Britney Spears says her soul is too crushed to make more music
More excerpts have emerged from Britney Spears' memoir The Woman In Me, due out October 24
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With the release of Britney Spears’ memoir, The Woman In Me, revelations from the book have begun filtering out onto the Internet. Tidbits about her work on Crossroads and her relationship with Justin Timberlake (specifically an abortion she got when they were together) have already made waves online. On Friday, more excerpts from the book circulated, with more information on her infamous mental health episode in which she shaved her head, her conservatorship, and the future of her career.
Per excerpts from The New York Times, Spears claims she was never into hard drugs or drank excessively (“It was never as wild as the press made it out to be,” she explains, though she did enjoy Adderall because “it gave me a few hours of feeling less depressed”). The 2007 episode in which she shaved her head and attacked a paparazzo’s car occurred because she was “out of my mind with grief” over the loss of her aunt and the custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline: “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.”
Spears writes, “I am willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my adored aunt Sandra, and the constant drumbeat of pressure from paparazzi, I’d begin to think in some ways like a child.”
The conservatorship enacted by her father infantilized her further. While shaving her head was a way of “pushing back” on the constant surveillance she experienced as a child star, “under the conservatorship I was made to understand that those days were now over. I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take” (via People). She shares in the memoir, “I became a robot. But not just a robot—a sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself. 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.”
The conservatorship completely diminished her passion for her career. “My music was my life, and the conservatorship was deadly for that; it crushed my soul,” she says. That feeling persists even now that the conservatorship is over. “Pushing forward in my music career is not my focus at the moment,” Spears writes. “It’s time for me not to be someone who other people want; it’s time to actually find myself.”
61 Comments
Are we all collectively just ignoring the fact that this woman is severely mentally ill?
I think so, along with pretending she wrote a single word of this book.
Most of these celebrity memoirs have ghostwriters but even then the writing should feel like that person’s voice. None of these reported excerpts sound like anything Britney Spears would say.
There was a sketch show on the CW for about 2 episodes 20+ years ago. The single thing I remember of it, and I do remember, is Britney Spears writing a diary where she lamented her revolutionary poetry reworked by the label into Oops I Did It Again, and ended with a hearty “Death to the Patriarchy.” Clearly Gen Z humor 20+ years too soon, but I’ve been thinking about it a bit during the run-up to the memoir’s release.
The CW was only created 17 years ago.
After later mildly remembering Jan Brady was on it and searching, you are technically correct, as it was a WB show. That is, of course, the best kind of correct.
I assume you’re referring to Hype.
Does it really matter? So much is becoming AI anyway. Is it my writing if I use one of those grammerly apps (which I don’t)? What matters is that she obviously made the material available and approved its contents. Many many people can’t even write a letter to save their lives, sadly. She isn’t stealing anyone else’s words. I don’t care who put them on the page. I’m glad she’s able to speak up about decades of abuse – which is what matters here.
All of Trump’s ‘books’ were ghostwritten. I seldom hear him called out.
“The Art of the Deal” being ghostwritten, and its writer regretting his part in establishing Trump’s “businessman dealmaker” reputation, was brought up over and over around the 2016 election.
Nobody is accusing Britney Spears of “stealing [someone] else’s words.” Everyone knows that celebrity memoirs are ghostwritten. People are pointing out that a good celebrity memoir is tailored so that its voice matches that of its subject, and that the passages shared so far are completely unlike any of the communication Britney Spears shares on, say, Instagram.
Yes, the public learned about it in 2016 but plenty of people knew it already. Unlike Spears, Trump requires that people believe he originated everything that he sees, he’s such a narcissist. Thats a different level of shrewdness and indifference. His fans couldn’t care less, though, which was my point.
I don’t have a problem with the text being “authentic” to the Spear’s “voice” or whatever. That’s an unecessary purity test, imo. Do any of us know the real Spears? She might be surprisingly eloquent in an intimate interview. I don’t consider Instagram any kind of premier platform for an author’s expressions, but I guess I’m old fashioned that way.
