple southern girl next door that loved McDonalds.
Whenever my home was in disarray...I would put on Britney (yes you Britney) and Madonna and Robyn and Rihanna too and in no time you ladies would whip my ass in shape and my house would be spic and span.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and perspectives with all of us.
I wish in my heart for you to
-continue on your journey of healing and get the assistance you need and deserve
-only have supportive and kind people in your life
-love and cherish your sons and whoever is in your chosen family
-find a great love
-continue to commune with God
-when you can- put out a new album or two so that I can continue to dance, laugh and clean with you plus I would love to share the biggest poutine on earth with you and giggle like crazy
Biggest hugs and well wishes
Jaidee
Dear Britney....
As somebody who has distantly followed you for many years I knew very little about your life.
You see I so enjoyed listening to your pop bubblegum and dance grooves that I wanted to keep it to the music.
I saw how upset and irate you could become, heard distantly about family dysfunction and heartbreak as well as struggles with both substances and mental health.
I continued to dance. Your pretty brown eyes and routines brought me the simplest of joys. I heard you at the clubs and saw four of your concert shows and loved them all. The simple southern girl next door that loved McDonalds.
Whenever my home was in disarray...I would put on Britney (yes you Britney) and Madonna and Robyn and Rihanna too and in no time you ladies would whip my ass in shape and my house would be spic and span.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and perspectives with all of us.
I wish in my heart for you to
-continue on your journey of healing and get the assistance you need and deserve
-only have supportive and kind people in your life
-love and cherish your sons and whoever is in your chosen family
-find a great love
-continue to commune with God
-when you can- put out a new album or two so that I can continue to dance, laugh and clean with you plus I would love to share the biggest poutine on earth with you and giggle like crazy
Biggest hugs and well wishes
Jaidee
November 29, 2023
Don’t miss my article on medium.com : https://medium.com/@niluferyozmekik/t...
What did I feel after reading the last words of this memoir? I felt the importance of liberating your potential by truly discovering who you are! But I'm also truly angered by how cruel and manipulative a family can be to exploit the talents of a woman, trying to steal her money, her possessions, her freedom, and finally her soul—demanding a piece of her in the worst way than paparazzi did to earn their wage. This is a stunning, highly thought-provoking must-read and the most alluring, argumentative memoir of the year! The winner is "It's Britney, bitch."
“In the Bible, it says your tongue is your sword. My tongue and my sword were me singing. My whole childhood, I sang. I sang along with the car radio on the way to dance class. I sang when I was sad. To me, singing was spiritual.”
That book made me ache, cry, scream in frustration, awe, resent, piss off, smile, and finally filled with empathy for a unique, unusual, eccentric talented woman who has been randomly bullied by the media. She was shunned, shamed, and criticized by people who have no idea about her life. She experienced slut and body shaming when she was only a teenager, asked if her breasts were real instead of acknowledging the musical achievements she succeeded in at a young age.
“Artists make things and play characters because they want an escape into faraway worlds, and escape was exactly what I needed. I wanted to live inside my dreams, my wonderful fictitious world, and never think about reality if I could help it. Singing bridged reality and fantasy, the world I was living in and the world that I desperately wanted to inhabit.”
She is coming from a very dysfunctional family which the people who never learn the meaning of love and respect in contrast showing their feelings in abuse and most distorted ways of dysfunctionality.
“…my grandfather June Spears Sr.-was abusive. Jean suffered the loss of a baby when he was only three days old. June sent Jean to Southeast Louisiana Hospital, a by-all-accounts horrible asylum in Mandeville, where she was put on lithium. In 1966, when she was thirty-one, my grandmother Jean shot herself with a shotgun on her infant son's grave, just over eight years after his death. I can't imagine the grief that she must have felt.”
She worked so hard to pursue her dreams without knowing the meaning of misogyny, mansplaining in big boys’ world without having a tactic to play the right game. She just wanted to perform and shine!
“I signed my name with a heart. I liked looking cute. Why did everyone treat me, even when I was a teenager, like I was dangerous?”
This was in contrast to her opposite-sex peers who became rising stars from the Mickey Mouse Club, gaslighting the fans with crocodile tears they shed after a wrongly reflected breakup story.
“Abortion was something I never could have imagined choosing for myself, but given the circumstances, that is what we did
I don't know if that was the right decision. If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn't want to be a father
“…. When I tell you it was painful-I can't begin to describe it. The pain was unbelievable. I went down to the ground on my knees, holding the toilet. For a long time, I couldn't move. To this day, it's one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.”
Britney is a dancer, singer, performer, mother, depressed, troubled, manipulated, captivated, institutionalized, but still, she’s a woman, a crying soul who wants to please the people she loves, and her only intention is to be loved in return.
This book tells the heart-wrenching story of a little Louisiana girl who loved white marbles, felt protected by her faith in God, loved the spotlight, used her dancing and singing skills to shine bright, and turned into a young woman burdened with responsibilities at a young age.
She never experienced a proper childhood with a drunk father and an argumentative mother who granted her enough freedom to drive a car at the age of thirteen. Even though she was underage, she purchased them a house, an act that displayed financial responsibility beyond her years. However, her family later chose to strip away her rights, coercing her into obedience—a child who had generated enough wealth to turn them into multimillionaires. This is the story of a girl who never had the chance to explore becoming a real woman, manipulated not only by her own family but also by the men in her life: a first love who compelled her to undergo an abortion in their shared house, leaving her bleeding on the bathroom floor, and a husband who was enamored with the seductive allure of fame and power, ultimately taking custody of their two children and betraying her trust in the most egregious ways.
