Britney Spears has opened up about her conservatorship, saying the legal arrangement “stripped me of my womanhood”, in extracts of her upcoming memoir.
The Woman In Me will be published this month and is billed as a “brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith and hope”.
In passages from the book, published by People magazine, the US singer talks about how “shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back” because she had been “eyeballed so much growing up”.
The 41-year-old also says she felt “never good enough” for her father Jamie Spears and him being in charge of her freedom and finances from 2008 during the legal arrangement made her “feel sick”.
Usually reserved for the very ill or conservatorship, the conservatorship was terminated by a judge in Los Angeles after 13 years in November 2021.
Spears writes: “I would do little bits of creative stuff here and there, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. As far as my passion for singing and dancing, it was almost a joke at that point.
“I became a robot. But not just a robot — a sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilised 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.
“If they’d let me live my life, I know I would’ve followed my heart and come out of this the right way and worked it out.”
Spears’ album Blackout won album of the year at the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards and was followed up with the records Circus, Femme Fatale, Britney Jean and Glory.
She also embarked on tours across North America and Europe and had a Las Vegas residency, which was put on indefinite hiatus in 2019.
Spears writes: “Think of how many male artists gambled all their money away; how many had substance abuse or mental health issues.
“No one tried to take away their control over their bodies and money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”
In the book, Spears will also cover her speaking in court and the “impact sharing her voice — her truth” had on her and “countless others”, along with the “power of music and love”.
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“It took a long time and a lot of work for me to feel ready to tell my story. I hope it inspires people on some level and can touch hearts,” she also wrote in the extracts.
“Since I’ve been free, I’ve had to construct a whole different identity. I’ve had to say, ‘Wait a second, this is who I was – someone passive and pleasing. A girl. And this is who I am now – someone strong and confident. A woman’.”
Five-time Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams, known for Blue Valentine and My Week With Marilyn, will narrate the audio edition of The Woman In Me, with Spears voicing the introduction.
In a statement, Spears said: “This book has been a labour of love and all the emotions that come with… Reliving everything has been exciting, heart-wrenching and emotional to say the least.
“For those reasons, I will only be reading a small part of my audiobook. I am so grateful to the amazing Michelle Williams for reading the rest of it.”
Williams said: “I stand with Britney.”
The Woman In Me will be published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, on October 24th.