If you’ve seen anything she’s written in the last few years, you’ll know it’s straight from the heart. It’s not erudite or eloquent, and I’m not saying that as a mark against her in any way, but she’s not hewing to grammar or checking her spelling or being fastidious about capitalization or punctuation. Maybe she’s living a life like that old Phil Hartman sketch where Reagan is an erudite genius behind closed doors, but that’s definitely not the public impression.
So when the press release comes out and says “here is a passage from a book by Britney Spears” and then the passage is this well-edited piece of writing, I think it’s natural to do a mental double-take. And I don’t think anyone here is doing something wrong by acknowledging that dissonance or arguing that memoirs are more effective when that dissonance is lessened. But all of this is subjective, so agree to disagree.
You went on quite a journey there. I mean why is Trump coming up here? Lol“What matters is that she obviously made the material available and approved its contents”I’m all for her telling her side. It would make the book at lot more engaging if it was more in her “voice” imo. “She isn’t stealing anyone else’s words”Never said or implied that. “I don’t care who put them on the page. “My comment was not about who wrote it. Obviously she didn’t. And obviously majority of celeb memoirs are not written by the celeb. The tone sounds off. This just sounds more like a court stenographer put it together.
or a note of music?
Her records are dancefloor bangers, she isn’t Joni Mitchell.
Definitely, and lazily, ghostwritten. The excerpts read like someone interviewed her briefly, decided she was borderline incoherent (which she usually is), and tried to “assume the character” of a fictional, much more aware Britney to write the book on their own.
And that’s any of your business because?
Because she is a celebrity and this is a celebrity blog, dumb fuck.
And that makes her mental health your business because why, dumb fuck?
She is the one flaunting her insanity on social media and is putting out a “tell all” book. That makes it fair game. How is my opinion any of your business?
You’re the guy who looks at up-skit pictures of celebrities and justifies it because they’re celebrities. You are a total fucking creep.
Congrats on your MD!
I prefer PsyD thank you very much!
It’s incredible she took the time to meet with you, much less allowed you to discuss her diagnosis in public.
you mean there’s others like me?
Stop it. Do you know her personally? If anyone is ‘mentally ill’ it’s her father who used her mercilessly.
If you’re so into psychoanalyzing, look up “Narcissistic Abuse” and stop victim-shaming.
I think your posts in here could be summed up better as “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE”
Lots of people have mental illness in some form or another, what business is it of yours? It sounds like she’s accepting treatment for whatever she’s going through (“I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take”), so good for her.
You’ve misread that quote. She’s saying that was what she was forced to do under the conservatorship, and that she became “a robot” as a result.
No just you dummy.
Gosh, nobody could ever guess she really enjoys amphetamines.
And for someone who is bipolar, many classes of stimulants have a real risk of exacerbating mania and even sending someone into psychosis, especially if they’re not on a mood stabilizer.Which would also explain why her meltdown and formal diagnosis with bipolar in 2007 took place right after this, since I’d bet good money that she was being prescribed Adderall for ADHD and no one had bothered looking deeper as long as she was still somewhat functional.
But not too crushed to make half-naked dance videos for Instagram several times a week.
I’d reckon that choosing to do half-naked dance videos is a bit of a relief for her rather than being forced to do nearly-wholly-naked dance performances
Aw, baby’s first false equivalence
Not a false equivalence, nitwit.
That’s a solid comeback, but honestly this person’s a troll and not worth the effort. (Someone else here has suggested this is just the new name for Mods Love Me, a serial edgelord pest.)
which half?
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN. Boring
No one wants to see you naked huh? 🙁
Thank God for small favors
Well, bye
Feel free to fuck off too Bob
I listened to a podcast about conservatorships and Britney’s in particular and holy shit does this woman deserve a break. She can do whatever she wants for the rest of her life. (The podcast is called “Toxic”)
I think most agree with that sentiment, but she seems very much not okay. Conservatorship may be overkill but she needs something beyond doing “whatever she wants” to get right.
Plenty of people are not okay, but they don’t have legal restrictions put on their movements. As long as she doesn’t set her house on fire or die a drug overdose, it’s fine. It’s all fine.
i’m sure her people ran the numbers and concluded that she was more profitable being alive than being deceased.