For years, she was marketed as the girl next door, the young virgin, the teenage beauty, subjecting her to immense pressure and resulting in psychotic breaks, compounded by additional postpartum depression.
“With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom. No one would talk to me anymore because I was too ugly.
My long hair was a big part of what people liked -I knew that. I knew a lot of guys thought long hair was hot.
Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you.”
For years, from her Instagram videos to her creepy, awkward fashion style choices, or, let me say, most naked choreographies she performed on social media, adding blades to her dance, which alarmed most of us, made me roll my eyes and say to myself: what the heck is this woman trying to do. But when I read this book, I truly understood and empathized with the main reason for her peculiar behavior.
She’s performing whatever she likes because, after thirteen years of family prison—conservatorship—that put her life on pause to live for others, she has every right to be unleashed and liberate herself in whatever condition she chooses.
“From all those years making myself do what I was told and being treated in a certain way, I've come to see what kind of people I want to be around and what kind of people I don't. So much of the media was cruel to me, and that hasn't changed just because I am out of the conservatorship. There's been a lot of speculation about how I'm doing. I know my fans care. I am free now. I'm just being myself and trying to heal. I finally get to do what I want, when I want. And I don't take a minute of it for granted.”
She earned it. You may find it weird, unusual, but this is how she expresses herself. Thankfully, things started to change, and mental health awareness became a more crucial element in our lives, even though the increasing amount of cyberbullying, slut-body shaming still haunts people's lives on social media.
When we read the life story of Britney written in a genuine tone, we learn to understand that for years, most of us have not been fair with our judgments about her.
Freedom means being goofy, silly, and having fun on social media. Freedom means taking a break from Instagram without people calling 911. Freedom means being able to make mistakes, and learning from them. Freedom means I don't have to perform for anyone-onstage or offstage. Freedom means that I get to be as beautifully imperfect as everyone else. And freedom means the ability, and the right, to search for joy, in my own way, on my own terms.
She’s been framed, turned into a slave, and for years nobody extended a hand to take her out of her dark corner. That’s the most painful part of her story. When she couldn’t find enough love and support from her own family, including her mother and her sister—who already wrote their own biographies before her to emphasize how hard it is to live a life with her, even though she already left them behind and they still accommodate to the houses she’s bought for them—she decided to trust her fans’ devotion and the God who gave her patience to get through this compelling process.
“It took a long time and a lot of work for me to feel ready to tell my story. I hope it inspires people on some level and can touch hearts. Since I've been free, I've had to construct a whole different identity. I've had to say, wait a second, this is who I was-someone passive and pleasing. A girl. And this is who I am now-someone strong and confident. A woman.”
“Woman in Me” unveils not only the struggles of an iconic pop star but also the broader societal issues surrounding mental health, autonomy, and the exploitation of celebrities. Britney Spears' journey, as narrated in this memoir, serves as a stark reminder of the importance of empathy and understanding beyond the glitz and glamour of fame.
As we close the chapters of this gripping memoir, it prompts us to reflect on the collective responsibility we hold as a society to protect and uplift those who entertain us, rather than succumb to the allure of sensationalism and tabloid narratives. The resilience and determination Britney exhibited in breaking free from the chains of conservatorship inspire us to advocate for justice, compassion, and the basic human right to live one's life on one's terms.
A note: If there were Oscars for the best book narration category, Michelle Williams would undoubtedly receive high accolades for her extraordinary talent. She lent her voice to Britney's traumatic yet compelling, and ultimately inspirational and empowering life story. Williams adeptly conveyed the restrained emotions simmering beneath the surface, demonstrating both sensitivity and balanced objectivism. This approach allowed listeners to connect deeply with Britney and her unique life journey.
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What did I feel after reading the last words of this memoir? I felt the importance of liberating your potential by truly discovering who you are! But I'm also truly angered by how cruel and manipulative a family can be to exploit the talents of a woman, trying to steal her money, her possessions, her freedom, and finally her soul—demanding a piece of her in the worst way than paparazzi did to earn their wage. This is a stunning, highly thought-provoking must-read and the most alluring, argumentative memoir of the year! The winner is "It's Britney, bitch."
“In the Bible, it says your tongue is your sword. My tongue and my sword were me singing. My whole childhood, I sang. I sang along with the car radio on the way to dance class. I sang when I was sad. To me, singing was spiritual.”
That book made me ache, cry, scream in frustration, awe, resent, piss off, smile, and finally filled with empathy for a unique, unusual, eccentric talented woman who has been randomly bullied by the media. She was shunned, shamed, and criticized by people who have no idea about her life. She experienced slut and body shaming when she was only a teenager, asked if her breasts were real instead of acknowledging the musical achievements she succeeded in at a young age.
“Artists make things and play characters because they want an escape into faraway worlds, and escape was exactly what I needed. I wanted to live inside my dreams, my wonderful fictitious world, and never think about reality if I could help it. Singing bridged reality and fantasy, the world I was living in and the world that I desperately wanted to inhabit.”
She is coming from a very dysfunctional family which the people who never learn the meaning of love and respect in contrast showing their feelings in abuse and most distorted ways of dysfunctionality.
