We are far from a fairy tale with the release of Britney Spears' bestseller. The one who was the adored icon of young people of the 2000s, overcame a multitude of challenges. Her meteoric rise was followed by three divorces, obsessive media intrusion, periods of depression, a custody battle, and a 13-year conservatorship, finally lifted in 2021.

“Silenced” for thirteen years by her family who had placed her under guardianship, Britney Spears speaks again at the age of 41 in uncompromising memoirs with feminist overtones. La Femme en moi, published by JC Lattès (The Woman in Me by Simon & Schuster in the United States), is released this Tuesday, October 24 in bookstores in around twenty countries. For 300 pages, the singer recounts how this guardianship dictated by her father, with the support of her mother and sister, broke “the woman in her”.

The objective of his book is clear: to regain control of one's own narrative. Written in a frank and without taboo manner, it explores each facet of her life, from her brilliant beginnings to her descent into hell in 2007, including the oppressive guardianship which deprived her of her freedom.

The opportunity for her to finally reveal her truth. From her childhood in the South of the United States to the permanent infantilization she experienced, including her breakup with Justin Timberlake

The very oral style story leaves the reader stunned. “It’s the text of a standing woman,” declares the CEO of JC Lattès editions, Véronique Cardi.

The men in her life are not spared. All, without exception. From her domineering father to her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake, via her ex-husband Kevin Federline or even this journalist who asked her about her breasts when she was only 17 years old. Her latest husband, Sam Asghari, probably wouldn't have cut it either, but the story ends just before filing for divorce last August.

Violent family life.

“At home, I was afraid,” writes the singer in the first pages of her book. Britney Spears' odyssey takes root in the South of the United States, in Kentwood, Louisiana, a land where her father revealed his darkest side when he was in the grip of drunkenness. There, she says she felt a divine presence and where family traditions were marked by the wearing of coordinated clothes and mastery of firearms.

At the early age of 10, she found herself on the set of Star Search, a children's TV show. When asked by the host about the presence of a boyfriend in her life, she replies without hesitation: “No, boys are cruel.” The following year, she joined the Mickey Mouse Club, an adventure which brought her into contact with names such as Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake. She also had an affair with the latter.

Her father, Jamie Spears, who controlled all aspects of her personal and professional life for thirteen years, described as an alcoholic and violent, constantly “belittled” her over the years.

It is in this context that she says she started drinking at the age of 13, with her mother. The singer traces the family thread to try to explain the origin of this violence. Like when she returns to her paternal grandmother, Jean. Interned by her grandfather, she committed suicide at the age of 31 on her infant's grave.

Justin Timberlake: the star couple of the 2000s.

But it is truly Justin Timberlake who is at the center of the biggest revelations in the book, and suffice to say that his image comes out a little damaged. She reveals that she had an abortion at 19 while they were in a relationship. His own words reveal the pressure he faced: "If it were up to me, I never would have done this, but for Justin, fatherhood was out of the question." They chose not to see a doctor, fearing being perceived as sexual beings rather than artists.

Britney also admits to keeping this decision a secret from her family, who did not tolerate abortion, and from her fans. The weight of this event continues to haunt her 23 years after the fact.

The singer's story is painful: "I swallowed pills and had horrible cramps. I went to take refuge in the bathroom. Lying on the floor, I screamed and cried for hours , wondering if I was going to die. But they didn't take me to the hospital. Justin took his guitar and sat down next to me."

He was her great love. However, the pop star has never released the details of their separation to the public. This is now done in the book where she explains that she was “devastated” when Justin Timberlake broke up “via text” with her. The release of the video for Justin Timberlake's Cry Me a River, in which we see a woman strangely resembling him cheat on the handsome singer, makes her look like "the slut who broke the heart of the golden boy of American pop" . Britney Spears is silent, taking it in silence while she is thrown out to the media.

The cause ?

She allegedly cheated on her partner. If she admits to having cheated on the singer only once, this was, according to her, commonplace with him. Described by the media as a "slut", she was forced by her father to give an interview to American journalist Diane Sawyer who asked her what she did to Timberlake to cause him "so much pain". “I felt like I had been taken advantage of,” she wrote. “Trapped in front of the whole world.”

And it wasn't the Rolling Stone cover in 2003 that eased the tension. Christina Aguilera poses there, her pelvis pressed to that of Justin Timberlake to announce their joint tour, “the sexiest on earth” according to the magazine. And this, barely a year after Justin and Britney's breakup. "Even though they weren't trying to be cruel, I felt like they were just rubbing salt in the wound. Why was it so easy for everyone to forget that I was a human being - vulnerable enough for these headlines to leave their mark?" writes Britney Spears in her autobiography.

She was really scared of the snake at the MTV Music Awards.

Another notable moment in her life was her performance at the 2001 MTV Music Awards, where she chose to perform on stage with a snake, and not just any snake: a python. She reveals behind the scenes of this performance, pointing out that the snake hissed nearby while she sang. She had to keep her cool because she felt like he “was going to kill [her] if [she] looked at him in the eyes.”

She finally says why she shaved her head.

What about her “party girl” period? She reveals the dark behind the scenes of her overwhelming notoriety.

