Hot on the heels of publishing her seminal memoir, The Woman in Me – already being pegged as the book of 2023 – Britney Spears has also teased new music. Taking to her Instagram account, the singer revealed in a lengthy caption alongside a still from her 2001 hit, Overprotected, that she has penned a new song, writing:
“I wrote a new song!!! Hate you to like me!!! No beef with anyone … just being a narcissist in a claimed, self-entitled way!!! It’s to accumulate interest by giving ego with my eyes closed because I hear important people do that these days.”
The pop culture icon skyrocketed to fame in the late 1990s, becoming one of the most recognisable and influential figures in the entertainment industry.
Her journey to stardom had begun at a young age when she auditioned for Disney Channel’s The Mickey Mouse Club. But, it was her debut single Baby One More Time in 1998 that turned her into an overnight sensation. The catchy tune and provocative music video made her a pop sensation, setting the stage for a successful career.
Britney then quickly evolved into a cultural icon, known for her unique blend of pop music, provocative image, and electrifying performances.
She captured the zeitgeist of the late 90s and early 2000s, influencing fashion, music, and the concept of celebrity. Her albums, including Oops!… I Did It Again and In the Zone, solidified her status as a pop diva, and she became a role model for a generation.
However, in 2008, amidst a highly publicised personal and professional struggle, Britney was placed under a legal conservatorship led by her father, Jamie Spears.
The conservatorship essentially handed control of her financial and personal affairs to a team of appointed individuals and, while this arrangement persisted for more than a decade, it didn’t come to light in the public eye until 2021.
Ultimately, the fan-driven #FreeBritney campaign, which aimed to raise awareness about her situation and advocate for her legal freedom, was born, and in June 2021, after a series of court hearings and a groundswell of public support, Britney was granted the right to hire her own attorney and begin the legal process to terminate the conservatorship.
In November 2021, the court officially ended the conservatorship, marking a significant victory for her autonomy and personal freedom.
And now, Britney is ready to share her story in her own words and is set to release a memoir, The Woman in Me, on October 24, 2023.
Here’s everything you need to know about the book…
Where can I buy Britney’s memoir?
Britney Spears’ memoir The Woman in Me is available to order though through Booktopia and Dymocks.
Who wrote Britney’s memoir?
Britney didn’t pen The Woman in Me entirely by herself. She, like many other celebrities who have released a memoir, had the help of a ghostwriter. In Britney’s case, Sam Lansky – author of Broken People and The Gilded Razor, and former journalist at Time magazine – helped write The Woman in Me.
What are the biggest revelations made in The Woman in Me?
After years of not having her own voice, Britney’s highly-anticipated memoir contained a litany of bombshells about her family life, her fractured relationship with her younger sister Jamie Lynn Spears, her highly-publicised relationship with Justin Timberlake and what really went on during her 13 year conservatorship.
What has Britney said about Jamie Lynn Spears?
Britney Spears and her younger sister, Jamie Lynn Spears have had a notoriously troubled relationship. This was all but confirmed last year when Jamie Lynn dropped her own memoir Things I Should Have Said. Within the memoir, Jamie Lynn aired a number of anecdotes about Britney’s life just mere months after the pop princess was released from her conservatorship in November 2021. In one passage, Jamie Lynn writes that the mandatory drug and alcohol testing Britney was subjected to relieved Jamie Lynn’s anxiety of her sister and father’s sobriety.
“For a period of time, the conservatorship mandated that Britney be drug and alcohol tested on a regular basis. My father volunteered to do it with her in solidarity,” Jamie Lynn writes. “This was the first time in my life where someone was holding them accountable for their behaviours, and the perpetual anxiety I lived with for so long finally subsided. I could stop worrying about their sobriety. We started to spend some time together and heal our battered relationship. He apologised to me for the years of humiliation and embarrassment he’d caused.”
Conversely, Britney has alleged both on Instagram and within her memoir that she was “never” addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Whilst at the time, Britney posted and deleted pointed remarks aimed at her sister, the singer officially addressed the pair’s relationship in the memoir writing, “As I was fighting the conservatorship and receiving a lot of press attention, she was writing a book capitalising on it,” Britney writes. “She rushed out salacious stories about me, many of them hurtful and outrageous. I was really let down. Shouldn’t sisters be able to confess their fear or vulnerability to each other without that later being used as evidence of instability?”
