Ahead of the release of his blockbuster autobiography earlier this year, Prince Harry sat down with “60 Minutes” — and “CBS Mornings,” “ABC News Live,” “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and more. Paris Hilton filmed The View and spoke to the BBC. Kerry Washington has appeared on NPR’s “Fresh Air” and “Good Morning America.” Arnold Schwarzenegger chose Kelly Clarkson and Howard Stern.
But for Britney Spears, the endlessly sought after and speculated pop star who released her memoir “The Woman in Me” this week, it was mostly Instagram.
To build excitement over one of the most anticipated celebrity memoirs of the year, People magazine featured pre-publication excerpts but no in-person interviews, something Spears has avoided since 2018, when she was still in her tightly controlled conservatorship life and her career. (In the book, Spears writes that he mentioned the agreement in a 2016 interview, but then it was edited out.)
However, now that Spears is legally allowed to do and say whatever she pleases, she has held back and essentially thrown out the playbook of promoting a celebrity reveal. Instead, the singer and her team let the book speak for itself, whose gossip nuggets and condemnations of the 13-year conservatorship provide a steady stream of press reports and social media chatter.
Their reluctance to do interviews, due in part to distrust sown by decades of insensitive reporting, does not appear to have affected initial sales: the book reached No. 1 on Amazon’s bestseller list; Full sales data will not be available until next week. However, the 41-year-old Spears’ lack of significant promotional or public appearances is obvious to professionals in the world of publishing and public relations.
“This is completely extraordinary,” said Eleanor McManus, a former booking producer for CNN’s “Larry King Live” who now works as a crisis manager. McManus said she watched TV Monday morning to see what shows would spark a conversation with Spears. “I thought, ‘Who got the first interview?'” she said, before realizing the answer was “nobody.”
“You only discourage interviews if you can’t control what the person would say or if what they would say would hurt their brand,” she added.
However, some experts suggest that Spears’ strong social media following could be all she needs for a successful book release. “At a time when celebrity memoirs are booming, subjects may no longer have to engage with traditional media as they once did if they have a sizable audience of their own,” said Madeleine Morel, an independent literary agent who represents ghostwriters.
“It all depends on the size of your platform,” Morel said. “Can you get an audience for a book?”
In fact, Spears is known these days for communicating almost exclusively through her free-associative and often cryptic social media posts. Her most significant commentary on “The Woman in Me” came not in Vogue, on Oprah or even in a cheeky appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” but on social media, where she shared messages about the book that were alternately grateful, scarred and … were contradicted by her more than 100 million followers across all platforms.
It’s not that the traditional media isn’t interested. Spears said in a now-deleted voice message posted to Instagram last year that she was approached by all sorts of outlets after her conservatorship ended at the end of 2021.
“I have offers for interviews with Oprah and so many people, lots and lots of money, but it’s crazy,” she said. “I don’t want any of it.”
A representative for Spears declined to comment and the memoir’s publisher, Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, did not respond to requests for comment about her nontraditional strategy to secure publicity.
To date, Spears’ traditional media exposure has been limited to excerpts in People magazine – including the bombshell that Spears released had an abortion during her relationship with Justin Timberlake – accompanied by emailed quotes attributed to the singer and a cover photo showing Spears smiling on a beach in Tahiti that was taken by “Britney Brands” and not a photographer from the magazine.
The publisher also helped organize an international re-release of the 2002 film “Crossroads,” starring Spears. This rollout featured interviews with director Tamra Davis, who has spawned her own wave of news about Spears.
In Spears’ own recent comments about the book, she chided the media for focusing on her past, even though the memoir is essentially a retelling of her life story.
“I don’t like the headlines I read…that’s exactly why I quit the business 4 years ago!!!,” she wrote on Instagram. “My motivation for writing this book was not to harp on my past experiences, which is what the press is doing, and that is stupid and silly!!! I’ve moved on since then!!!”
She then briefly deactivated her account, only to return shortly afterwards with a picture of a cake with the words “See you in hell” written on it. On the book’s release day, she shared a single promotion post Reading: “My Story. On my terms. Last but not least.” (She later deleted the post from Instagram.)