His memorable kiss with Madonna at the 2003 MTV Awards? It was, she said, her idea. She briefly discusses a brief but intense affair with Colin Farrell, describing it as "two weeks of fire, two weeks of struggle." Their proximity was such that they seemed to be arguing constantly.

The wild evenings with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, once widely publicized, marked them with the stamp of debauchery and drug addiction.
However, in her book “The Woman in Me”, Britney makes it clear that she has never had a problem with drugs or alcohol.

“I enjoy drinking,” she writes, “but I have always known how to moderate myself.” Adderall, an amphetamine prescribed for attention deficit disorder, was the only substance she admitted to using.

She explains that it made her feel high, but more importantly, it relieved her of her depression. She emphasizes the differences in treatment between male artists and herself. Men “can get high and cheat on their wives at will,” while she was immediately labeled a “bad mother” and “out of control.”

The sexualization and criticism of the bodies of young celebrities.

These difficult days correspond to her custody battle over her children, Sean Preston and Jayden James, amid her divorce from dancer Kevin Federline. The loss of custody plunged her into deep disarray, pushing her to a moment of crisis in 2007 when she shaved her head and brandished an umbrella to protect herself from the paparazzi.

“With a shaved head, everyone was afraid of me, even my mother,” she confides. This radical gesture was also her way of breaking away from the oppressive beauty standards that weighed her down.

Britney talks about the scrutiny she was exposed to from a young age. She says: "I had so much eye contact growing up. Ever since I was a teenager, people looked me up and down, told me what people thought about my body."

She adds that "shaving my head and acting was my way of defending myself."
At just 15 years old, hadn't Britney signed a contract with Jive Records, marking the beginning of her irresistible rise?

Above all, she remembers that on stage, she had to play a sexy star, arousing desire at all costs, while privately remaining a nice girl who didn't make waves.

“I know a lot of people don’t understand why I like to take pictures of myself naked or in new dresses,” the “Toxic” singer wrote. “But I think if they had been photographed by others thousands of times, being featured and posing with the approval of others, they would understand that I get a lot of joy from posing in the way that I personally feel sexy and take my own photos,” continues Britney Spears. It is a strong need to regain control of her life and reclaim her body, which pushes the star to pose naked and to multiply the photographs of herself according to her

Pop culture's obsession with sexualizing and criticizing the bodies of young celebrities appears to us today as toxic and misogynistic. But in the 2000s, this was considered the norm.

Her father's 13 years of guardianship "From now on, Britney Spears is me,"

The episode of her shaved head, far from being trivial, marked a turning point in 2008, placing her under the strict supervision of her father, Jamie Spears. In "The Woman in Me," she writes, "I became a robot. No, even worse, a robot child. I had been infantilized to such an extent that I no longer recognized myself." Jamie Spears was now in charge, making every decision about her, from her medications to her diet to her music career.

Jamie seized control by declaring, "From now on, I'm Britney Spears," as the book relates in a heartbreaking passage. Britney made her return to the stage with the "Circus Tour," generating $130 million in one year. However, she only had access to $2,000 per week. During these thirteen years of total guardianship, Britney was hospitalized several times.

She couldn't choose her food, travel as she pleased, or even remove her IUD.

Why didn't she react sooner ?

“I traded my freedom for the ability to spend time with my children,” she defends. Britney is convinced her own family was plotting against her. “I have been rebellious at times, but I have done nothing to warrant being treated like a criminal.” She sums up this time by saying: "Everything escalated into thirteen years, during which I was a shadow of myself. Today, I think back to the fact that my father and his associates controlled my body and my money for so long, and it makes me sick."

Britney questions: "If I wasn't able to make decisions, why was I considered capable of performing in public ?"

She refers to the 200 shows she gave, under supervision, during her residency in Las Vegas. During her trial in 2021, she pronounced a striking sentence in front of the judge: "Madam [the president], my father and all those involved in this placement under guardianship, who played an important role in punishing me when I I said 'no' [to the tour] - Madam, they should be in prison."

On June 22, 2021, she contacted the police to file a complaint against her father. In November, the court gave him back his freedom: “The man who had terrorized me as a child and dominated me as an adult no longer had control over my life.” Since then, Britney has regained her freedom, whether to dance on Instagram or to finally tell her story.

The woman in her

The current Britney no longer thinks about music. She is looking for herself as a woman. For a long time, she was a little girl prodigy, without ever really reaching adulthood. In one of her most famous songs, "Piece of Me," she sings: "I've been Miss American Dream since I was seventeen / Whether I'm wiggling on stage or moving in the Philippines / They'll still posting pictures of my hips. Do you want a piece of me ?"

The videos she shares, sometimes quirky, arouse our curiosity. One of them shows her dancing with knives. We can say that the interpreter of “Toxic” is no longer afraid of the gaze of others.

Since the end of her guardianship in November 2021, she has shared moments of her life, even the most incongruous ones, playing the card of transparency in the captions of her posts (in mid-August, she said she was “a little shocked” by her divorce, before clarifying to her fans: are not your business"), and does not hesitate to highlight this body that she has reappropriated.

With her book “The Woman in Me,” Britney attempts to put the pieces of her existence back together.