Britney Spears had an early rise to fame as a teen superstar, only for her voice, which was gaining worldwide attention, to be crudely stripped away when her family and the government took conservatorship over her life. After 13 years of having no control over her choices and finances, Spears finally broke free from these chains in 2021. Despite struggling with the newfound freedom at times, Spears has made it her mission to take back her voice and share her story. On Oct. 24, 2023, the world took one step closer to understanding the woman that is Britney Spears in her memoir, “The Woman in Me.”
Under the conservatorship (when a judge appoints an individual/guardian to make decisions for a person who needs help), Spears would revert to child-like behaviors as her father’s ownership did not allow her to be an adult, nor was she treated like one. The woman within her was repressed, but after a lot of therapy, she finally felt ready to tell her journey from her Louisiana roots to celebrity status. She made sure to include all the rough patches, and she also spoke out on her mistreatment within her conservatorship. In 275 heartfelt pages, Spears describes her climb to the top as well as the scrutiny she felt in the public eye.
“Over the past 15 years or even at the start of my career, I sat back while people spoke about me and told my story for me. After getting out of my conservatorship, I was finally free to tell my story without consequences from the people in charge of my life,” Spears said in an article.
To appeal to a wider audience, Spears did not produce the book on her own, rather she worked with many collaborators to help bring her idea to life. She signed the deal for the memoir with Gallery Publishing Group in 2022, traveling to Maui soon after to detail her life in many journals. This is when she began meeting with Ada Calhoun, nonfiction author, who helped get the words on paper for a first draft. Sam Lansky, Time Magazine editor and author, and Luke Dempsey, a ghostwriter, were later introduced to the team among other collaborators. Spears recognizes their help in the book’s acknowledgements, but she did so without names and instead simply stated: “You know who you are.”
“I would read [The Woman in Me] because I like some of her older music and want to know what she was thinking when she wrote those songs,” Evan O’Connor, sophomore, said.
The book has a promising future, as it sold 1.1 million copies in the United States alone, just one week after publication. Critics have praised Spears’ ability to share her journey to fame, even accounting for current struggles. Though she has done little publicity for her book beyond Instagram, the memoir still gave her music and streaming a boost. Moreso, the audio edition, which Oscar-nominated actor Michelle Williams narrates, is the publishing company’s fastest-selling audio book and seems to be a key contributor in the book’s popularity.
“I wanted to read Britney’s memoir because I have loved her and her music since I was a kid. The memoir also seemed enticing because of the ‘Free Britney’ movement in recent years. Now that she is free from her father’s control, it was very interesting to hear about her childhood in an unfiltered light,” Avery Hamlin, senior, said.
The 13 years that the conservatorship silenced Spears’ voice has given her the deep-rooted desire to share her inspiring story with the freedom she fought for and won. “The Woman in Me” is available on Amazon, Audible, and can be bought in many bookstores.