“…my grandfather June Spears Sr.-was abusive. Jean suffered the loss of a baby when he was only three days old. June sent Jean to Southeast Louisiana Hospital, a by-all-accounts horrible asylum in Mandeville, where she was put on lithium. In 1966, when she was thirty-one, my grandmother Jean shot herself with a shotgun on her infant son's grave, just over eight years after his death. I can't imagine the grief that she must have felt.”
She worked so hard to pursue her dreams without knowing the meaning of misogyny, mansplaining in big boys’ world without having a tactic to play the right game. She just wanted to perform and shine!
“I signed my name with a heart. I liked looking cute. Why did everyone treat me, even when I was a teenager, like I was dangerous?”
This was in contrast to her opposite-sex peers who became rising stars from the Mickey Mouse Club, gaslighting the fans with crocodile tears they shed after a wrongly reflected breakup story.
“Abortion was something I never could have imagined choosing for myself, but given the circumstances, that is what we did
I don't know if that was the right decision. If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn't want to be a father
“…. When I tell you it was painful-I can't begin to describe it. The pain was unbelievable. I went down to the ground on my knees, holding the toilet. For a long time, I couldn't move. To this day, it's one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.”
Britney is a dancer, singer, performer, mother, depressed, troubled, manipulated, captivated, institutionalized, but still, she’s a woman, a crying soul who wants to please the people she loves, and her only intention is to be loved in return.
This book tells the heart-wrenching story of a little Louisiana girl who loved white marbles, felt protected by her faith in God, loved the spotlight, used her dancing and singing skills to shine bright, and turned into a young woman burdened with responsibilities at a young age.
She never experienced a proper childhood with a drunk father and an argumentative mother who granted her enough freedom to drive a car at the age of thirteen. Even though she was underage, she purchased them a house, an act that displayed financial responsibility beyond her years. However, her family later chose to strip away her rights, coercing her into obedience—a child who had generated enough wealth to turn them into multimillionaires. This is the story of a girl who never had the chance to explore becoming a real woman, manipulated not only by her own family but also by the men in her life: a first love who compelled her to undergo an abortion in their shared house, leaving her bleeding on the bathroom floor, and a husband who was enamored with the seductive allure of fame and power, ultimately taking custody of their two children and betraying her trust in the most egregious ways.
For years, she was marketed as the girl next door, the young virgin, the teenage beauty, subjecting her to immense pressure and resulting in psychotic breaks, compounded by additional postpartum depression.
“With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom. No one would talk to me anymore because I was too ugly.
My long hair was a big part of what people liked -I knew that. I knew a lot of guys thought long hair was hot.
Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you.”
For years, from her Instagram videos to her creepy, awkward fashion style choices, or, let me say, most naked choreographies she performed on social media, adding blades to her dance, which alarmed most of us, made me roll my eyes and say to myself: what the heck is this woman trying to do. But when I read this book, I truly understood and empathized with the main reason for her peculiar behavior.
She’s performing whatever she likes because, after thirteen years of family prison—conservatorship—that put her life on pause to live for others, she has every right to be unleashed and liberate herself in whatever condition she chooses.
“From all those years making myself do what I was told and being treated in a certain way, I've come to see what kind of people I want to be around and what kind of people I don't. So much of the media was cruel to me, and that hasn't changed just because I am out of the conservatorship. There's been a lot of speculation about how I'm doing. I know my fans care. I am free now. I'm just being myself and trying to heal. I finally get to do what I want, when I want. And I don't take a minute of it for granted.”
She earned it. You may find it weird, unusual, but this is how she expresses herself. Thankfully, things started to change, and mental health awareness became a more crucial element in our lives, even though the increasing amount of cyberbullying, slut-body shaming still haunts people's lives on social media.
When we read the life story of Britney written in a genuine tone, we learn to understand that for years, most of us have not been fair with our judgments about her.
Freedom means being goofy, silly, and having fun on social media. Freedom means taking a break from Instagram without people calling 911. Freedom means being able to make mistakes, and learning from them. Freedom means I don't have to perform for anyone-onstage or offstage. Freedom means that I get to be as beautifully imperfect as everyone else. And freedom means the ability, and the right, to search for joy, in my own way, on my own terms.
She’s been framed, turned into a slave, and for years nobody extended a hand to take her out of her dark corner. That’s the most painful part of her story. When she couldn’t find enough love and support from her own family, including her mother and her sister—who already wrote their own biographies before her to emphasize how hard it is to live a life with her, even though she already left them behind and they still accommodate to the houses she’s bought for them—she decided to trust her fans’ devotion and the God who gave her patience to get through this compelling process.
“It took a long time and a lot of work for me to feel ready to tell my story. I hope it inspires people on some level and can touch hearts. Since I've been free, I've had to construct a whole different identity. I've had to say, wait a second, this is who I was-someone passive and pleasing. A girl. And this is who I am now-someone strong and confident. A woman.”
“Woman in Me” unveils not only the struggles of an iconic pop star but also the broader societal issues surrounding mental health, autonomy, and the exploitation of celebrities. Britney Spears' journey, as narrated in this memoir, serves as a stark reminder of the importance of empathy and understanding beyond the glitz and glamour of fame.
