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Babes in Bookland
A podcast celebrating women's memoirs, one story at a time!
Babes in Bookland
It's Britney, B*tch // Britney Spears' "The Woman in Me"
What does it feel like when your voice is taken from you?
In Britney Spears' groundbreaking memoir "The Woman in Me," we finally hear directly from the pop icon herself after years of silence enforced by a suffocating conservatorship.
Reading this memoir alongside my good friend Lizzie was a profound experience. Britney's story isn't just celebrity gossip; it's a stark warning about how easily a woman's autonomy can be stripped away under the guise of "protection." While she was creating chart-topping albums and performing sold-out Vegas residencies, her father controlled every aspect of her life, even pocketing more of her earnings than she received herself!!!
The book reframes moments we thought we understood through a completely different lens. That head-shaving incident? A desperate act of rebellion from a mother who'd been blocked from seeing her children. Those "erratic" public appearances? Often the result of being drugged without her consent. Throughout it all, Britney clung to performing as her sanctuary (she writes, "When I sing, I own who I am") even as that gift was weaponized against her.
What struck me most was Britney's resilience and grace. Despite everything she endured, from the cruel public scrutiny of her body as a teenager to having her children used as leverage against her, she never completely lost her sense of self or her capacity for joy. Her journey from "passive, people-pleasing girl to strong, confident woman" offers inspiration to anyone who has felt silenced.
This memoir serves as both personal catharsis and cultural reckoning. How do we treat women in the spotlight? Why do we place impossible expectations on them? And how did we allow a system to imprison someone in plain sight for thirteen years?
Britney's powerful declaration that "You have to speak the thing that you're feeling, even if it scares you" isn't just her healing manifesto, it's a call to all of us to examine how we participate in a culture that both elevates and destroys the women we claim to admire.
Join us for this deeply moving conversation about freedom, voice, and the courage to reclaim your narrative against all odds. Share your thoughts with us on Instagram @babesinbooklandpod—we'd love to hear which parts of Britney's story resonated most with you.
If you leave a kind review, I might read it at top of show!
Buy “The Woman in Me” by Britney Spears
Transcripts are available through Apple’s podcast app—they may not be perfect, but relying on them allows me to dedicate more time to the show! If you’re interested in being a transcript angel, let me know.
This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me.
Theme song by Devin Kennedy
Special thanks to my dear friend, Lizzie!
Xx, Alex
Hi, welcome back to Babes in Bookland. I'm your host, alex Franca, and my friend Lizzie is back. Today we are chatting about Britney Spears' the Woman in Me. This is the most requested book that we've had on the show, so we're here to deliver. But first a review. This is from Amazon. The review is from Izzy Bertolini Best podcast concept ever. It's like they read my mind and created the exact podcast I needed. While we're here for you, izzy, let's get to Brittany and you guys probably all knew I was going to do this, but it's Brittany bitch.
Speaker 2:Hi Lizzie.
Speaker 1:Hi Alex, How's it going? It's going so great. I'm so glad to have you here today. What did you think of Brittany's memoir?
Speaker 2:Oh, I loved it In my mind, she can do no wrong. I read it all the way through. I took time you know like me time to really take it in and be uninterrupted and read this very intimate it almost felt like a diary or something that I was reading and then I also took the time to listen to it on Audible, with Michelle Williams narrating it. I loved it both ways, but I'm glad that I read it first, because there's nothing like reading something for the first time and not having it be influenced by another person's interpretation of things, if you will. Even though Michelle Williams did an incredible job, I will say.
Speaker 1:The memoir definitely gets intimate and vulnerable and raw. And word on the street was she went through a few ghostwriters and kind of handed them pages from her diaries and things that she wrote out on even napkins, and I can't imagine how difficult the journey is for, honestly, any woman who sits down to write a memoir, but especially the journey that Brittany went on. How do you pick the moments from your childhood, the moments from these very public relationships, the moments from this very public conservatorship? How do you deduce it down to 300 pages? I find myself asking that question for every memoir that I read and at the end of the day, this is Brittany reclaiming her story and her truth in the way that she is able to right now, from you know, not that much time after the conservatorship ended did this memoir come out. I think there's still some processing that needs to be done, some healing that needs to be done, and I hope and pray that she's surrounded by people who are really supporting her, doing that, no longer manipulating her Cause that's like my fear.
Speaker 1:Is her fan Like how do you know? How do you trust after something like this? But I always get behind a woman reclaiming her story and we have so much to get in today, so let's just get in the zone. We'll see how many of those happen. I have a feeling you've got a few up your sleeve. Her lyrics are just part of the vernacular now anyways, how do you escape them? Okay, so Brittany's memoir was published in 2023, and this is her dedication for my boys, who are the loves of my life. All right, so we're going to start with some quick topics, and it's all very fun, because I think you are Britney's number one fan and I know she's your number one celebrity. What is your favorite Britney song? You have to only pick one gun to your head Lizzie go Baby, one more time baby.
Speaker 2:One more time. It's iconic the first da-na-na. You know exactly what song it's going to be. Yeah. You know exactly what song it's going to be, the imagery and the concept for the music video her doing her backflips in the gym like holding the basketball and like looking around. I mean it's just it combines like drama with athleticism and like like humor and adorableness.
Speaker 1:And yeah it was a hell of a way to introduce herself to us. And we ate it up, that song was my second choice. My all time favorite Britney Spears song is Every Time.
Speaker 1:I just love it. It was very different from everything else that she had done at that point. Where I was in my life when that song came along meant something so much to me, where I was in my life when that song came along meant something so much to me. Sometimes, as a fan, you convince yourself that something means something, that you need it to mean as well, and with music it can feel. It all speaks to us so differently. The lyrics and it is this very personal, I mean music moves us through so many different parts of our lives and that's why I really love the song every time, because to me it was about an underdog who was trying to achieve something but didn't feel like she could. And that's really how I was feeling as an adolescent, young girl, that I was trying so hard to do these things and I just couldn't quite understand it. Anyways, that's my song choice. Okay, what is your favorite Britney music video? Probably Toxic, that was mine too.
Speaker 2:It's so visually stunning. You have the dichotomy of her in this rhinestone encrusted nude bodysuit and then her on the plain as the blue.
Speaker 1:She should only wear that color blue, or the nude, or the nude colored rhinestone suit.
Speaker 2:It's so good. Do you remember when we went to the Britney Museum and we pretended?
Speaker 1:to be yes. So Lizzie and I, along with our friend Betsy this was like one of the last things we did before everything shut down due to COVID LA had brought in this, I guess, like a pop-up Britney Museum, with actual memorabilia from her most iconic music videos. There was the space suit that the guy wore in Oops, I Did it Again. There was the classroom scene from Baby. One More Time you could write a note and drop it into Britney's locker. It was very fun, and there was a huge circus room.
Speaker 2:Like a ball pit. It was an interactive Britney museum experience. Yeah, it took me right back to my, you know, middle school, early high school days of you know the thought of being able to write her a note and her getting it. It was cool. Yeah, it was. It was really. It was really fun. It's a shame that I don't think many people got to experience that because everything got shut down.
Speaker 1:But yeah, Britney has been such an instrumental part of my life too, Like I remember I would get her album as soon as it came out, put it in my little Walkman and just like take a bath and listen to her music like in my headphones. You know Julia Roberts style in Pretty Woman when she's listening to Prince. Of course she's been a part of our lives, Like we grew up with her. Yes, we did, and her songs were the soundtrack to our lives, some pretty important moments.
Speaker 2:So that's really cool to think about.
