The biggest revelations from Britney Spears’ memoir 

Detailing her early life and rise to fame, as well as the subsequent “soul-crushing” conservatorship which controlled her life (and kept her silent) for 13 years, the book gives an in-depth account of both her personal life and music career as well as the fraught nature of her relationships with her family. 

While terms of Spears’ book deal were not revealed, a source previously described it as “record-breaking” to Variety, while Page Six claimed that the agreement is worth as much as $15 million – apparently making it “one of the biggest [book deals] of all time, behind the Obamas”. Interestingly, Forbes only estimated Britney’s entire estate at $ 60 million during her conservatorship, but that seems shockingly low if the rumours are true and she’ll be earning one quarter that amount for one single book deal.

Simon & Schuster publishers were the victorious winners of the hugely competitive bidding war for the memoir, which was confirmed just a few short weeks after Jamie Lynn’s own book, Things I Should Have Said: Family, Fame, and Figuring it Out, was published. Already a national bestseller, the book has caused considerable drama which ultimately resulted in Britney’s lawyer, Matthew Rosengart, sending her younger sibling a cease and desist letter at the time.

Here are some of the biggest bombshells from Britney Spears’ memoir, The Woman in Me: 

The conservatorship

In 2008, Britney entered into a court-ordered conservatorship. This granted her father, Jamie, and a lawyer full control over both her personal and financial affairs for almost 14 years. During that time, the singer says she became “a sort of child-robot”.

“This is what’s hard to explain, how quickly I could vacillate between being a little girl and being a teenager and being a woman, because of the way they had robbed me of my freedom. The woman in me was pushed down for a long time,” she writes in an excerpt published by People. 

“I had been so infantilised that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself,” she continues, adding that the conservatorship “stripped [her] of [her] womanhood”. “[It] made me into a child.”

“I became more of an entity than a person onstage… I felt like a shadow of myself. I felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me.”

Jamie Spears

Speaking of Jamie Spears, Britney didn’t hold back when it came to how she feels about her father, accusing him of using her image to help him make money. She even claims that at one point during the conservatorship, he told her, “I’m Britney Spears now.” Extremely troubling to say the least. 

Britney also says that she suffered great emotional distress at the hands of her father who would allegedly berate her for her weight and tell her that she “looked fat”. “If I thought getting criticised about my body in the press was bad, it hurt even more from my own father.” 

Talking about her early upbringing, Britney remembers being quite “scared” in her home as a youngster. “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.’”

Perhaps influenced by Jamie’s own struggles with alcohol, Britney admits that she was drinking and smoking by the age of 13. 

Free Britney

On the topic of the #FreeBritney movement, the singer says she first heard about the whole thing while in rehab – something Jamie Spears had pushed for. 

While there, a nurse showed Spears videos of fans who had gathered to support her and question the need for the conservatorship. “That was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life,” she writes. “I don’t think people knew how much the #FreeBritney movement meant to me, especially in the beginning.”

*That* Diane Sawyer interview

There has been much discourse about that controversial Diane Sawyer interview in the years since it was broadcast and yes, it did affect Brit as much as we feared. Admitting that she felt extremely vulnerable going into it, the Toxic singer describes it as a “breaking point” in her life. “I felt like I had been exploited, set up in front of the whole world.”

Her relationship with JT

History was made when Britney and Justin Timberlake got together – the photo of them in matching denim ‘fits at the American Music Awards is permanently etched into our brains and years on, the world is just as interested in what happened between the two as ever.

Touching on the infamous music video for Cry Me A River (which strongly suggested that  Spears had cheated on Timberlake), Britney said though the media painted her as a “harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy”, the reality was vastly different; according to her, she was “comatose in Louisiana” while Timberlake was “happily running around Hollywood.” 

“The video shamed me”, pointing out that there was no way for her to tell her side of the story.

Having an abortion

Later in the book, Spears also reveals that she had an abortion while dating JT, writing that though it was a surprise, it “wasn’t a tragedy” for her, at least. “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. 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.” 

Twenty years after the fact, Spears says that she “never would have done it” had the decision been left to her alone. However, Justin was “so sure he didn’t want to be a father”. Having an abortion was, in her words, “one of the most agonising things” she’s ever experienced. 