As we close the chapters of this gripping memoir, it prompts us to reflect on the collective responsibility we hold as a society to protect and uplift those who entertain us, rather than succumb to the allure of sensationalism and tabloid narratives. The resilience and determination Britney exhibited in breaking free from the chains of conservatorship inspire us to advocate for justice, compassion, and the basic human right to live one's life on one's terms.
A note: If there were Oscars for the best book narration category, Michelle Williams would undoubtedly receive high accolades for her extraordinary talent. She lent her voice to Britney's traumatic yet compelling, and ultimately inspirational and empowering life story. Williams adeptly conveyed the restrained emotions simmering beneath the surface, demonstrating both sensitivity and balanced objectivism. This approach allowed listeners to connect deeply with Britney and her unique life journey.
Follow me on medium.com to read my articles about books, movies, streaming series, astrology:
medium blog
October 24, 2023
yes, you will cry
November 1, 2023
First of all, I would like to say that, being a 90s kid, I loved Britney Spears growing up. That being said, I am not an undying Britney stan who will ignore all the problematic behaviors she exhibits, simply because of who she is. If her IG wasn't proof enough of her instability, this book does her absolutely no favors. The writing comes off as disjointed, almost manic at times--the naïve, childlike, angry ramblings of someone with no insight into her behavior. It does very little to counter the claims of her mental instability and inability to govern herself.
For example, she admits to using Adderall and OTC caffeine/energy supplements, and with the way she rambles in her own writing, it doesn't take much to believe that she did indeed abuse them, which is what she says her doctors and her father was accusing her of multiple times in the book. Her own thought process in the book just makes her come across as a speed freak in denial. It's also very clear that she has the mentality of a child. There's a part in the book where she says she went through a battery of cognitive testing and was told by her father that she failed, and I don't doubt that was true and not just something that her father said to her. With the way she presents her thoughts in this book and the level of naïveté that comes across, you end up wondering if there is some sort of intellectual deficiency going on, or if it's just an extreme failure in her education, due to working in the entertainment business since she was a child and likely nobody prioritizing that for her. Either way, it's very clear that she doesn't possess the thought processes one would expect of someone her age.
To be clear, I believe that assertion that she makes in this book that the conservatorship was about money and control by her family. That fact is very clear. There were egregious abuses committed against her by the people involved. That being said, it is also very clear that she is extremely mentally ill, and I can very easily see how she could've been kept in that situation for so long because she displays no insight into her own problematic behaviors, and she does not present the way a sane 40 year old adult should.
I honestly think she is permanently broken, and I'm sad for her and especially for her kids. I don't think she's particularly interested in getting help, because I don't think she thinks there's anything wrong with her; which, is her prerogative now, I guess. At the very least, I hope she finds some semblance of peace and happiness.
At the end of the day, this book wasn't worth the read. While I wasn't expecting award-winning writing, I find it hard to believe that she wrote this book by herself, and I have no idea why the ghost writers, the editors, and her lawyers didn't do a better job cleaning up this book and at least helping her to present her side of the story in a way that doesn't end up making you wonder if the conservatorship was justified and is, in someways, maybe still needed--albeit, without her family's involvement.
For example, she admits to using Adderall and OTC caffeine/energy supplements, and with the way she rambles in her own writing, it doesn't take much to believe that she did indeed abuse them, which is what she says her doctors and her father was accusing her of multiple times in the book. Her own thought process in the book just makes her come across as a speed freak in denial. It's also very clear that she has the mentality of a child. There's a part in the book where she says she went through a battery of cognitive testing and was told by her father that she failed, and I don't doubt that was true and not just something that her father said to her. With the way she presents her thoughts in this book and the level of naïveté that comes across, you end up wondering if there is some sort of intellectual deficiency going on, or if it's just an extreme failure in her education, due to working in the entertainment business since she was a child and likely nobody prioritizing that for her. Either way, it's very clear that she doesn't possess the thought processes one would expect of someone her age.
To be clear, I believe that assertion that she makes in this book that the conservatorship was about money and control by her family. That fact is very clear. There were egregious abuses committed against her by the people involved. That being said, it is also very clear that she is extremely mentally ill, and I can very easily see how she could've been kept in that situation for so long because she displays no insight into her own problematic behaviors, and she does not present the way a sane 40 year old adult should.
I honestly think she is permanently broken, and I'm sad for her and especially for her kids. I don't think she's particularly interested in getting help, because I don't think she thinks there's anything wrong with her; which, is her prerogative now, I guess. At the very least, I hope she finds some semblance of peace and happiness.
At the end of the day, this book wasn't worth the read. While I wasn't expecting award-winning writing, I find it hard to believe that she wrote this book by herself, and I have no idea why the ghost writers, the editors, and her lawyers didn't do a better job cleaning up this book and at least helping her to present her side of the story in a way that doesn't end up making you wonder if the conservatorship was justified and is, in someways, maybe still needed--albeit, without her family's involvement.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
December 30, 2023Source of book: Bought by meee
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
*******************************************
I have no idea how to talk meaningfully about this.
I mean, I’m a fan of Britney Spears, in the way I’m a fan of most of the things I like, which is to say I’m invested in the art, and don’t consider the person who created it to be my business (although, of course, that’s slightly more complicated when you’re talking about music which is not so easily extricable from the performer unlike, you know, art or books or whatever). What makes this extra disorientating as far as Britney is concerned is that—as far as I can tell—her life was very much treated as everybody’s business in ways it absolutely shouldn’t for literally years. In the end, though, I felt I kind of, I don’t know, almost like I … owed her (insofar as one can owe anything to a public figure) to read her own damn words? Pay her money that would actually belong to and be used by her. Rather than just listening to her music and trying to ignore the abuses that have been heaped on this one woman artistically, culturally, legally and at the hands of her own family for almost her entire life.