Speaker 1:Well, let's dive deeper into Britney's story. Let's learn how she was born to perform. This is Britney an origin story she writes. When I sing, I own who I am. When I was alone with my thoughts, my mind filled with worries and fears, music stopped. The noise made me feel confident and took me to a pure place of expressing myself, exactly as I wanted to be seen and heard. Singing took me into the presence of the divine Such a lovely way to put it and I think you can tell. That's why she became the iconic woman pop star, because she loved it so much. She was willing to give everything for it, because this is what it gave her back.
Speaker 1:I love reading performers' memoirs for this very reason, because that's what performing does for me too, and you know, you and I both went to acting school together and like there's nothing like being on stage or being on a set, and they say action. And it is.
Speaker 1:It's like a surreal, transcending experience. So it's always so fun to see what they get out of it. All right, let's talk about her family. We learned a bit about her family in her memoir. We kind of knew too much about some of them, unfortunately, already, but this is what she writes. We learned that her grandfather, june, was abusive, but she quote, didn't experience that vicious man who had abused my father and his siblings, but rather a grandfather who seemed patient and sweet.
Speaker 1:It's always so interesting perceive someone so differently from other family members because of the passage of time, because of different ages. When you hear stories of your grandparents and it doesn't align with it, doesn't, yeah, you can't quite reconcile them, potentially like I mean, being monstrous, like he was a monster. He was a monster to her father. He would make her father practice basketball and exercise past the point of exhaustion. But Brittany writes that this led to him, her father, being unbelievably talented at sport. It's because of his talent that Britney's father caught the eye of Britney's mom, lynn.
Speaker 1:She also writes about her maternal grandmother, lily, who came to Louisiana from London. Britney writes my grandmother kept to herself, read a ton of books, became obsessed with cleaning and missed London until the day she died. My family said that Barney, her grandfather, didn't want to let Lily go back to London because he thought that if she went she wouldn't come home. You know, you're always curious. Why do they write what they write? Why do they share what they share right? Why do they feel like these snippets are important to their story? And both of these really struck me because obviously our generation has become really aware of generational trauma, the ways pain is unknowingly passed down, and I thought this is it. Her father has worked too hard. He worked Brittany too hard. Her grandmother was kept in a cage and Brittany will eventually be kept in her own golden cage Like super poignant. I think I realized that the first time through because we both read this memoir right when it came out and then we've let it simmer and now we're discussing it.
Speaker 1:It's like, has she come to these conclusions herself? Or was she just like talking to the ghostwriters and being like, well, this is my grandfather, this is my grandmother, you know? I wonder if she's processed this or if this is just me like psychoanalyzing it on my end. But it's interesting, right, like it's crazy.
Speaker 2:It's crazy her own right with some of the choreography and concepts that she's come up with over the years of her artistry. I think that I think, because of the way the media portrays her, we think we have her all figured out. I think she's a lot, a lot more wise and with it than people give her credit for.
Speaker 1:Well, especially after you read her memoir, you understand the manipulation that happened and the ways that she was kept controlled by basically numbing through prescription drugs and potentially I mean, let's be real harder drugs, like let's be real she doesn't say it, but like some things were being done to her to keep her quiet and controllable and working. So if you're giving somebody downers but they need to go to Vegas and put on a show, what else are you giving them?
Speaker 2:It you know story as old as time, though I mean that that was happening back with judy garland that was judy garland's life.
Speaker 1:God, could you imagine if britney was in a different headspace. Could she have played the shit out of judy garland? Renee zellweger did great. Maybe that would have been a little too.
Speaker 2:Renee zellweger does an incredible job at that, I will say I, I was like dang, but yeah, I mean the parallels are. I mean history repeating itself for the point of this idea of like, keep on going, dance, monkey dance, Exactly.
Speaker 1:Brittany also writes a bit about her great-grandmother, lexi, whom she was very close with and would have sleepovers with, until Lexi got into a car accident and was deemed too senile to watch Brittany alone and this woman seemed to be such a beautiful presence in her life, who she needed at that time, when neither of her parents were that they were young. They had her brother, and her fairly young Lexi was a strong, badass woman, as Brittany writes, and it seemed such a shame to me when that happened. She writes I didn't understand how being with someone I loved could be considered dangerous. Her older brother, brian, is born, but already her father's heavy drinking causes big issues. He actually misses Brian's first birthday party.
Speaker 1:Lots of other stuff happens. Brittany goes into and Lynn files for divorce, but his family urges her to take him back and she does. And then our sweet Brittany comes along. Brittany writes about this time when she was four and Brian gets into a horrible four-wheeler accident. We're talking full body cast. He almost died. She writes that this accident made her much closer to her brother and that, after sleeping next to him in the hospital every night, she continued to share a bed with him for years until she's in the sixth grade and her parents tell her she's getting too old. I imagine that that was extremely painful for her. They were so close growing up and he was such a comfort to her. And then that disappears, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Like he's not even really mentioned he never, seems to like come to her defense at all later in her life.
Speaker 2:I think it's further complicated because I think he might be in the family payroll in some way. That can sometimes blur those lines.
Speaker 1:What's best for Brian maybe is not necessarily best for Brittany, when it comes to monetary value versus mental health, which really is kind of at the end of the day, what it boiled down to you versus mental health, which really is kind of at the end of the day what it boiled down to, I think, for especially her father.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, her father causes a lot of suffering in the family, she writes. His alcoholism made him reckless, cold and mean. He pushed Brian so hard to do well in sports that it was cruel. My dad could also be abusive with my mom, but he was more the type of drinker who would go away for days at a time. To be honest, it was a kindness to us when he went away. I preferred it when he wasn't there, knowing what we know now. As you read this, you're just like how the fuck did this man end up in charge of her life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like what you said earlier about her brother. I mean finding comfort in a male figure that wasn't her father, but that was her brother. That totally makes sense for her to basically say it was better when dad wasn't around. Of course she's going to seek immense comfort in her brother, who was also a result of her father's very, very harsh expectations.
Speaker 1:Well, you have to cling to someone as a child. That's how you survive. You connect somehow with someone, hopefully. It's just so interesting. Like you want to know what these people were thinking through various times. Not that I will ever read her mother's memoir or her sister's, I mean, I have no desire and I think that I think it's the tackiest thing that they could have ever done. I agree, but like you do wonder how you can sit back and let something like this happen to a family member that you supposedly love.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's get back to her growing family. Her little sister, jamie Lynn, is born. When Brittany is nine, she writes out, her mother gives birth to her sister and then days she starts hemorrhaging. Fortunately she's rushed to the hospital, but this moment is cemented in Brittany's mind. This is the moment that she realizes her parents can die, and really her mother, who at this point is the rock of her family, and Brittany definitely develops a major codependency on her and for years after this, lynn isn't allowed to leave her side.
Speaker 2:I can't, yeah, I can't imagine how scary, incredibly scary and incredibly traumatic.
Speaker 1:All right, it's time for Brittany, the performer. She writes I was a little girl with big dreams. I wanted to be a star like Madonna or Dolly Parton or Whitney Houston. I mean hello like reaching for the stars there. And she, I think she landed there for sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:She writes I had simpler dreams too, dreams that seemed even harder to achieve and that felt too ambitious to say out loud. I want my dad to stop drinking. I want my family to stop yelling. I want everything else to be okay With my family. Anything could go wrong at any time. I had no power there. Only while performing was I truly invincible. Even reading that right now, my heart breaks for this child who thought that it would be easier to become Dolly Parton and Madonna than it would for her dad to stop drinking. That's horrible Talk to me about your love for performing. Why were you drawn to it?
