Published at 2:41 am. Updated at 5:00 am.
Arthur Loustalot Paris Match
Fame with two faces: America’s little bride and superstar in their escapades. Britney Spears’ catchy choruses made fans’ hearts beat faster. Also his crazy movements. Until then, under California law, he was under his father’s guardianship for 13 years. In the book The Woman in Me, published by JC Lattès, Britney Spears looks back on the rollercoaster fate that took her from the poor Louisiana of her childhood to the top of the charts before plunging her into hellish lies. Today his newfound freedom has all the prerequisites for a rebirth.
For months, we watched her on Instagram as if through a keyhole, with her peroxidized hair and kohl-soaked eyes, twirling her ruffles and knives that she said were fake. To appear or not to be… The Shakespearean drama seemed endless. As if, at the same time as freedom, she discovered the ultimate test: not knowing what to do with it. We were wrong. Before using her blades and her charms, Britney took the time to consider her words. After 13 years of misfortune, she wanted to speak her truth. A phenomenon book.
PHOTO KEVIN WINTER, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVE
Britney Spears in concert in Los Angeles, December 2, 2016
Original soundtrack of childhood: a mother’s screams about her husband becoming absent and “extremely naughty” due to alcohol. In Kentwood, Louisiana, children are taught to “respect their parents and stay calm.” Social life is limited to trade fairs and barbecues where dreams are consumed. Not Britney’s. Cinderella subscribes to laundry and ironing… She is touched by grace in the form of a housekeeper humming the Gospel. Britney will sing in the church choir, start dancing four times a week and achieve fame in regional competitions.
At 11, she already has an agent and joins the most demanding school: the Mickey Mouse Club. The show, hosted by teenagers, is “a military training camp for those who want a career in show business.” There she met Justin Timberlake. Neither the kiss exchanged during a game of Truth or Dare nor the daiquiris he sipped with his mother made him dizzy. At the age of 15 she signed with the company Jive Records, her rigor is exceptional and her instinct breaks the codes. For the video for her first single…Baby One More Time, the producers wanted to dress her up as an astronaut. Copy for review. She urges on the schoolgirl with pigtails, her shirt tied above her navel. Enough to send college students into a panic while reassuring parents. The album was released in 1999. And it was a hit. Ten million copies in record time.
PHOTO LEE CELANO, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVE
Britney Spears on the red carpet at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, February 27, 2002
With a kick to pop, Britney Spears takes an entire generation into the 2000s. And discovers an era of immodesty. The same refrain in every interview. What does America want to know? She asks: “If I had artificial breasts and my hymen was still intact. » He is accused of his lack of authenticity.
I never understood what these people expected of me. That I’m imitating Bob Dylan? I was a southern girl. I added little hearts to my signature.
Britney Spears
This time she falls into Justin Timberlake’s arms. In her memoir The Woman in Me (ed. JC Lattès), Britney Spears returns to her romance before discussing the singer’s infidelity and an aborted pregnancy because “he didn’t want to be a father.”
PHOTO MARK J. TERRILL, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake arrive at the 28th annual American Music Awards in Los Angeles on January 8, 2001.
PHOTO CHRIS GARDNER, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears attend the NBA All-Star Game in Philadelphia on February 10, 2002.
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She tells of “the little pills” that people took at home to avoid arousing public suspicion, and of “one of the worst pains.” [qu’elle ait] “known,” the hours she spent on the bathroom floor while Timberlake played guitar next to her. He will leave her via text message, she writes, and will publish a clip in which a Britney look-alike is cheating on him – she sees a gap. The singer is both a pop princess who buys her mother a house and pays off her father’s debts and an outsider who will soon be booed in stadiums. According to Forbes, she was one of the most influential people and started reading “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch. “And by the way, taking Prozac. »
A sentimental whirlwind ensues. She admits to “a kind of passionate two-week fight” with Colin Farrell: “We threw ourselves wildly at each other and fought with passion.” A real hand-to-hand fight! » Social phobia and an unwieldy reality dissolve in the frenzy of the party. A trip to Vegas led to her first marriage to a childhood friend. Fifty-five hours later, her parents Jamie and Lynne force her to divorce. She remarried to rapper Kevin Federline and had two sons: Sean Preston in 2005 and Jayden James in 2006.
Fame, “absolute love” and… affliction. While she has all the symptoms of postpartum depression – “unfortunately we haven’t talked about mental health issues as freely as we do today” – the flashes and clicks have put her worst profiles on paper, frozen, what she thought was her rock , the husband, flees.
Since Kevin was away a lot, no one noticed that I was off course. Nobody except all the paparazzi in the United States.
Britney Spears
PHOTO AKM-GSI, ABACA ARCHIVE
Behind the wheel, with Sean Preston, 4.5 months old, on my lap. In Los Angeles, February 6, 2006
B-side of the American dream. She becomes the heroine of a karma that leads from the charts to trash. Bad memories keep popping up on the pages: the time she was driving with her little boy on her lap; another where she, pregnant and oppressed by the photographers, almost falls over with her son in her arms and blurts out in front of the camera: “That’s why I need a gun.” » She apologizes: “I didn’t know where to turn anymore . »
PHOTO ARCHIVE SPLASH NEWS
She almost falls over with her baby Sean Preston in her arms. New York, May 18, 2006.
PHOTO ARCHIVE NEW YORK POST
His new craze on the front page of the New York tabloid New York Post in 2007: cutting his hair in a hair salon.
