Britney Spears‘ memoir The Woman in Me has finally arrived, and the Princess of Pop did not waste her chance to tell her side of the story. Spears opens up about her highly publicized relationship with boy bander Justin Timberlake and elaborates on all the ways their time together has been misconstrued. She shares her thoughts on how being in the public eye shaped the woman she has become — for better and for worse — and how she has come to terms with the privileges and consequences of that fame in her current life.
Spears begins her story with heartbreaking detail about her sincere connection with the women in her family, and how their trauma has uncannily resurfaced in her own life. From a grandmother who lost a child and later found herself institutionalized, to how her own mother coped with her father’s heavy drinking. The pop star also details how, much like her grandmother, she felt silenced by her family as they controlled her through a conservatorship, and her disturbing belief that her own kin was on a mission to “kill” her.
In a quick, 275-page read, Spears finally has the chance to tell her own narrative, to get her voice back after years of tabloid stories and a 13-year conservatorship that stripped away her autonomy. The Woman in Me is worth reading in full to understand the true depths of Spears’ experience through her own lens — or a few hours’ listen when actress Michelle Williams narrates the audiobook.
There are gossipy stories in Spears’ memoir that will certainly make readers gasp — though she has said that the memoir’s “purpose was not to offend anyone” — but there are also a lot of vulnerable and heartbreaking moments that could not have been easy to share. For a fraction of the story that one of the biggest cultural icons of a generation chose to share, Billboard has rounded up 11 of the biggest revelations from Spears’ book.
Read more