Speaker 2:Well, of course there's the attention aspect. I mean at times, as I've gotten older, it's maybe less that you know. In the beginning it was like oh, attention on me, as I kind of grew to learn more and appreciate the art of performing, like Britney. When you're on stage, that's all that matters. The world is continuing outside the sphere of the stage that you're on, but in that moment time kind of stands still. You're completely present in whatever reality you're living in on stage and nothing really matters except for that reality until you step off stage. So it allows you time to not think about the fight that your mom and dad just had, or not think about. You know what your worries are, about this, that and the other thing. It really forces you to be present and in order to do that, you have to let go of, you have to leave all of your worries and concerns and things that are holding you up. You have to leave them at the door.
Speaker 1:It's a release and a relief, kind of as you step into this other thing.
Speaker 2:It's like a refuge when your only responsibility is to the reality, on that stage, at that time, with those people, and that's it.
Speaker 1:And it's like the closest to magic that I will ever get in this realm, when everything comes together and everybody's on and you just feel alive in a different way.
Speaker 1:It's really, really cool. And Brittany writes about how happy and alive performing even just like in the living room for her family makes her feel. And so she starts entering all these local competitions and of course she does. Well. Duh, she's Brittany and this road leads to the Mickey Mouse Club. This was so fun, since we had just recently done Jessica's episode both of their experiences and it was so interesting and fascinating to read how different Brittany's experience was. I mean, she ultimately did get the role, but I felt like throughout Brittany's memoir, when it came to her public persona and her success, there was just this ease that wasn't present in Jessica's and there was just this almost this weird knowledge that Brittany was just kind of like yeah, I always knew it was like her destiny in a way that she didn't have to, didn't feel like the fight that it was in Jessica Simpson's memoir.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And again Brittany came first and Jessica even was specifically compared to Brittany multiple times, so I get why it was the fight for her. It was just fascinating to read both, and I am anxiously awaiting the day that Christina Aguilera releases her memoir Not that she's ever announced she would but like please, Christina, yeah.
Speaker 2:That would be the ultimate trifecta of points of views.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then also I discovered because I'm doing, bethany Joy Lenz from One Tree Hill also auditioned for the Mickey Mouse Club this same year.
Speaker 2:She doesn't write about making it to the final round, but isn't? That crazy yeah. So it was done as how it's done back then Definitely.
Speaker 1:Definitely so. When the Mickey Mouse Club first blips on Britney's radar, she's actually told she's too young and to come back when she's older and boy will she. But first she'll go on Star Search when she's 10 and she makes it to the second round and she's so adorable. She'll also audition for Broadway and get cast as the understudy for the role in an off-Broadway production of Ruthless, which I actually know that musical well because a bunch of people did it in the speech and debate circuit growing up. It's like a musical version of the Bad Seed, oh, interesting.
Speaker 2:You know the story of the Bad Seed, that little girl I do.
Speaker 1:Kind of story of the bad seed, that little girl kind of yeah, yeah. So it's a musical version of that and it's a very rough schedule for britney. But she learns really how to sing and she also is learning how to play basketball and even though she's tiny she's really good. I mean, of course she's like kind of in a basketball family. So that was always going to happen. But ultimately she ends up on the mickey mouse club. She continues.
Speaker 1:When the show ended, a year and a half later, a a lot of my castmates were going off to New York or LA to continue chasing their dreams, but I decided to go back to Kentwood, louisiana. Already within me was a push-pull. Part of me wanted to keep building toward the dream. The other part wanted to live a normal life in Louisiana. For a minute I let normalcy win. She's back home in Louisiana and she falls in major, consuming puppy love with her brother's best friend and she has sex with him for the first time. But she can't deny her other passion for long.
Speaker 1:But instead of going the group route like a few of her Mickey Mouse clubmates were doing, she opts to pursue a solo career and she writes about meeting Clive Calder, the founder of Jive Records and being so naive ignorance is bliss that she didn't even know to be nervous. She writes honestly I was clueless, I didn't know what was going on. I just knew I love to sing and I love to dance. So whichever of the gods could come down and coordinate that for me, I was going to show up for them. I didn't know what happened, but God worked his magic for me. She's had a lot of success at this point, right Like she talks about doing well at these competitions, she got into the Mickey Mouse Club. When you start having enough wins, you start assuming more wins come Absolutely, especially when you're that age.
Speaker 1:It's not until later where you're like oh, I've had five wins, it's time for the no Like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And before she knows it, she's in a booth in New Jersey recording an album. And then she meets Max Martin and she flies to Sweden so he can produce her album. She writes I worked for hours straight. My work ethic was strong. I would stay in the studio as long as I could. If anyone wanted to leave, I'd say it wasn't perfect.
Speaker 1:The night before we recorded Baby One More Time, I was listening to Soft Cell's Tainted Love and fell in love with that sound. Brittany's voice is so distinct and that's what makes all of pop stars and icons singular and iconic because they aren't trying to sound like one another. And that's where I think pop music is just so fucking annoying these days, because I'm like I don't need another person trying to sound like Halsey. You know what I mean. But it was authentic and it was coming from a real place and it was coming from her earnest desire to be true to herself and try to make the type of music she wanted to make. It wasn't being different for different sake, right? I mean, when Britney does her, you know, like it's Britney, it's Britney bitch. Like that's her.
Speaker 1:And even Christina with her runs, god bless. Like, sometimes it's too much, but like it's Christina, yeah, definitely. So the album is finished and she writes about how they dance, which is so sweet. And it's music video time. And remember, this is her first music video, she's fresh out of the gate. She talks about being naive and not afraid, whereas Jessica I mean just again, like I don't want to parallel this entire time, but I really do encourage people to kind of read these together, revisit them if you haven't even just our episodes, because Brittany was just trying to do what she wanted to do and where it felt like Jessica was being morphed by people around her into trying to be more like, kind of more like Brittany, which is a really difficult place to be as a young artist, and you could really feel that in her memoir, like she was trying so hard to be true to herself and being told no, you have to be like this to be successful. Nobody's telling Britney you have to be like this to be successful. Yeah, and it's just an interesting comparison, but okay, so here's what happens with the concept for Baby One More Time.
Speaker 1:Originally she writes the label came to me with a concept for the baby one more time video in which I would play a futuristic astronaut. The mock-up I saw had me looking like a power ranger. That image didn't resonate with me and I had a feeling my audience wouldn't relate to it either. I told the executives at the label that I thought people would want to see me and my friends sitting in school board and then, as soon as the bell rang, boom. We'd start dancing. You talked about how smart she is. I think she has brilliant instincts when it comes to her creative artistry. We want to know who Britney Spears is. We don't want to be introduced to her for the first time as like a Power Ranger. Why would anybody introduce a girl as gorgeous as Britney in her first music video wearing like any type of covering over her face?
Speaker 2:Exactly. And oops, I did it again. They wind up taking this and making it work. And it does work. Yeah, I could have never imagined that. For baby one more time, no it's so strange. So strange.
Speaker 1:So Britney's life changes overnight and she literally blows up because of this song and she starts touring with NSYNC her old friends and she gets recognized everywhere she goes.
Speaker 1:She becomes a regular on TRL, Loved that show. I would literally my bus would drop me off at the end of my street and I lived at the end of the cul-de-sac and I would like book it from the bus stop like run to my house, so that I could hopefully get there in time, depending on the schedule. Sometimes I would get there for the top 10. Sometimes I would get there just to finally see what, like the number one video was. But that was such a fun moment in time for us, Like we really our generation has been through a lot of shit but we had some like peak TV moments. I loved TRL In our youth.
Speaker 2:I wish that music videos were still considered an important art form that goes hand in hand with songs, but I think that songs are being made and produced so quickly. These days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it depends who you are. You know, like Taylor Swift's music videos, everybody's like what's happening, beyonce, but you have to be like the upper upper echelon to make a splash.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And they're also expensive, but like music videos are such an interesting peek into what the whole team is thinking, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, especially when the concept is like super different than what the song meant to you. Right, and maybe it makes you think about it a little differently. Totally, music videos were a huge part of my youth and adolescence, for sure, for sure. I'm trying to think of, like the last music video that had the. I would say Gaga's telephone is probably the last music video that I thought was like revolutionary. Maybe people have had great ones since then, but like that was a music video where you were like oh shit.