PHOTO WALTER, BESTIMAGE ARCHIVE
Decorated with hearts on Instagram
PHOTO PARIS GAME
During her third wedding, in a Versace dress, surrounded by her friends Donatella Versace, Paris Hilton, Madonna, Selena Gomez and Drew Barrymore. June 9, 2022, in Los Angeles
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The star files for divorce, and once again the public points the finger at her. She is sinking, but not sinking into dependence, she writes. She denies ever having had the slightest problem with alcohol or hard drugs. Only Adderall, an amphetamine with psychostimulant effects, gives him room to breathe. But Federline’s refusal to let her see the children, even as she begs him at his door, will inspire one of the saddest iconic sequences of the decade: At a hair salon, Britney Spears grabs a pair of clippers and shaves her hair. She wants to spit in the world’s face: “Do you want me to play the girl of your dreams?” Fuck you! » Sixteen years later, she explains.
For years I was a good little girl. I smiled politely at the TV presenters who were staring at my breasts. […] while sugar-coated record company bosses questioned my artistic choices despite my millions of records sold and my family acted like I was the devil. And I was fed up.
Britney Spears
She rebels, rises, falls. Britney Spears attacks a paparazzi’s car with an umbrella. When Kevin’s bodyguard came to pick up the boys in early 2008, she locked herself in the bathroom with Jayden, fearing he would be taken away from her. The result is insane: members of the SWAT special unit break down the door. The star is strapped to a stretcher and taken to the hospital. “And my parents didn’t support me. I even began to suspect that they were secretly enjoying what was happening to me. But that seemed unlikely. I must have been paranoid. Unless ? »
PHOTO NICK UT, RELATED PRESS ARCHIVE
Britney’s father, Jamie Spears
The most confusing chapter begins with a bad feeling and the screeching of the propellers. Britney sees SWAT helicopters and about twenty agents attack her mother, who is holding her captive. She is taken back to the hospital and placed under her father’s guardianship. However, she asked the court not to choose this man who made her cry as a child because he talked to himself while driving. From one day to the next she has to watch as he sets up his office in her house, where she had set up her bar. And hear him utter this blood-curdling sentence: “Britney Spears, from now on it’s me.” »
PHOTO DJANSEZIAN KEVORK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVE
Arriving at court in Los Angeles on October 26, 2007. She has just lost temporary custody of her sons.
Excessive zeal, humiliation… Anyone who wants to get close to his daughter must sign a non-disclosure agreement and undergo a blood test. They are even informed about the singer’s medical and sexual history, kept in seclusion and monitored down to the smallest message on her phone.
She talks about the medication distributed in an envelope, the microphone spying on her, and her utter submission. For what ? “The answer is simple: for my children. By following the rules, I earned the right to see my sons again. »
Total success: Even his own parents are improving. “My mother seemed to really like the fact that my father had a real job thanks to the guardianship. » But Britney has lost her freedom: she doesn’t have the right to drive, or drink coffee, or have a new child, or even control over her money, she who keeps the books in the book: 248 dates in Las Vegas, where every night brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars! And then she asks herself: “If I couldn’t make decisions, why was I considered capable of appearing in public, of singing despite the time difference, and all with a smile?” » A purely rhetorical question. She knows the answer: Dad’s interest: “The guardianship benefited him so much that he became a multimillionaire. » Even his sister Jamie Lynn benefits from the stroke of luck. And the noose tightens so much that Britney feels like she’s a victim of a cult whose guru is her father. Her mantra: She’s fat. He subjects her to a draconian diet and prescribes three shows a week, four weekly meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous, two hours of therapy, three hours of exercise… She will lose her interest in work and soon in life.
I have become a robot. A kind of robot child. I had been so infantilized that I fell into a thousand pieces.
Britney Spears
The worst will follow: months of compulsory treatment in Beverly Hills because she takes energy supplements even though they are sold without a prescription. Isolated, treated “like a criminal,” she feels half dead, “the star of [son] own horror film. She was treated with lithium and then forced to live with her family when she left the clinic, fearful of the idea that “they would come.” [lui] Visit only to finish the work, [la] kill forever.” This time she hit rock bottom. But there is a little light. A nurse showed him a video: a debate surrounding his guardianship, with a woman wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a slogan that would become the motto of the resistance: #FreeBritney. Free Britney. Admirers demonstrate, observers scoff, but Britney knows it. She is no longer alone. Renaissance in the land of broken destinies.
PHOTO RUYMEN JIM, UPI ARCHIVE
The fan revolt in front of the courthouse, in Los Angeles, March 17, 2021
On June 22, 2021, the star called the police to denounce her father’s abusive guardianship. The next day she spoke in a Los Angeles court, supported by the man who would become her third husband, Hesam Asghari. His story shocked the world. The judiciary revoked Jamie Spears’ guardianship in September and then revoked it completely. “Today, when I think of my father and his employees, who had absolute control over my body and my assets for so long, I feel sick. »
PHOTO ZUMA, ABACA ARCHIVE
Between her sons Jayden James and Sean Preston and Hesam Asghari, who would become her husband. November 29, 2017, in Los Angeles, during a basketball game
We wanted to silence the woman [elle] “, but it rebuilds itself. At 41, everything seems new to him. And we’re definitely not banning her from dancing on Instagram just for fun. Also not to pose naked or dressed up. After submitting to the goodwill of others thousands of times, she sees herself as entitled to choose her own beauty standards. “I strive for lightness, for freedom. Right now I feel like I did when I was a baby: I have my whole life ahead of me. »
The woman in me
JC Lattes
283 pages