It's a fairly short read, though not exactly an easy one. And while there’s a few juicy and/or agonising anecdotes in there (all of which are already highly publicised—Britney’s bathroom floor abortion, Timberlake’s fo shiz, Jamie Spears’ “I’m Britney Spears now”) assuming you’re even passingly familiar with the life and work of Britney Spears, it’s not going to tell you anything you don’t already know or have already guessed. What is important about it—and what, honestly, I found quite moving—is that it comes across like the first thing that has existed in the public domain (bar a collection of highly quirky and specific Instagram posts) that feels true Britney herself.
Or rather true to whatever sense of Britney Spears as a person I have semi-parasocially constructed in my head based on the inescapable nature of the publicly available information about her and bog-standard human empathy.
And, of course, the book is the work of a ghost writer. But whoever they are (and Britney does thank them obliquely in the book itself) they’ve done, as far as I’m concerned, a really impressive job. It feels like Britney trusted them. And as a consequence, the book is engagingly written, doesn’t overstay its welcome, and captures something—to use another complicated word—authentic? There’s a simmering anger here, understandably, but also the same soft-spoken gentleness familiar from the spoken interviews Britney has conducted over the years (sometimes with extraordinarily hostile interviewers). She speaks (writes? One of the strengths of the book is that it really does come across as Britney sharing her thoughts unmediated) with clarity and certainty, and without self-pity or pretension, about the various double-standards, cruelties and injustices that have shaped her life. It’s harrowing and infuriating and painful. It’s, frankly, astonishing she survived it.
I also kind of got the sense, rightly or wrongly, that Britney didn’t actually want to dwell on any of this; the problem is her life is just a cavalcade of it. I mean not, don’t get me wrong, necessarily moreso than anyone else’s: then again, I can’t think of many people who’ve had the entirety of a sportsball stadium boo them for breaking up with a boy. She does, however, go out of her way to offer us glimpses of happier moments: her collaboration with Madonna, Mariah Carey’s LIGHT (a story that could have made its subject ridiculous, but was told so terribly kindly) the time Oprah Winfrey told her publicly that her sexuality was nobody’s business, the time Paris Hilton, of all people, came through for her. Some of my favourite sections touched upon her joy in singing and performance. She’s too humble to boast of her accomplishments, other than being a damn hard worker, but it’s also clear that she’s always had a vision for herself, one she had power and confidence to execute—before that power and confidence was stripped from her.
There are a lot of—far too many—reasons to feel sad and angry on Britney’s behalf. It has always, if I’m honest, slightly killed me how eager we have culturally been to diminish Britney, not just as a person, but as an artist. As if she always been nothing but the rote-performing mannequin her own family tried to make her. Instead of someone with real talent, passion and agency. Right at the beginning of the book, Britney tells us that singing is her truest voice, the one that allows her to express herself most fully. It’s fucked all the way up that we couldn’t even let her have that. I hope for her sake, as well as selfishly for my own, that she finds her way back to her art, her selfhood and her voice.
And if this book is all of her voice she’s willing or able to give at the moment or for the rest of her life: I’m glad I listened.
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
*******************************************
I have no idea how to talk meaningfully about this.
I mean, I’m a fan of Britney Spears, in the way I’m a fan of most of the things I like, which is to say I’m invested in the art, and don’t consider the person who created it to be my business (although, of course, that’s slightly more complicated when you’re talking about music which is not so easily extricable from the performer unlike, you know, art or books or whatever). What makes this extra disorientating as far as Britney is concerned is that—as far as I can tell—her life was very much treated as everybody’s business in ways it absolutely shouldn’t for literally years. In the end, though, I felt I kind of, I don’t know, almost like I … owed her (insofar as one can owe anything to a public figure) to read her own damn words? Pay her money that would actually belong to and be used by her. Rather than just listening to her music and trying to ignore the abuses that have been heaped on this one woman artistically, culturally, legally and at the hands of her own family for almost her entire life.
It's a fairly short read, though not exactly an easy one. And while there’s a few juicy and/or agonising anecdotes in there (all of which are already highly publicised—Britney’s bathroom floor abortion, Timberlake’s fo shiz, Jamie Spears’ “I’m Britney Spears now”) assuming you’re even passingly familiar with the life and work of Britney Spears, it’s not going to tell you anything you don’t already know or have already guessed. What is important about it—and what, honestly, I found quite moving—is that it comes across like the first thing that has existed in the public domain (bar a collection of highly quirky and specific Instagram posts) that feels true Britney herself.
Or rather true to whatever sense of Britney Spears as a person I have semi-parasocially constructed in my head based on the inescapable nature of the publicly available information about her and bog-standard human empathy.