Speaker 2:And then when Beyonce showed up, you were like oh, yeah, yeah, that was, that was, that was a whole production. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we're at the Justin chapter of Britney's memoir now. Like I said, we don't really care for him, but my God, was he a God at the time and he was my favorite in Sinker. And then together they were pop royalty. That was the first time that I knew to pay attention to pop culture, to Canadian tuxedos, to Canadian tuxedos, to Canadian tuxedos. Brittany writes I was head over heels in love with him. So in love with him. It was pathetic. Okay, lizzie, tell me about your first love.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. I think it would have to be broken down into two places, because in fourth and fifth grade, I quote unquote, had boyfriends and while nothing really happened, I remember thinking like, oh, they're so handsome. And they gave me that. Like you know, the butterflies in my stomach type thing you know to be to be admired by someone who likes you or who has a crush on you is, you know, it's a it's a warm fuzzy feeling, fuzzy feeling.
Speaker 2:But those were, those were like middle school feelings, my first true love, oh boy, yeah, the word pathetic really does come to mind.
Speaker 2:Oh, in that some compassion for young Lizzie I know just just in that, the things that I was willing to do and and let go of, and I think you know I in that, the things that I was willing to do and let go of, and I think you know, I think that I maybe lost myself a little bit in that relationship because I was so caught up in it and while, you know, I can't be too hard on it because that was real at that time for me, that was the truth at that time for me. Oh boy, I'm not looking forward to, you know, having to have those conversations with my daughter when she finds a partner and at a young age maybe. And I basically have to say be careful, because you're so, you're so young, and those feelings your heart is so fragile. Yeah, those feelings they feel real because they are. But it's Age brings wisdom and it's really hard when you're that young to see or understand that.
Speaker 1:It is hard. I know you're going to be a great mom to her. You'll be her shoulder to cry on if her heart gets broken. You're going to be great. You're going to be great and you know what? Maybe she'll be like a nun. Maybe she'll be a nun and then you don't have to worry about it at all. Okay, so back to Brittany. She dropped some tea about Justin and NSYNC. This part was so funny it was. This was where I was like okay, Brittany, I love you, but like what she said that they were then called so Pimp because they were white boys who liked R&B. And I thought, okay, don't know if I'm going to agree to disagree with you there. I don't remember anybody ever referring to anybody as like so pimp, but maybe they did. Who? Knows.
Speaker 1:I always felt like the Backstreet Boys were the edgier group, but you always felt like NSYNC was the edgier group, right, and those two bands obviously were very compared to one another. How could they? Not be. It's literally boy groups of like five guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I just thought that there was a sweetness of the Backstreet Boys that. Nsync didn't have. Okay, maybe that's their point.
Speaker 1:That's what it was, I don't know. Maybe you had instincts about Justin Timberlake from the go.
Speaker 2:Maybe Never liked him.
Speaker 1:Britney gave us gold when she wrote NSYNC hung out with Black artists. Sometimes I thought they tried too hard to fit in. One day, jay and I were in New York. Walking our way was a guy with a huge blinged out medallion. He was flanked by two giant security guards. Jay got all excited and said so loud oh yeah, foches, foches, genuine, what's up, homie? What was it like hearing Michelle Williams say this part, because I just imagine it was amazing. I mean, I laughed I laughed, did she like go all out as?
Speaker 2:Justin Kimberly can do it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, god bless you, michelle Williams.
Speaker 2:Full commitment yes.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Anyways, while Justin is on top of the world, it seems Brittany was not as carefree. She writes. I couldn't help but notice that the questions he got asked by talk show hosts were different from the ones they asked me. Everyone kept making strange comments about my breasts, wanting to know whether or not I'd had plastic surgery when this conversation was happening. This was like my first realization as a young woman that, like women got boob jobs. Nobody in my family had, you know, like that conversation just hadn't been brought up because we were fairly young when this song came out and there was a huge deal made about this and I kind of remember like buying into the judgment that was going on with her. I mean, I was growing up in Texas.
Speaker 1:It's like a very like, you know, christian forward community and like this idea that you would augment your body that like God had given you, which is so funny because, like so many Christian women have plastic surgery and boob jobs and I don't judge anybody who does that stuff now. But I think a big part of that too is because we had this huge radio station called KRBE. It still exists, but there was a DJ at the time, who would redo the lyrics of a popular song and sing his own version, and so sometimes that would play instead. So you'd hear the opening beat to Baby One More Time and you didn't know if it was Britney Spears' or this DJ's version. I wanted to share with you some of the lyrics because when I found this, I thought it was so gross, and I actually found it on a forum from like whatever year this came out 99, I believe and so this forum is like super, super old and people. Some of the comments were like ha ha, this song is so funny, like, basically like, fuck this girl. Like she thinks she's so hot. She's a 17 year old girl who's just like released a song Really disgusting. So I'm going to read the song to you, okay, so it's to the beat of baby one more time.
Speaker 1:Oh, plastic surgeon, how was I supposed to know my boobies wouldn't grow? Oh, oh, plastic surgeon, how I wanted them to be, just like Pamela Lee is. Show me how you want them to be. Should I go for ABC or maybe even double D? Oh, my big old boobies. Oh, look at me, look at me, not silicone, they're saline, saline. You better watch out, I'll blow your mind, I've gone up two sizes. My boobies are the plastic kind, isn't?
Speaker 2:that horrifying, wow, wow. I mean. I consider myself Britney's biggest fan and I've listened to almost every single podcast on her memoir and I still have never heard about this. That's absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 1:So that song was playing on my radio station at the same time as Britney's song is growing in popularity, at the same time as she is being really like degraded by talk show hosts. She is 17 fucking years old and instead of asking where did your inspiration come from? When did you learn to sing? How did you fall in love with this craft it's? Are your breasts real or fake? We all deserve to know. No, we fucking do not.
Speaker 2:Unbelievable that a DJ would take the time.
Speaker 1:A male DJ too, of course, to write that. Yeah, wow, I know, and she technically was a child. At this point we all need to revisit this. It's just. It was that time where, like being nasty about all people's bodies, but specifically women's, was like the height of comedy kind of, and just like accepted, and there's all this stuff that we're like fighting.
Speaker 2:We're still fighting against yeah, I think it's not funny at all it's old and tired, okay.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of vile, she writes about being forced to sit down after her incredible 2000 vma performance and watch people react in real time to her performance. She writes they said I was dressing too sexy and thereby setting a bad example for kids. The cameras were trained on me, waiting to see how I would react to this criticism, if I would take it well or if I would cry. Did I do something wrong, I wondered. I just danced my heart out on the award show. I never said I was a role model. All I wanted to do was sing and dance. It just made me really reflect on how much we put these celebrities on a pedestal and demand that they be something that they never said they were going to be, wanted to be promised to be. Why do you think that we put these people on such pedestals and expect them to be all things right? Sexy, but not too sexy. You can't be prude, but you need to be pure, like. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I think it honestly says more about us and everything that we're projecting on them. We're projecting what we need from them, even though she has said a hundred times over I love to sing and dance. She couldn't be more clear she loves to sing and dance. So I think that says something more about us as individuals. Anybody that critiques her, anybody that focuses on her physical appearance and the breasts and all of that, those people have some work to do inside themselves. Yeah, the intensity and like vitriol that people come with it's something more scary about for them.