Cheater cheater

Spears admits to cheating on Timberlake once, however, in her memoir, she says she was aware that Timberlake was also cheating on her, but chose not to address it as the relationship was new and she was head over heels for the 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.”

According to her, there has “always been more leeway in Hollywood for men than for women”.

Shaving her head

Explaining why she shaved her head, Britney says it was because she was “out of [her] mind with grief”. “Everyone thought it was hilarious. Look how crazy she is! Even my parents acted embarrassed by me. But nobody seemed to understand that I was simply out of my mind with grief. My children had been taken away from me.”

Also addressing the time she hit a photographer’s car with an umbrella, the singer says that she was going through a lot at the time and didn’t know how to deal with it. “With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom. Flailing those weeks without my children, I lost it, over and over again. I didn’t even really know how to take care of myself.”

Nights out with Paris Hilton 

The Holy Trinity, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, were often photographed out partying together but Brit maintains that it wasn’t as wild as the press made it seem.

Writing that she never had a drinking problem and that hard drugs didn’t appeal to her, the singer said that her “drug of choice” was the ADHD medication Adderall. “[It] made me high, yes, but what I found far more appealing was that it gave me a few hours of feeling less depressed.”

Hilton has come out in support of Britney on many occasions in recent years, telling People that she’s “so proud” of her friend “for telling her story”. 

An Irish romance

There’s always an Irish connection. Here, it’s in the form of Colin Farrell with whom Briteny claims to have had a passionate two-week tryst. 

The two met while Farrell was filming the action series S.W.A.T, however, Spears was still fresh off her breakup with Justin and remembers not wanting to get “too attached” to the Irish actor. 

Was it a romance at all? Hard to say, especially considering Spears describes it as “a two-week brawl”. “Brawl is the only word for it – we were all over each other, grappling so passionately it was like we were in a street fight.”

Farrell even brought Spears as his date to the premiere of his movie The Recruit, but the relationship (or perhaps situationship is a better word) was short-lived. Spears says she was not over Timberlake at the time but “for a brief moment” she did think “there could be something there” with Farrell.

55-hour marriage

Giving Kim K a run for her money for shortest marriage, Britney also recalls the time that she married her friend Jason Alexander while “sh*t-faced” in Vegas. “People have asked me if I loved him. To be clear: he and I were not in love. I was just honestly very drunk – and probably, in a more general sense at that time in my life, very bored.”

Claiming that it was nothing more than “innocent fun”, Spears says she was shocked at how the public and her family reacted to the whole thing.

Post-natal depression

Spears married backup dancer Kevin Federline in September 2004, giving birth to sons – Sean and Jayden – in 2005 and 2006. Admitting that she had post-natal depression after having Jayden, the singer says she hopes that her story might help others who are going through from something similar.

“I got a little depressed once I was no longer keeping them safe inside my body. They seemed so vulnerable out in the world of jockeying paparazzi and tabloids.

“I began to suspect that I was a bit overprotective when I wouldn’t let my mom hold Jayden for the first two months… Honestly, as a new mother, it was as if some part of me became the baby.”

“I hope any new mothers reading this who are having a hard time will get help early… I now know that I was displaying just about every symptom of perinatal depression: sadness, anxiety, fatigue.”

Years later, after being hospitalised for involuntary psychological assessments, Spears says that she initially tried to push back against her father but ultimately decided to abide so she could spend time with her children. “After being held down on a gurney, I knew they could restrain my body any time they wanted to. And so I went along with it,” she writes.

“My freedom in exchange for naps with my children – it was a trade I was willing to make,” she adds.

“Starting a family was my dream come true. Being a mom was my dream come true.” 

Jamie-Lynn

Things between the singer and Jamie-Lynn have been tense in recent years but Britney would like a more peaceful relationship with her sibling. 

“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,” Spears admits of the healing journey.

Kissing Madonna

Another pop culture turning point, the world was in shock when Britney and Madonna kissed on stage at the 2003 MTV VMAs… but it wasn’t necessarily planned that way. “Every time we rehearsed it, we did an air kiss,” she remembers. “About two minutes before the performance, I was sitting on the side of the stage thinking about my biggest performance to date at the VMAs, when I’d pulled off a suit to reveal a sparkly outfit. I thought to myself: I want a moment like that again this year. With the kiss, should I just go for it? … A lot was made of that kiss.”