And, of course, the book is the work of a ghost writer. But whoever they are (and Britney does thank them obliquely in the book itself) they’ve done, as far as I’m concerned, a really impressive job. It feels like Britney trusted them. And as a consequence, the book is engagingly written, doesn’t overstay its welcome, and captures something—to use another complicated word—authentic? There’s a simmering anger here, understandably, but also the same soft-spoken gentleness familiar from the spoken interviews Britney has conducted over the years (sometimes with extraordinarily hostile interviewers). She speaks (writes? One of the strengths of the book is that it really does come across as Britney sharing her thoughts unmediated) with clarity and certainty, and without self-pity or pretension, about the various double-standards, cruelties and injustices that have shaped her life. It’s harrowing and infuriating and painful. It’s, frankly, astonishing she survived it.
I also kind of got the sense, rightly or wrongly, that Britney didn’t actually want to dwell on any of this; the problem is her life is just a cavalcade of it. I mean not, don’t get me wrong, necessarily moreso than anyone else’s: then again, I can’t think of many people who’ve had the entirety of a sportsball stadium boo them for breaking up with a boy. She does, however, go out of her way to offer us glimpses of happier moments: her collaboration with Madonna, Mariah Carey’s LIGHT (a story that could have made its subject ridiculous, but was told so terribly kindly) the time Oprah Winfrey told her publicly that her sexuality was nobody’s business, the time Paris Hilton, of all people, came through for her. Some of my favourite sections touched upon her joy in singing and performance. She’s too humble to boast of her accomplishments, other than being a damn hard worker, but it’s also clear that she’s always had a vision for herself, one she had power and confidence to execute—before that power and confidence was stripped from her.
The night before we recorded “… Baby One More Time,” I was listening to Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” and fell in love with that sound. I stayed up late so that I’d go into the studio tired, my voice fried. It worked. When I sang, it came out gravelly in a way that sounded more mature and sexier.
Once I felt what was happening, I became so focused on the recording. And Max listened to me. When I said I wanted more R&B in my voice, less straight pop, he knew what I meant and he made it happen.
Then, when all the songs were done, someone said, “What else can you do? Do you want to dance now?”
I said, “Do I want to dance? Hell yeah, I do!”
There are a lot of—far too many—reasons to feel sad and angry on Britney’s behalf. It has always, if I’m honest, slightly killed me how eager we have culturally been to diminish Britney, not just as a person, but as an artist. As if she always been nothing but the rote-performing mannequin her own family tried to make her. Instead of someone with real talent, passion and agency. Right at the beginning of the book, Britney tells us that singing is her truest voice, the one that allows her to express herself most fully. It’s fucked all the way up that we couldn’t even let her have that. I hope for her sake, as well as selfishly for my own, that she finds her way back to her art, her selfhood and her voice.
And if this book is all of her voice she’s willing or able to give at the moment or for the rest of her life: I’m glad I listened.
December 22, 2023
I read this because of the conservatorship but also enjoyed reading more about her and her life and how she came to be where she is now.
Most of you know that I’m an attorney and I actually do this kind of work. I am in fact a conservator myself, I take care of a disabled veteran - pay his bills, make decisions about his healthcare, stuff like that. I also talk to him on the phone most days and during Covid I would pick up cigarettes for him and other stuff he needed but could not have delivered otherwise. He has no family and we have a connection as veterans and I really don’t mind helping him. And I do not make that much money for the work and time spent as his conservator.
When all the conservatorship issues with Britney came up there was also a film that came out about the same time, I Care A Lot, and many of us who practice in this area met with our judge and we discussed all of these issues. In my state someone can be disabled but still not need a conservator, I think this is true in most jurisdictions. Laws are set up to prevent someone from being taking advantage of and / or lost in the system. I recall our judge, who I greatly admire and respect, saying something to the effect of “can you even imagine this happening in this courtroom?” While the film shed light on abuses that could possibly happen, it was mostly wild fiction.
The Britney Spears case, though, was bizarre. Folks who become wards of the court and whose lives are controlled by a conservator are usually very low functioning. They might have a part-time job at the grocery store or sweeping up at a family owned business. Most don’t work at all, cannot sustain employment in any fashion. How could she perform the way she did and still need a conservator? How could she dance and sing, with all the hours and hours of practice and choreography required, and appear on TV shows and meet fans and the public, and need a conservator? Another attorney and I looked at each other and decided we knew what the answer must be:
California.
I am very much a proponent of Justice Brandies’ famous adage about laboratories of democracy, advocating for a robust federal system where different states can have divergent procedural and even substantive laws concerning a great many areas of law. If the voters in California want those kinds of laws for conservators that’s their business.
But damn.
Anyway, this was entertaining but also maddening and depressing and lots of it was just sad. According to Britney, her parents were terrible, basically taking over her life for years. Many articles available online tell a different version of events, saying the conservatorship saved her life. Life can be complicated, there is much greater nuance to most things than what headlines tell us. I do find it noteworthy that while Britney supposedly needed a conservatorship, lived under the draconian rule of her over-controlling father, she did hundreds of shows and made lots of people millions of dollars, including this same father.
This was written in a very informal, conversational style, easy to read and for the most part a good book. I also believe that, like many autobiographies, there was a lot that was left out. Even considering the gross misapplication of justice that took place for Britney, she glossed over much of the evidence against her. To be fair, she conceded a great deal as well. While this was never quite a torrid and steamy tell all, her relationship with Justin Timberlake and Kevin Federline and other celebrities does get some page time and we get to know some behind the scenes stories that were intriguing. We also get to know Britney the mother and her love for her sons was genuine and her pain at losing so much time with them was sincere.