Speaker 1:If you have enough time on your hands to let somebody else consume that much of your thought and your time, get a hobby dude or figure something else out. Seriously, let people live their own lives. Brittany writes Trying to find ways to protect my heart from criticism and to keep the focus on what was important. I started reading religious books, like the Conversations with God series by Neal Donald Walsh. I also started taking Prozac. She writes later that she was quote committed to not rocking the boat and to not complaining even when something upset me.
Speaker 1:So we're realizing she gains notoriety, fame, success, as her singing voice is growing louder everywhere. Brittany's capital V voice is getting quieter and quieter. So then, with the success of Oops, she's able to build her mother a home, settle her father's debts. She writes that she really wanted to give them a clean slate. She writes about making the movie Crossroads and how she almost got the part in the Notebook and she regrets not doing Chicago in approach. And so that was fun information to learn that she was like potentially approached with this role.
Speaker 1:What do you think about all these auditions circulate years later, even the people who don't get the parts. It's like fun to watch. But a part of me is like, oh man, there's something, there's something intimate and vulnerable that I feel happens in an audition because it's not the finished product, right, You're not even in a costume and makeup. Potentially You're at the very early stages sometimes of figuring a character out. It's your first instinct, your gut instinct, I think it's. I don't know, I like to watch it, but at the same time I'm like, ooh, I don't know if I think it's cool that these are being released.
Speaker 2:I really enjoyed seeing her notebook audition. I was pleasantly surprised, I guess. I just I like to see what other people, the choices that other people make and, like you said, it's very vulnerable and, you know, maybe ethically it's like not that great to be, you know, blasting things from the past from people that didn't wind up even getting these roles. But I just think it's like a fascinating study in how, in different people's approaches, how much they bring of themselves to a character versus an idea of someone or something. Yeah, the Notebook would have been a very, very different movie had it been cast with Britney Spears. I think they did a solid job with Rachel McAdams, but I did enjoy seeing her take. I think that was a role that was closer to it was closer to her, so I could see why they would have wanted her to read for it.
Speaker 1:I do agree with all your points. It's just God, I hope no audition tapes of me ever get blasted out there. No, thank you. Okay, back to Justin.
Speaker 1:The matching denim on denim moment happens, but it's not all paradise. One of her dancers tells Brittany that Justin appeared to brag, to be bragging, that he cheated on her. She writes clearly he slept around. It was one of those things where you know, but you just don't say anything. She admits to making out with Wade Robson, one of her choreographers, but she writes that she told Justin about this incident and had only ever been loyal to him. Besides that, plus like not to say like it was only making out but Justin was sleeping with other people. It's not really comparing apples to apples, but she felt like they had moved past it right.
Speaker 1:This is when she finds out she's pregnant. She's really happy about it. She's like sure, the timing isn't great, but she loves Justin and wants to be with him forever. Justin does not want a baby, and Brittany doesn't spell it out this way. I as her reader and as her fan. She tells us she wanted the baby and then all of a sudden she's getting an abortion, so draw your own conclusions there, but she does write this. I don't know if it was the right decision. If it had been left up to me alone, I would have never done it. Okay, she writes about crying so much after the procedure and that Justin picks up his guitar and starts to sing to her.
Speaker 2:I had to put the book down at this point, because that example a thousand percent solidified the person that I have always known him to be. That's all I needed to hear.
Speaker 1:She writes that she did this for him because she loved him so much. And then he breaks up with her via a text message while she's shooting a music video. And you knew, he knew that she was shooting this. And Britney is really struggling mentally, emotionally, after her dream, within a dream tour. She wants to rest, but this makes her people nervous.
Speaker 1:A people article and a photo shoot is set up. She writes I wasn't promoting anything, but my team thought I should show that I was doing well and just taking a break. A photographer shot me outside and then inside with the dogs and my mom on the couch. They had me empty out my purse to reveal I wasn't carrying drugs or cigarettes. My daughter is doing beautifully, my mom told the reporter confidently. She's never even been close to a breakdown. What the fuck? Like? I don't remember that article.
Speaker 1:Reading this now, I was like what were they? What was the thought behind this? And Britney is needing a break and they won't give her one, even when she's technically on her break. She has to be on performing, showing I'm just fine. Look, I have no drugs in my purse. Like what? That was crazy. Yeah, it was really interesting to read now, as a woman, her experiences going through that stuff, because she's always been this icon in our lives and you don't I don't know just to peel back the curtain on, like what she was really feeling and experiencing and how she continued to work through so much pain. I mean, I already respected her but like just heightened that At this point too, her mother is no longer feeling like a safe haven for Brittany, she writes. My mom was trying to recover from her divorce with my dad, which she'd finally gone through with. Depressed and self-medicating, she could barely get up off the couch. My dad was nowhere to be found Meanwhile. It was like I was a ghost child.
Speaker 1:I can remember walking into the room and feeling like no one even saw me. She also says that Jamie Lynn was being a real bitch, which I loved. It's like what she actually calls her. And it's during this break back in Louisiana where she writes I felt like I had no one to talk to. Going through that breakup, going home and seeing how much I didn't fit in anywhere anymore, I realized that I was technically growing up, becoming a woman and yet, honestly, it was almost like I went backward at the same time and became younger in my mind. Remember, when we first read the memoir, we talked about doing it for the show and I was like I need to sit with this for a little bit, because that was what I really struggled with with her memoir was that it did feel like a person in an arrested state of development. Even through the ghostwriting her voice was very clear to me. It felt young in a very heartbreaking way for me. She still felt so, not immature in that like pedantic, childish way, but just little girl lost a little bit.
Speaker 1:Whereas the title of her book is the Woman in Me and I do think so much of it is her reclaiming her story. It felt like when she wrote this part I was like, yeah, I think you're acknowledging it, and I think a lot of celebrities, I think there's almost like a saying that a lot of people kind of stay at whatever age they become famous at. You know, I think we had talked and I said I think she still has some processing and healing to do and I think that's okay. I think she needed to tell this story because it was finally hers and she wanted to get it out of her. And I do look forward to hopefully, maybe one day, her having a part two or like a later in life memoir and reflecting even back still on these things from where she is.
Speaker 2:Then she's she's lived so much life in a short period of time if that makes any sense. I think she's in her early forties, but she's lived just so many lives and has had so many experiences, as we learn from, like very early on in her childhood just traumas, that kind of stack up on each other and and when they go unresolved, and then you become a famous pop star, technically at age like 16, but it really started when she was 14.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a famous pop star who is very quickly made to feel like don't feel things, don't grieve, don't process, you have to be okay, you always have to be okay, you have to be perfect, smiling girl. So she's never allowed to. I mean, she's sitting there talking about how her mom is falling apart because of her divorce from her dad and she has lost a child. In her mind is what it is. She's been broken up with by the love of her life via text, and no one allows her time to process, and so she very quickly is learning that and then, when she becomes in the conservatorship, there's a numbing that is happening to her.
Speaker 1:There's just a lot that she's never been allowed to process and deal with and feel and writing it down, sharing her truth finally, is a step forward. But acknowledging something or recognizing something is not the same as processing it or healing from it. And this isn't a criticism of her by any means. Her book just left me feeling sad and I do hope that she's finally getting the support that she deserves. And I agree with you All the lives that she's lived, all the things that have happened to her, she's got a lot on her plate to still.
Speaker 2:Shift through.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is kind of the best that she can do. It's the best that she can give us and, given all the circumstances and the things that she's been through, like you said, maybe there will be a part two. I hope that there will be a part two. I'm rooting for her. I want nothing but the best for her, but it almost kind of feels like she's life is just starting putting herself first, figuring out what that feels like, what that looks like, since seemingly everybody around her family included let her down.