Most celebrities looking to sell books still combine more old-fashioned media appearances, like the Today show and the late-night scene, with a dedicated social media strategy and newer, friendly channels like the Armchair Expert and podcasts On Purpose With Jay Shetty, the life coach and influencer.
Actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who released her memoir this month, has done all that and more. Her flurry of media appearances even became the butt of a joke on “SNL.”
“Sorry if I seem a little tired,” said comedian Ego Nwodim, who played Pinkett Smith. “I was on the ‘Today’ show 14 times in three days.”
Author Neil Strauss, who has worked on books with Mötley Crüe, Marilyn Manson and Jenna Jameson, said celebrities could risk becoming bigger than the book through overexposure. “Sometimes talking about it can only hurt you,” he said, adding that Spears “seems like she has a lot of trauma surrounding the media.”
In her memoir, Spears describes how the press unfairly focused on her body as a rising pop sensation and her fitness as a mother during a series of public confrontations in 2007 and 2008, which ultimately led to her father, James P. Spears, given control over her personal life and finances.
She wrote that she felt exploited in 2003 when her father and management arranged an interview with Diane Sawyer following her split from Timberlake. “It was completely humiliating,” Spears writes. “I wasn’t told in advance what the questions would be and it turned out they were 100 percent embarrassing.”
Strauss, the prominent employee, said: “She was simply analyzed and scrutinized beyond the level that any human being should be.” Still, he acknowledged, echoing others in the industry, that it was “highly unusual” for someone Because of Spears’ format, there are no interviews. Even Bob Dylan, a notorious media foe for most of his career, promoted his memoirs in 2004.
Paul Bogaards, a veteran book publicist who has managed campaigns for the best-selling memoirs of Bill Clinton and Andre Agassi, said that the power of a celebrity speaking publicly about their book tends to be greater than the power of the media promoting it use a news report.
“Once they’re out in the world talking about their book, it becomes a round-the-clock news coverage palooza,” Bogaards said, adding that most publishers require contractual agreements on promotion. “You want them to be clearly visible,” he added. “It is difficult to defend accepting a multimillion-dollar advance in the absence of such agreements.” (Published figures put the price tag for Spears’ memoir, announced last year, at $12.5 million to $15 million. Dollar.)
Another key selling point for celebrity memoirs is usually the subject’s own voice in the audio book edition, but in this case too, Spears has largely forgone that. In a brief introduction to the audiobook version of “The Woman in Me,” Spears said she chose to read only a short excerpt from her 275-page book because the process of reliving the content was “heartbreaking.” Aside from a minute and a half, the rest of the five-hour-plus book is read by actress Michelle Williams.
Spears’ most loyal fans see no problem with her letting the work speak for itself. For years, many fans’ mantra has been: “Leave Britney alone,” especially after the singer criticized fans earlier this year for calling the police out of concern for her well-being when she temporarily deactivated her Instagram account. She reiterated her objections last month when another 911 call was made in response to a video of her dancing with what appeared to be kitchen knives. (Spears said they were props.)
“A lot of the tone of the book is about these instances where she was forced to do things against her will,” said Jordan Miller, the founder of the Spears fan site BreatheHeavy.com, which helped launch the “Free Britney ” campaign to launch, which brought more public attention to monument preservation.
“It’s cool that it goes in the opposite direction of the status quo when it comes to conventional advertising,” he added. “It’s like, ‘Here are my words, you can read them.’ Here are the photos I want to show you. I will agree to all of this.’ In the context of everything that’s happened, it’s super refreshing.”
But a celebrity memoir with a jaw-dropping purchase price may need to reach more than just superfans to be considered a phenomenon worth the investment, experts say.
“It’s going to be a big release, but I think they could do more to make it a real moment that stays in the memory,” said Anthony Bozza, an author who has written books with Slash, Tracy Morgan and Artie Lange has.
If not, he added, “They will just be a moment in the cycle.”