She did try to set her gym on fire a few years ago. And last year she got mad when her son didn’t want to look at her naked body.
Exactly. It’s a shame people can’t be more supportive.
She isn’t doing any harm to anyone. We will never know the hell that she suffered, even though she’s trying to educate the world about what is likely narcissistic abuse – which is the deadliest (and least discussed) kind.
Yes. She seems to be a victin of narcissistic abuse. Fancy words maybe but it is real. Most people don’t know what it is. They should. It’s insidious and it destroys a human’s soul and everything they ever worked for. Don’t ask me how I know. There is no greater evil than a covert narcissist (see: Trump, for example).
She never wrote any of her own music. So……
Wow great work detective.
It could have been worse. She could have been having those mental episodes while being a Black male.
That tends to become a death sentence.
This is the most impressive addict I have ever seen.
1. Britney’s conservatorship was fucking awful and sounds borderline barbaric, especially as the people running it were simultaneously continuing to exploit her.2. I am not a psychiatrist, but it *seems* like Britney could still use some assistance. Like a therapist, not a conservatorship. I don’t doubt she has been put under a lot of shit and getting help is something that a lot of people do.3. Looking back on the 2007 head-shaving incident in particular, I sort of always subconsciously assumed that one reason it was so wild was that she must have had handlers/helpers/therapists/people around her and she probably had to work really hard to ignore them and go get her head shaved. Now, in 2023, it’s likely she didn’t have anyone to help her out and by her own admission she was dealing with a lot of shit. Not that it absolves me from thinking at the time it was crazy; rather it makes me realize now how sad it must be to be putting up with all that shit and feeling so alone that whatever team she had around her (if she had one at all) couldn’t actually provide any assistance.
I’m just going to throw out the idea that if she wasn’t an attractive, blond female millionaire no one would give a shit if she gets a therapist or not. No one would be “concerned” for her.
Absolutely barbaric.
I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take If you’ve ever dealt with someone with bipolar, this screams out as the classic response of someone who hates how lithium dials down their mania and mood swings, including having to get more sleep because it is a significant contributing factor to them. It’s generally talked about in terms of feeling ‘like themselves again’ once they’re off it.Manics can actually be fun to be around during that phase when it doesn’t get too severe – I have a friend who stayed for years with her unmedicated ER doc boyfriend because of this (I met him; he showed no overt signs and was good to have a drink with) – but Spears sounds like her episodes are severe enough to be on the really problematic part of the spectrum. For reference, I’ve had to talk down manics who are that deep in from doing something that would harm themselves; I wouldn’t recommend it.
She’s got the right to be unmedicated, but if you’ve got kids and substantial assets, your competence to deal with both when you’re refusing to medicate is something that is a legitimate legal issue. Her previous conservators almost certainly breached fiduciary duties over and over, but that meant the wrong people were running it rather than it not being necessary in some form.
Conservatorships are meant to be a nuclear option – to make life decisions (financial and medical) for someone who has advanced dementia, severe brain trauma, or is in a coma. Basically, people can’t reliably say the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to questions. Anywhere below that, you technically have the right to ruin your own life as long as no criminal charges are involved. Homeless people with long histories of drug abuse and violent confrontations with the police have more rights than she had. And then there’s the ethics of forcing someone to take medication against their will, robbing them of their personhood, which is an ongoing discussion in the behavioral health community. The conservatorship was abuse, plain and simple, to keep her working and extract money from her. It was a sad affair all around but it at least brought in conversations about the abuse of people with mental health issues in the legal system.
I get why you’re defending her, but I’m not sure you’re old enough to remember how this all happened in real time. Britney had a dance injury and proceeded to cancel the entire Onyx Hotel tour because she wanted to run around with Kfed. She gradually started looking more and more unclean and doing dicey stuff in public – she truly wasn’t taking care of herself. Then the legal ball started rolling when she put her kids in legitimate danger, which is the clincher.
When people put their kids in dangerous situations, CPS gets involved, and the kids might get taken out of the home and the parents might be required to take parenting classes and shape up to get them back. This changes nothing about the autonomy of the parents as individuals able to make their own decisions. It punishes them for bad decisions. It’s different.