Speaker 1:I do hope that she has someone that she can turn to because you know, later she'll kind of bring up Sam and, as we know at this point, their marriage didn't work out. Who do you turn to? Who do you trust, when this has been your life thus far? How do you allow yourself to open up to someone when, even later, like we'll learn that, like her therapists were sharing things with her family? You know what I mean. We're almost there During this point in her life that we were talking about where she had been in Louisiana. She goes to Milan to get her confidence back, but then Justin's Crimea River comes out and she's shattered.
Speaker 1:She writes I was described as a harlot who'd broken the heart of America's golden boy. The truth, I was comatose in Louisiana and he was happily running around in Hollywood. There's always been more leeway in Hollywood for men than for women, it's true. I think he used her as a way to really launch his solo career. He also outs her for being sexually active, which she says she liked because a lot of the pressure off, that virginal pressure. She writes why did my managers work so hard to claim I was some kind of young girl, virgin even into my twenties. Whose business was it if I'd had sex or not? And it took the focus off of me as a musician and a performer. I worked so hard on my music and on my stage shows.
Speaker 1:But all some reporters could think to ask was whether or not she does confront us, even her fans. She's like we were all complicit in this. Anytime we read one of these articles, there's a responsibility that I think she's kind of just not asking us to own up to, but just like making us aware of. In her fandom and in all fandoms she just writes about how wounded the public celebration of Justin and shaming of her made her feel and she wonders why it was so easy for all of us to forget that she was a human being.
Speaker 1:But she writes that Madonna had a positive effect on her. She says she told me I should be sure to take time out for my soul, and I tried to do that. She modeled a type of strength that I needed to see. There were so many different ways to be a woman in the industry. You could get a reputation for being a diva, you could be professional or you could be quote nice. I'd always tried so hard to please, to please my parents, to please audiences, to please everyone but herself. Have you ever had like a strong female mentor figure in your life?
Speaker 2:If they gave you any good advice. I've had some teachers dance teachers. I have two older sisters my mom, of course, but probably one of our professors from USC, mary Joan. I remember when we were first newly graduated I was nannying and auditioning and interning and doing all of these things. I was really, really fond of the child that I was taking care of. I treated the child as if it were my own and I was having trouble with boundaries and balancing all these things.
Speaker 2:And my professor, in so many words, said you know, you're here in Los Angeles to become an actress, not a nanny. You need to be putting all of your career endeavors first and not putting them like on the back burner to take care of this kid which you know. At that time I think I thought that was kind of harsh because I was so fond of this kid, but then, upon further reflection, she was totally right, because why am I here? Why am, why am I doing this? Why am I living in Los Angeles? It's not to help raise somebody else's child, as much as I love them and I can still do that but I can't make that my first priority. I have to make myself my first priority.
Speaker 1:That is always a good thing to reflect on, and I think there are probably a lot of us out there who, like you, love your friends and it was never about that and to you that was how you showed love was going above and beyond for people.
Speaker 1:So, sometimes you do just need that person to just help you pause and reflect and realize these things. Yeah, okay. So back to Brittany. She's forced to do the famous, infamous Diane Sawyer interview. She writes it was completely humiliating. I wasn't told what the questions would be ahead of time which, by the way, that's a very normal thing. I have done some interviews. They were very low stakes, but I always knew what the questions were ahead of time. I even give you guys my questions ahead of time so you can compile your thoughts. Brittany continues it turned out that they were 100% embarrassing. I was too vulnerable, too sensitive to do this type of interview.
Speaker 1:She is being painted as this bad guy in the story and I remember this. I remember it very much being like oh, brittany cheated on Justin and he's the victim in all this. That's a thousand percent the picture that was being painted. I love that. She's telling her truth. Finally, with that, she's being worn down to nothing. And this is when she meets Kevin. She writes I feel like a lot of women and this is definitely true of me can be as strong as they want to be, can play this powerful role, but at the end of the day, after we've done our work and made our money and taken care of everyone else.
Speaker 1:We want someone to hold us tight and tell us everything's going to be okay. I'm sorry, I know that sounds aggressive, but I think it's a human impulse. We want to feel safe and alive and sexy all at the same time, and that's what Kevin did for me. So I held on to him like there was no tomorrow. I think that's just a human man. I think men want to feel safe and taken care of too, and I think that's great, that that's what Kevin did for her. At this point, obviously, we know that Kevin also turns out to be a really shitty person who also tries to use Brittany to prop up his own career, and I think it also goes to show that, like she hadn't done the work, wasn't allowed to do the work, to put herself back together Right Before running headfirst into this relationship, this marriage. Does she regret anything? No, she has her children because of this relationship. If she had been allowed to heal and put herself back together, would she have dated? And married Kevin.
Speaker 1:Who knows, who knows right. She is honest about some of her regrets, like the Onyx Hotel tour. She writes that she thought that if she kept working, working, working like everyone around her wanted her to do, she'd be okay. You and I talked about how performing, being on stage, can feel like a sanctuary and an escape, but you still have to be able to recharge in between, or else you just are depleted. She and Kevin get married and she writes that she finally learned to say no and felt a little peace, until she gets pregnant and the paparazzi are on her like vultures. She writes if I stayed out of the public eye, surely eventually I thought the photographers would leave me alone. But whether I was sitting at home or trying to go to the store, photographers found me every day and all night. They were there waiting for me to come out. They document her every move, subject her to judgment and condemnation. She writes about crying, feeling so trapped, just wanting her babies to feel safe, just wanting to be safe herself. And this part was so heartbreaking too, because like you're vulnerable when you're pregnant and when you're bringing children into the world, and like she gets pregnant very quickly after bringing her first son into the world and that's the perfect analogy. It's like vultures circling the carcass.
Speaker 1:Her marriage to Kevin starts deteriorating. Like I said, he's working on his own music question mark and she writes he wouldn't see me. It just seemed like he wanted to pretend I didn't exist. So she's like repeating the cycle. Right, the same thing that happened with her family. They didn't see her. She writes this later, in retrospect. She says I think both Justin and Kevin were very clever. They knew what they were doing and I played right into it. That's the thing about the industry. I never knew how to play the game. As much as I'll own my flaws, I know that I'm a good person and she does come across as a good, kind person who is just trying her best to like. She says, please, everyone.
Speaker 1:So here she writes again about recognizing that she feels like she herself is regressing back to being a child. She writes about throwing a tantrum about wanting white marble in her home and she's like recognizing that. As she writes it, she's like it was ridiculous, right? She writes kids are healing. In one way they make you less judgmental. Here they are so innocent and so dependent on you. You realize everyone was a baby once, so fragile and helpless In another way. For me, having kids was psychologically very complicated. It happened when Jamie Lynn was born too. I loved her so much and was so empathetic that I became her in this strange way. When she was three, some part of me became three too, okay. So before we unpack that, how would you say motherhood has changed you.
Speaker 2:Motherhood has changed me in every way possible, and for the better. It forces me to acknowledge the work that I have to do on myself and not just acknowledge it but work towards you better work, bitch. You better work, bitch. And all for my child, all for the betterment of my child. Everything that I do, I do with her in mind. Motherhood is the most beautifully profound, heartbreaking, amazing, indescribable role that you take on, and it's not until you're in it that you realize just how amazing it is. I mean, you know our understanding of the circle of life and how a baby is born and all of these things. You know, we've gone through life thinking we know all about everything. And then you become a parent and you realize, oh, I really, I had, I had no idea, and of course, you don't know. You don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 1:And no one can prepare you for it. No, because everyone's experience is also different.
