Britney Spears: a glimpse into her many ups and downs

Britney Spears is one of the most famous pop stars of all time, but she is also notable for the wild swings in her life between successes and meltdowns; confinement to freedom.

Since she was a child, Spears has been shaped by the media machine and those around her. But in her 2023 memoir ‘The Woman in Me' she dispelled many misconceptions about who she was and who she is today. Here are some surprising facts...

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Growing up in a Louisiana trailer park, poverty wasn’t her only issue. She revealed her parents, Lynne and Jamie Spears, were fighting often. She added that her dad never showed her the unconditional love she desired.

Image: Britney in Star Search, 1992, Television Program Enterprises

Although Britney was marketed as an innocent blonde teen when she became famous, she said she was drinking, smoking, driving, and working at a Louisiana seafood restaurant when she was just 13.

After she got into the Mickey Mouse Club on her second audition, she met others who would go on to become famous like Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, and Justin Timberlake. Their first kiss was during a game of Truth or Dare and they started dating as they both got famous.

While she didn’t write her music, Britney made some smart decisions about her burgeoning career. For instance, she rejected the original idea for the ‘Baby One More Time’ video to be astronaut-themed. Instead, she insisted on making it high-school-themed with people dancing in the hallways like in ‘Grease.’ The video became iconic.

Image: ...Baby One More Time/(Official Video) Britney Spears/Youtube

Britney became pregnant in her relationship with Justin Timberlake when she was 19. But he thought they were too young, so they decided to terminate it. She took pills to end the pregnancy but they caused her a lot of pain. She suffered in agony without going to the hospital out of fear the news would leak.

At the time, JT suggested the mega-famous couple broke up because Britney cheated. In her memoir, she said she kissed someone else, but only after having learned about Justin being unfaithful… including with a girl from the British girl group All Saints. Timberlake has not responded publicly.

She explains how the tabloids became obsessed with her every move, following her around "like zombies." Madonna, knowing what it felt like, got in touch with her and “had a good effect” on Britney. "She told me I should be sure to take time out for my soul... She modeled a type of strength that I needed to see."

In 2005 and 2006, she had her two sons Sean and Jayden (pictured in 2013). After Jayden was born, she said she suffered from depression. "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 hope any new mothers reading this who are having a hard time will get help early,” she writes.

While the tabloids started painting her as an out-of-control party girl once she started to hang out with Paris Hilton, she says that her nights out were “never as wild as the press made it out to be” and she was never interested in hard drugs. Instead, she used the ADHD drug Adderall, which she says gave her “a few hours of feeling less depressed.”

In 2007, after her aunt died, Britney famously went into a hair salon and cut off her hair. She thought it was a way to say “eff you” to the world. "I'd been the good girl for years. I'd smiled politely while TV show hosts leered at my b r e a s t s, while American parents said I was destroying their children by wearing a crop top. And I was tired of it,” she wrote.

The media and those around her portrayed her buzzed hair as a sign of a meltdown, which led to her conservatorship. In the memoir, she recalls her father taking legal control of her personal and professional affairs, ominously saying: “I am Britney Spears now.”

Then, for 13 years, Britney lost control of her own life. She describes how she was watched constantly, given daily medicine and not allowed to have a cell phone. She calls it “the darkest chapter” of her life.

In a powerful passage that hints at the reasons behind the title of the memoir, Britney describes what it felt like to lose all control. She says she "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."

After she broke free from the conservatorship, she was allowed to remove her birth control device. In a relationship with Sam Asghari, she got pregnant but lost it. "I was devastated to have lost the baby. Once again, though, I used music to help me gain insight and perspective,” she wrote.

At the end of her memoir, she describes how this new stage of her life is all about healing and “being herself.” “I am free now… I finally get to do what I want, when I want. And I don't take a minute of it for granted," she writes.

Since she published her memoir, Spears has been in the media yet again, with some reports questioning her mental health, spats with her family and reports she has reconciled with her teenage sons. However, much of it is back to speculation, as interviews are rare and most of her social media posts are just her dancing in different outfits.

Image: britneyspears/Instagram

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