DETROIT – I am a lifelong Britney Spears fan. As a kid, I remember seeing commercials on Nickelodeon to buy her first album, Baby One More Time, when no one knew who she was.
I have been to more of her concerts than I care to admit. I listen to her at the gym when I need an extra boost. I have watched her every move so closely, read every story, joined message boards, I thought I knew her life intimately.
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That’s why I didn’t plan on buying the book.
Throughout the years, Britney would announce “deeply personal” projects like a new album or something disappointing like a new perfume. Whatever it was, it was never exactly “personal.” It was always sugar-coated bubble gum fluff. I would never learn anything I didn’t already know. So, I figured, what could possibly be in this book?
Then the first big reveal dropped: Justin Timberlake forced Britney Spears to get an abortion. That’s when I knew: this wouldn’t be your average memoir.
This isn’t going to be the record label-censored story we’ve heard a million times, written and rewritten by PR experts. This is Britney at her most free. This is going to be a Britney who finally knows the world wants to hear her voice, and her voice alone, unfiltered from the corporate slashers.
So here comes the book, almost two decades into my fandom. Here I was ready to hear her for the first time.
And while the big reveals were the reason why I bought the book, it was the smaller details that impacted me the most and painted a better picture of the pop star I admired from afar.
Here are my biggest surprises as a Britney Spears fan:
She hated the Onyx Hotel Tour
If there was a tour that perfectly encapsulated what a Britney Spears show was: it was the Onyx Hotel Tour. It showcased her choreography, her music, her stardom. It was a massive spectacle with a cohesive theme and big dance numbers. It was Britney at her peak.
“I hated that entire stupid tour – so much that I prayed every night. I said, ‘God, just make my arm break. Make my leg break. Can you make something break.’”
To hear how much pain she was going through and to have to work on such an excruciating show was difficult to comprehend. How could someone performing her absolute best be in such a terrible place? Looking back at it now, I wish she had taken the break she needed.
Her hair
And I’m not talking about the part where she shaved it.
One of Britney’s tell-tale signs that she’s enjoying a performance is when she whips her hair.
When Britney was in Vegas for her Piece of Me residency, there was a noticeable lack of energy. What made this residency different from her other tours was that social media was a thing now. Fans could watch how she’s performing every night and compare performances. But one thing was obvious: she didn’t look like she was moving much, even though she was doing choreography.
“As performers, we girls have our hair. That’s the real things guys want to see. They love to see the long hair move. They want you to thrash it. If your hair’s moving, they can believe you’re having a good time.”
“I’d dance in a way where I wouldn’t move a hair on my head. Everyone who was making money off of me wanted me to move my hair, and I knew it – and so I did everything but that.”
It made me look back at all the times I went to Piece Of Me in Vegas, or watched videos on YouTube, and remembered her lack of energy. Back then, I thought it was because of her knee surgeries, medicine she might have been rumored to be on, or even just being older. I never thought it was intentional, but reading those lines changed my perspective.
She just wanted a remix
Britney performed her residency for four years in Vegas and, in those four years, much didn’t change.
As a continual consumer of Piece Of Me, whether in person or online, I loved seeing changes to show, no matter how minute. With a show so tightly choreographed, so tightly timed, I always wondered if Britney got bored doing the same 90-minute routine every single time.
Not only was I right, but she was fighting for new remixes or changes to her setlist. She knew the fans were getting bored and that she, herself, was getting tired of doing the same exact routines night after night.
“Singing such old versions of songs made my body feel old. I craved new sounds, new movement.”
This control her father had over the show really catapulted my understanding of the conservatorship. At the time, Britney seemed to be in more control. She was dancing better, she seemed to be enjoying her time on stage more, things were looking up.
But the fact that they wouldn’t even let Britney change up the set, remix a few songs or even change choreography for the sake of the performance and Britney’s enjoyment really showed just how much her father really didn’t care about her. All he cared about was the money coming in from the show, which was making plenty. All I can think about now is just how much more fun she, and her fans, would have had if they just let her remix her own songs.
It was a different time then
When Britney recounts some of the experiences she dealt with back then, it’s so hard to imagine any of those things happening today. The Woman in Me brings back a lot of those tougher moments that make you wonder how we let those things happen back in the day.
From the constant badgering about her virginity to the hounding of paparazzi photos, it was a terrible time to be one of the biggest celebrities in the world. There was no social media, so pictures of Britney, especially at her worst, were worth so much money. Many times, it was the paparazzi that triggered Britney for some of the worst moments in her life.
“They liked that – when I reacted. One guy wouldn’t go away until he got what he wanted. He kept smirking, kept asking me the same terrible questions, over and over, trying to get me to react again. There was so much ugliness in his voice – such a lack of humanity.”
The Woman in Me is an eye-opening read that delves into more than I thought she ever would. I never imagined that I would ever get to hear her unfiltered thoughts, especially as her conservatorship raged on. Not only has it given me a better understanding of Britney as a human, but it has also given me hope that she will only continue to gain the strength to speak up more.