We’re starting to think that “Leave Britney Alone!” video was onto something…Britney Spears has remained a pop culture focus since her first single in 1999. From highs to lows to Kevin Federline, the media has latched onto her every move, with the paparazzi pulling their typically disgusting tactics to get shots meant to disgrace her and sell supermarket rags. But it’s like we sometimes took advantage of the fact that she was an incredibly talented pop star. Considering that so many took it for granted, leaned into the punchline aspects and worked to destroy her career, it just may be that Britney Spears won’t hit us, baby, one more time.
In her upcoming memoir, The Woman in Me, Britney Spears explains just what sort of impact her conservatorship – which lasted from 2008 to 2021 – had on her career. “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.” She added, “My music was my life, and the conservatorship was deadly for that; it crushed my soul…Pushing forward in my music career is not my focus at the moment…It’s time for me not to be someone who other people want; it’s time to actually find myself.” While we may not get another Britney Spears album at least for a while (her most recent was 2016’s Glory), at least she can focus on something far more important.
According to the book’s official website, Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me has the following synopsis: “In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history. Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.” The book arrives on October 24th.
The last handful of years were looking to give Britney Spears a much-needed resurrection, with a four-year Las Vegas residency and the end of her conservatorship (not to mention the re-release of Crossroads – what, some people liked it!). With the publication of The Woman in Me and all of the stories that have come with it – an abortion of her and Justin Timberlake’s baby, a belief that her family was trying to kill her, etc. – there’s no reason we can’t give Britney Spears, now in her 40s, the decade she deserves.
Would you want to see Britney Spears release a new album? What are your thoughts on the sort of conservatorship that she endured?