However, Britney has said that she is working to feel more “compassion” for her sister, despite their differences.
“She will always be my sister, and I love her and her beautiful family. I’m working to feel more compassion than anger toward her, and everyone who I feel has wronged me. It’s not that easy,” Britney writes.
What has Britney said about Justin Timberlake?
Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake’s three year relationship was a match made in pop heaven being two of the biggest musical forces of the time. The pair ended their relationship in March 2002 with tabloids alleging at the time that Britney had been unfaithful. Shortly after, Timberlake dropped the hit Cry Me A River, a song with lyrics that insinuated he had been in a relationship with a cheater.
In The Woman In Me, Britney alleges that Justin broke up with her via text message while she was filming the music video for Overprotected. Britney also alleged that she knew Justin had been cheating on her but chose not to say anything to him, citing that she was head-over-heels in love with the *NSYNC star.
“There were a couple of times during our relationship when I knew Justin had cheated on me. Especially because I was so infatuated and so in love, I let it go, even though the tabloids seemed determined to rub my face in it,” Britney writes. “When NSYNC went to London in 2000, photographers caught him with one of the girls from All Saints in a car. But I never said anything. At the time we’d only been together for a year.”
However, perhaps the most shocking revelation of the memoir was when Britney revealed that she fell pregnant when she was dating Justin Timberlake. “It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy. I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one day. This would just be much earlier than I’d anticipated,” Britney writes of the pregnancy. “But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young.”
However, the pop singer continued to share in The Woman in Me that Justin pushed her to have an abortion.
“But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young… 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.
“To this day, it’s one of the most agonising things I have ever experienced in my life.”
Fun fact: Britney auditioned for The Notebook
The classic film The Notebook – based on the book of the same name by Nicholas Sparks – stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, but Rachel’s role almost went to Britney.
In The Woman in Me, Britney shares, “The Notebook casting came down to me and Rachel McAdams, and even though it would have been fun to reconnect with Ryan Gosling after our time on The Mickey Mouse Club, I’m glad I didn’t do it.”
“If I had, instead of working on my album In the Zone, I’d have been acting like a 1940s heiress day and night.”
Britney opens up about her conservatorship
As we know, Britney’s memoir comes two years after she was legally freed from her conservatorship, so it’s no surprise she covers it heavily in the book.
“The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child … I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me,” Britney reflects.
“The woman in me was pushed down for a long time,” she continues. “They wanted me to be wild onstage … and to be a robot the rest of the time.”
Britney reveals that she first learned about the Free Britney movement in a 2018 stint in rehabilitation, which she was forced into under her conservatorship. The singer revealed that a nurse in the hospital called her over to her computer where she showed her a clip of a talk show where a woman was wearing a #FreeBritney t-shirt.
“The same way that I believe that I can sense how someone’s feeling in Nebraska, I think my connection to my fans helped them subconsciously know that I was in danger. We have a connection, no matter where we are in space,” Britney writes.
“Seeing them marching in the streets, chanting “Free Britney” – that was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life.”
Britney addresses media backlash and the infamous 2003 Diane Sawyer interview
Britney Spears’ epic career was marred with incessant sexism, slut-shaming and bullying from tabloids. Recalling the very beginning of her relationship with Justin Timberlake, Britney says that she was acutely aware of the differing portrayals of herself and Justin at the time.
“I had a hard time being as carefree as he seemed. I couldn’t help but notice that the questions he got asked by talk show hosts were different from the ones they asked me. Everyone kept making strange comments about my breasts, wanting to know whether or not I’d had plastic surgery,” Britney recalls.
Britney also touched on her infamous 2003 interview with Diane Sawyer which saw the pop princess berated with personal questions during what she describes as being “exploited” during her “breaking point”.
“It was completely humiliating,” Britney writes. “I wasn’t told what the questions would be ahead of time, and it turned out they were 100 per cent embarrassing. I was too vulnerable then, too sensitive, to do this type of interview.”
Pre-order Britney Spears’ memoir The Woman in Me at Booktopia and Dymocks.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