Most of you know that I’m an attorney and I actually do this kind of work. I am in fact a conservator myself, I take care of a disabled veteran - pay his bills, make decisions about his healthcare, stuff like that. I also talk to him on the phone most days and during Covid I would pick up cigarettes for him and other stuff he needed but could not have delivered otherwise. He has no family and we have a connection as veterans and I really don’t mind helping him. And I do not make that much money for the work and time spent as his conservator.
When all the conservatorship issues with Britney came up there was also a film that came out about the same time, I Care A Lot, and many of us who practice in this area met with our judge and we discussed all of these issues. In my state someone can be disabled but still not need a conservator, I think this is true in most jurisdictions. Laws are set up to prevent someone from being taking advantage of and / or lost in the system. I recall our judge, who I greatly admire and respect, saying something to the effect of “can you even imagine this happening in this courtroom?” While the film shed light on abuses that could possibly happen, it was mostly wild fiction.
The Britney Spears case, though, was bizarre. Folks who become wards of the court and whose lives are controlled by a conservator are usually very low functioning. They might have a part-time job at the grocery store or sweeping up at a family owned business. Most don’t work at all, cannot sustain employment in any fashion. How could she perform the way she did and still need a conservator? How could she dance and sing, with all the hours and hours of practice and choreography required, and appear on TV shows and meet fans and the public, and need a conservator? Another attorney and I looked at each other and decided we knew what the answer must be:
California.
I am very much a proponent of Justice Brandies’ famous adage about laboratories of democracy, advocating for a robust federal system where different states can have divergent procedural and even substantive laws concerning a great many areas of law. If the voters in California want those kinds of laws for conservators that’s their business.
But damn.
Anyway, this was entertaining but also maddening and depressing and lots of it was just sad. According to Britney, her parents were terrible, basically taking over her life for years. Many articles available online tell a different version of events, saying the conservatorship saved her life. Life can be complicated, there is much greater nuance to most things than what headlines tell us. I do find it noteworthy that while Britney supposedly needed a conservatorship, lived under the draconian rule of her over-controlling father, she did hundreds of shows and made lots of people millions of dollars, including this same father.
This was written in a very informal, conversational style, easy to read and for the most part a good book. I also believe that, like many autobiographies, there was a lot that was left out. Even considering the gross misapplication of justice that took place for Britney, she glossed over much of the evidence against her. To be fair, she conceded a great deal as well. While this was never quite a torrid and steamy tell all, her relationship with Justin Timberlake and Kevin Federline and other celebrities does get some page time and we get to know some behind the scenes stories that were intriguing. We also get to know Britney the mother and her love for her sons was genuine and her pain at losing so much time with them was sincere.
October 25, 2023
5/5
Ironiškai šyptelėjot, pamatę šią knygą ir mano įvertinimą? Tikriausiai jum reikia ją perskaityti. Kada nors juokėtės iš Britnės, nufotkintos paparacų, besiskutančios galvą, verkiančios su vaiku ant kelių? Pagalvojot, kad per stora? Per durna? Kekšė? Tikriausiai jum reikia ją perskaityti. Su Britne augot? Daug ką jau ir taip žinosit. Ir nenustebins literatūrine išmone, bet ar žadėjo? Gal Britne nepatikėsit, bet mano pirmasis instinktas – visada tikėti auka. Kol neįrodyta kitaip. Ypač, kai kalba moteris. Ypač, kai ilgai tylėjo. Ypač, kai matėme milijardierę savo tėvo kalinę, negalinčią spręsti nei ką valgyti, nei kiek laiko leisti su savo vaikais, priverstą dirbti, įrašinėti ir nuolat žeminamą, negaunančią savo pačios uždirbtų pinigų, bet labai ilgai nieko nedarėme. Ar bus vietų, kurios kels šypseną skeptiškesniam skaitytojui? Žinoma. Bet pavadinimas – raktas. Joje yra moteris, bet kai tiek metų su tavimi elgiasi kaip su vaiku, o dar ir ypač kvailu, kurį nevengia ir paspirti, ir nuolat pažeminti, imi elgtis kaip vaikas.
Eilinis įrodymas, kad kai vyrams leidžiama viskas, daug pasiekusioms moterims reikia dantimis išsiplėšti pagarbą. Ypač jei mėgsta elgtis ir rengtis mergaitiškai. Jei kuria pop muziką. Jei yra blondinės. Augau laikais, kada iš Britnės juoktis buvo bene gero tono ženklas. Ar laikai pasikeitė? Ar jai užgrojus per radiją neapsimetat, kad žodžius žinot truputį ironiškai? Pamenu, kad net mane, tuo metu gal septynerių, Britnę mylinčią iki skausmo, pašiepė kas netingėjo. Nemanau, kad dabar, kai man 27, kas nors labai pasikeitė. Ir man nereikėjo stengtis, kad jos istorijomis patikėčiau. Vietomis pasakojamomis naivokai, bet visada šviesiai, su humoru, aiškiai suvokiant save ir aplinkinius. Skaitydama mačiau moterį, su kuria labai daug metų buvo elgiamasi neatleistinai. Ir ji vis tiek randa gerą žodį bene kiekvienam. Nesuvedinėja sąskaitų – tikrai ne taip, kaip galėtų. Nenešioja pletkų. Teisina skriaudėjus, kaip aukoms ir būdinga. Ir po tiek metų, kai su ja elgėsi kaip su vaiku, bando savyje rasti moterį.