Speaker 2:That's right. Everybody's experience is is different. Yeah, I mean, I cannot tell you how many times I look at my child and I am equal parts in awe and also like scared and horrified and excited, and I mean it's just, it's such a flurry of so many complicated emotions. It's incredible how much I feel, being somebody that I have always been a very sensitive person, sensitive to others' feelings, very empathetic. Then I had a kid and I didn't realize that I could feel more, any more deeply than I already did, which was pretty deep. And yeah, it's just, it's a beautiful chaotic ride.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the most humbling and empowering thing for me that I've ever experienced and continue to experience on the daily. Okay, so let's try to unpack this. I wrote how do you honor your inner child while giving space for the woman, which I think is where she's still kind of at, because I think her inner child needs a lot of love and I think she's learning how to give her inner child that love because she didn't get it in real life. But I mean, I think it's a tricky thing for all of us to continue to navigate, especially anybody who's dealt with trauma or anything in their adolescence, especially her, to have had her life play out on such an international stage, to have so many people think they know so many things or be told so much misinformation. Again, I just hope that she is surrounded by people who actually truly, for the first time in her life, probably want what's best for Britney the person, the soul, as opposed to Britney the brand. So let's continue her story.
Speaker 1:Amidst early motherhood, divorcing Kevin, which she writes everyone seemed to be salivating about, because once again Britney Spears fucks it all up, and this time with kids and paparazzi. She goes back to work and soon releases Blackout, but it doesn't change the fact that quote every part of normal life had been stripped from me Going out in public without becoming a headline, making normal mistakes, as a mother of two babies, feeling like I could trust the people around me. I had no freedom and yet no security. At the same time, I was suffering I know now from severe postpartum depression. I felt I couldn't live if things didn't get better. Kevin goes for full custody and the campaign against Brittany reaches new levels of disgust.
Speaker 1:The head shaving moment happens. So she's at Kevin's house, she's trying to get her sons. She's supposed to be there. This is their agreed upon thing and for some reason he doesn't let her in. And he knows that the paparazzi is outside. He knows that she looks crazy because she's banging on the door being like give me my children. He knows exactly what he's doing because he's trying to set it up for him to have full custody, because I think you know, if he gets full custody, obviously he gets more money right and child support and all that stuff. Okay, so this is, you know, a little bit of me, a little bit of the book. So the paparazzi are all there. They're witnessing this soul crushing, desperate moment for her to see her children and she writes about how she's like you know what, if they want something to talk about, I'll give them something to talk about, and that's when she goes and she shaves her head. She needed to make a statement and she did. Yes, she did.
Speaker 2:She really did. Yes, she did she really did.
Speaker 1:Yes, she did, and it's heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking to finally get her perspective and her account of this she writes.
Speaker 1:Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you, fuck you. You want me to be good for you Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl Fuck you. She continues. I became incredibly angry. I think a lot of other women understand this. A friend of mine once said if someone took my baby away from me, I would have done a lot more than get a haircut I would have burned the city to the ground. I felt that, and that's how it was all painted to us, right? Britney Spears, crazy. Britney Spears, bad mother. Britney Spears, horrible human being. And you have a coffee cup about this?
Speaker 2:moment it and you have a coffee cup about this moment it says if Brittany can get through 2007, you can handle this, which is like it's true.
Speaker 1:We had no idea what she was actually handling. We were all being told a very calculated story. I would kind of read these headlines and just be like, oh, that's really sad, but it wasn't really affecting me, but I feel like you probably were giving a little bit more thought to this at the time.
Speaker 2:I remember feeling like very, very protective of her and feeling like she was not being taken care of properly. And you know, mind you, she was still releasing music and there was just a lot. There was still a lot going on. I remember, while it was very easy for other people to say, oh, she's crazy, she's going through a breakdown, she's totally lost it.
Speaker 2:I remember, while it was very easy for other people to say, oh, she's crazy, she's going through a breakdown, she's totally lost it. I remember feeling really more so concerned and not jumping to a place of like, oh, she's crazy, she's lost it because she's Britney fucking Spears. Granted, I didn't know, none of us could have known exactly to what extent, like how bad things were. But, like I said, she was, she was still releasing music and it was different and and it was, I don't know, like the, the changes in her life of like having children and and getting married and being in the spotlight and going through a divorce, and I just didn't understand how people could immediately turn on someone who propped us up and gave so much of herself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she continues to really go through the shit. She flees to Mississippi. After she shaves her head. Her father tells her she is a disgrace. She writes no matter how many fans I had in the world, my parents never seemed to think I was much, and she admits that they hold a lot of emotional power over her. She writes about being forced to perform at the 2007 VMAs, where she runs into Justin backstage, all while Sarah Silverman is roasting her on stage. Everyone has an opinion, right, it's like everybody knew that they could get their name in the press if they said something about Britney Spears. Right, the whole time this is going on, the custody case is happening.
Speaker 1:She writes that a court-appointed parenting coach found that she loved her children, that they were very bonded and that there was nothing at all in her home that could be called abuse. But guess what? None of that made it to the headlines. She writes I began to suspect that they my family were secretly celebrating that I was having the worst time in my life. But surely that couldn't be the case, right? Surely I was paranoid, right?
Speaker 1:The conservatorship happens. She writes. Conservatorships are usually reserved for people with no mental capacity, people who can't do anything for themselves. But I was highly functional. I had just done the best album of my career. I was making a lot of people a lot of money, especially my father, who I found out took a bigger salary than he paid me. He paid himself $6 million, while paying those close to him tens of millions more. So she goes on to explain that a conservatorship usually lasts a short duration of time, mostly months, just until the person is back on their feet and then set them free, because that's what we're supposed to have in this country free will. But that's not what her father wanted, and he was able to set up two forms of conservatorship conservatorship of the person and conservatorship of the estate. So he is now designated to control all the details of her life, including where she can live, if she can drive, what she does day to day. She begs the court to appoint literally anyone else, and they don't. She's not even allowed to pick her own lawyer because her family claims she's demented and her father has access to all of her estate.
Speaker 1:She writes the role was taken by my father in conjunction with a lawyer named Andrew Wallet, who would eventually be paid $462,000 to keep me from my own money. She also writes about how disgusting it is that her mother was writing her own memoir and was going on Meredith fucking Vieira and making money off of her own child's misfortune. And you really see, after reading this memoir, her family didn't give two shits about her, it was all about making the money. She writes the conservatorship was created supposedly because I was incapable of doing anything at all feeding myself, spending my own money, being a mother, anything. So why was it that a few weeks later, they had me shoot an episode of how I Met your Mother and then sent me on a grueling tour?
Speaker 1:I remained shocked that the state of California would let a man like my father, an alcoholic, someone who'd declared bankruptcy, who'd failed in business, who'd terrified me as a little girl bankruptcy, who'd failed in business, who terrified me as a little girl control me after all my accomplishments and everything I had done. He sat her down and he said I am Britney Spears now. It's just sick, it's just a power move. Man Like I can't believe this was happening at the same time that she was sustaining this incredibly successful career and you realize how strong she was and how she was just determined to continue living for her sons, really, and it's horrible, it's heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. And she asks this question how do you cling to hope? It's so sad, but she does so, like I said, by spending time with her boys. She dates a little bit.
Speaker 1:She's later engaged to Jason Trawick, who becomes her co-conservator at the time, which honestly felt very medieval to me. That was kind of weird. They fall out of love. She does the residency in Vegas. She writes they turned me into a teenager again. In other ways, I was a girl. See, again. I'm telling you this theme kept coming off after it was crazy.
Speaker 1:She continues, but sometimes I just felt like a trapped adult woman who was pissed off all the time. There was no way to behave like an adult since they wouldn't treat me like an adult, so I would regress and act like a little girl. The woman in me was pushed down for a long time. It was death to my creativity. So she's just going through the motions. She tries to push out of the conservatorship in 2014, but the judge doesn't listen to her. I hope someday somebody really. I know that there have been documentaries and I haven't watched them because I think I read somewhere that, like Britney doesn't. She was not really a big fan of some of these documentaries that are being made about her. Somebody's got to dig into the corruption that was happening in the system at this point.