Ironiškai šyptelėjot, pamatę šią knygą ir mano įvertinimą? Tikriausiai jum reikia ją perskaityti. Kada nors juokėtės iš Britnės, nufotkintos paparacų, besiskutančios galvą, verkiančios su vaiku ant kelių? Pagalvojot, kad per stora? Per durna? Kekšė? Tikriausiai jum reikia ją perskaityti. Su Britne augot? Daug ką jau ir taip žinosit. Ir nenustebins literatūrine išmone, bet ar žadėjo? Gal Britne nepatikėsit, bet mano pirmasis instinktas – visada tikėti auka. Kol neįrodyta kitaip. Ypač, kai kalba moteris. Ypač, kai ilgai tylėjo. Ypač, kai matėme milijardierę savo tėvo kalinę, negalinčią spręsti nei ką valgyti, nei kiek laiko leisti su savo vaikais, priverstą dirbti, įrašinėti ir nuolat žeminamą, negaunančią savo pačios uždirbtų pinigų, bet labai ilgai nieko nedarėme. Ar bus vietų, kurios kels šypseną skeptiškesniam skaitytojui? Žinoma. Bet pavadinimas – raktas. Joje yra moteris, bet kai tiek metų su tavimi elgiasi kaip su vaiku, o dar ir ypač kvailu, kurį nevengia ir paspirti, ir nuolat pažeminti, imi elgtis kaip vaikas.
Eilinis įrodymas, kad kai vyrams leidžiama viskas, daug pasiekusioms moterims reikia dantimis išsiplėšti pagarbą. Ypač jei mėgsta elgtis ir rengtis mergaitiškai. Jei kuria pop muziką. Jei yra blondinės. Augau laikais, kada iš Britnės juoktis buvo bene gero tono ženklas. Ar laikai pasikeitė? Ar jai užgrojus per radiją neapsimetat, kad žodžius žinot truputį ironiškai? Pamenu, kad net mane, tuo metu gal septynerių, Britnę mylinčią iki skausmo, pašiepė kas netingėjo. Nemanau, kad dabar, kai man 27, kas nors labai pasikeitė. Ir man nereikėjo stengtis, kad jos istorijomis patikėčiau. Vietomis pasakojamomis naivokai, bet visada šviesiai, su humoru, aiškiai suvokiant save ir aplinkinius. Skaitydama mačiau moterį, su kuria labai daug metų buvo elgiamasi neatleistinai. Ir ji vis tiek randa gerą žodį bene kiekvienam. Nesuvedinėja sąskaitų – tikrai ne taip, kaip galėtų. Nenešioja pletkų. Teisina skriaudėjus, kaip aukoms ir būdinga. Ir po tiek metų, kai su ja elgėsi kaip su vaiku, bando savyje rasti moterį.
October 26, 2023
5.5 hours at 1X speed. An audiobook listener can binge this easily in an afternoon. Michelle Williams narrates the audiobook and I thought she did a good job.
The book was ghostwritten and imo the first 40% seems too simple. It glosses over too many things and feels like a biography (it felt distanced). It’s when we hit the 40% mark that Britneys voice really shines through.
This is such a sad memoir and not really a tell all. If you want to understand what Britney has been through and what has driven her to act out at times, then I recommend you pick this up. I feel so much for her and want only good things for her. Her family and all the stupid men in her life can fly a kite!
Britney reminded me to see beyond what is portrayed on an IG feed or a photo in a gossip magazine. What would you do if your children were taken away from you? How would you react if the paparazzi followed you around constantly and caught you at your worst moments? How would you feel if your mother wrote a memoir about your mental breakdown and promoted it on tv instead of helping you or standing by your side when you needed her most? How would you feel if you didn’t have control over what you ate each day?
I loved how she talked about sexism and double standards in the music industry and her admiration for Madonna. I love seeing and hearing her take back the power that was once not hers. A strong and powerful message.
Everyone in her life has used her for their own fortune and fame and I don’t blame her that she uses mystery to surround her true self.
I hope and pray that this story brings her peace and she finds comfort in people who love her for exactly who she is. A woman just wanting to be accepted and loved for the silly, lovable and spicy woman that she is.
The book was ghostwritten and imo the first 40% seems too simple. It glosses over too many things and feels like a biography (it felt distanced). It’s when we hit the 40% mark that Britneys voice really shines through.
This is such a sad memoir and not really a tell all. If you want to understand what Britney has been through and what has driven her to act out at times, then I recommend you pick this up. I feel so much for her and want only good things for her. Her family and all the stupid men in her life can fly a kite!
Britney reminded me to see beyond what is portrayed on an IG feed or a photo in a gossip magazine. What would you do if your children were taken away from you? How would you react if the paparazzi followed you around constantly and caught you at your worst moments? How would you feel if your mother wrote a memoir about your mental breakdown and promoted it on tv instead of helping you or standing by your side when you needed her most? How would you feel if you didn’t have control over what you ate each day?
I loved how she talked about sexism and double standards in the music industry and her admiration for Madonna. I love seeing and hearing her take back the power that was once not hers. A strong and powerful message.
Everyone in her life has used her for their own fortune and fame and I don’t blame her that she uses mystery to surround her true self.
I hope and pray that this story brings her peace and she finds comfort in people who love her for exactly who she is. A woman just wanting to be accepted and loved for the silly, lovable and spicy woman that she is.
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