Speaker 2:This should not have happened that was happening in the system at this point. This should not have happened. That's how I feel too. But the thing is, the names did come out and the tea has been spilled and people are kind of still those same people, are still in a position of power. And then when they wound up going to court, when Britney and her father wound up going to court, she wound up paying all of his legal fees.
Speaker 1:That is insane. This just really. It's like really scary as a woman to feel like if this can happen to Britney Spears, who very clearly still had her own agency and was being forced to work and make music and all this stuff, how do we make sure that this doesn't happen to other women? When you hear stories of how men back in like the early 1900s would just like have their wives committed to mental hospitals because they were like tired of them and wanted a second wife that doesn't feel that removed from this situation, it's really scary. And Brittany just writes about how she just like has to numb herself because she's so exhausted. Oh, she tries to speak about it on a 2016 talk show, but that part doesn't air. But she keeps fighting. She says after saying that maybe she didn't want to try a particularly challenging dance move during, I guess, one of her performances. She writes really it seemed so, it was like such a small thing. She's whisked off to a $60,000 a month rehab facility paid for her out of her own money. By the way. She writes what if I don't go? I asked. My father said if I didn't go, then I'd have to go to court and I'd be embarrassed. He said we will make you look like a fucking idiot and trust me, you will not win. So she has no choice.
Speaker 1:They lock her up against her will, but she does what she is supposed to do quotes so that she can see her kids. They really they dangle her. Her kids are the carrot. She just keeps trying to figure out a way out of this conservatorship. She realizes that she can connect with people on social media COVID happens. She's very lonely but she realizes quote I've been through a lot and the reason why I'm alive today is because I know joy. It was time to find God again. She has such compassion and grace and she's such a bigger person. She tries to make peace with her family and finally just let them go.
Speaker 1:Person. She tries to make peace with her family and finally just let them go. She realizes that they'll never be who she needs them to be and she's pushing even harder to end the conservatorship. This documentary comes out about her. She writes there was so much guessing about what I must have thought or felt. Why are people trying to put words?
Speaker 2:into her mouth. Everybody's trying to make a buck at her expense. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly In 2021,. She's finally able to address the court. She's afraid what if they think I'm crazy, lying, et cetera, all the things her dad warns her that he'll paint her as. But then she writes. And then, through the fear, I remember that there were still things I could hold on to my desire for people to understand what I'd been through, my faith that this could all change, my belief that I had a right to experience joy, my knowledge that I deserved my freedom, this sense, deeply felt and profound, that the woman in me was still strong and enough to fight for what was right. And it's finally over. She's free to be the woman. She finally feels she is inside and wants to be.
Speaker 1:She writes that she feels reborn and, slowly but surely, she's learning to trust people again. She writes freedom means that I get to be as beautifully imperfect as everyone else, and freedom means the ability and the right to search for joy in my own way, on my own terms. She's moving from the passive, people-pleasing girl to the strong, confident woman. She continues. It's been a while since the strong, confident woman she continues. It's been a while since I felt truly present in my own life, in my own power, in my own womanhood. But I'm here now and that's where she ends us. And again I kind of skipped over the parts with Sam, because she gives him a lot of credit and I think that he was there for her in an instrumental time, but he's no longer a part of the picture.
Speaker 3:So you know it's a long book and, I think, a lot of people have read it too, which is why I also feel kind of free to skip around a little bit.
Speaker 1:One last quote, because I loved it. She writes there have been so many times when I was scared to speak up because I was afraid somebody would think I was crazy. But I've learned that lesson now, the hard way. You have to speak the thing that you're feeling, even if it scares you. You have to tell your story. You have to raise your voice and I just want to leave that message with all of us out there who are maybe feeling a little scared right now. It's so important that we continue to believe in our power and our voices and our collective voices. Voices and our collective voices. We are worth fighting for as individuals, as a group, as women, our rights in our agency and advocating for ourselves. So you can go into her book and you'll get more details than we had time to discuss today for sure, of course.
Speaker 2:I think this book was incredibly humanizing. It allowed Brittany to explain or touch on things that she never really has in the past, because she's a class act and doesn't speak ill of people. There were so many years like in these past 20 years. She could have easily said something about Justin Timberlake, but decided to take the high road, figured it would eventually come at the right time to do so, and even when she did, it wasn't anything too bad.
Speaker 1:She spoke more kindly of him than I would have, but I'm a sassy Scorpio bitch, so you know she continues to take the high road.
Speaker 2:The reason why I just love her and adore her is that you can tell that she is a kind, good person who happens to be very, very talented as a dancer, as a singer, as a performer. It's kind of like what's not to like about her and I hope that she continues to grow in her adulthood journey and get what she wants, because she's certainly put in a lot of work and been through unimaginable circumstances and I just I love her so much, I feel so protective of her, even though I've never met her before and may never meet her, but she's so loved by so many and played a pivotal role in many people's coming of age many and played a pivotal role in many people's coming of age.
Speaker 1:I agree, I have so much love for her too, even more after reading her memoir, and I just hope that she continues to heal and process and have the freedom to make her own decisions for the rest of her life. Yeah, and it also like her book. Really reading a lot of the celebrity memoirs, but especially these young, these young entertainers like hers and Jessica's it makes me reflect, like as a society, how we hold these women up to such an unrealistic standard. So it's kind of like okay, what can we own as a society and a culture, because this just doesn't happen to men.
Speaker 1:You have to ask yourself why. I think her memoir really shows us how deeply sexism is woven into both pop culture and the way that society treats women. Her conservatorship feels like a warning. It feels like a reflection of certain values and attitudes that are gaining in popularity right now that honestly terrify me Traditional gender roles, distrust of women's independence, this idea that women need to be protected, that they're not capable of making decisions about their bodies, their careers, their personal lives.
Speaker 1:I mean, in Britney's case, her conservatorship was framed as something necessary to keep her safe, but, as she writes about, she was still making music, still performing. Multiple albums released, multiple songs released during her conservatorship. So at what point would she have been deemed healthy or sane enough to take that responsibility over her life back? Who got to judge that? Who got to decide? Clearly clearly the wrong people, because all it really did was strip britney of her basic freedoms, gave her father way too much power, a man who was abusive, who had declared bankruptcy. I mean, this is crazy. At the end of the day, when britney spears expressed pain or made mistakes, she was shamed and not supported. Let's all just think about this michael jackson dangled his child over a hotel balcony and he was not placed in a conservatorship, but Britney was for a really long time. No one ever stops to tell a man how he should live his life.
Speaker 1:I just really am grateful for her, for writing this memoir, speaking her truth so candidly, because I think it mirrors this deeper, ongoing struggle that we all face as women. We're fighting to be seen as whole, capable people, not fragile human beings who need to be controlled under the guise of protection. We're always rooting for Brittany. We love her. I'm glad that we finally decided to do this memoir. It's the number one memoir of all time, bestselling memoir of all time, so of course we had to do it for the show In Brittany forever. Hell yeah. And thank you, britney, for all of these amazing, empowering girl anthems that you released during your conservatorship. While you were being broken down, you still tried to hold us all up. Thank you so much, lizzie, for talking about Britney Spears' the Woman in Me with me today. You have been an instrumental part in helping me be the woman I am today, so thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, right back at you, lovely I love you.
Speaker 1:I love you too, and thank you all out there for listening. Please share this episode with a Britney fan in your life and connect with us on Instagram at babesinbooklandpod, for more memoir inspiration. Bye Bye for more memoir inspiration. Bye Bye.
