Britney Spears Had a Panic Attack Because of ‘Gimme More’ VMAs Performance: ‘Knew It Was Going to Be Bad’

Britney Spears opens up about one of the most challenging performances of her career and the controversy that followed.

In his newly published memoirs The woman in meSpears, now 41, revealed that she had a panic attack backstage at the 2007 MTV VMAs shortly before performing “Gimme More,” which was widely criticized at the time.

The superstar said that despite a tough 2007, she was encouraged to perform for the first time in three years that September to promote her album Blackout, which was due out next month. “I didn’t want to, but my team pressured me to go out and show the world that I’m fine,” she wrote. “The only problem with this plan: I wasn’t well.”

Britney Spears performs “Gimme More” at the 2007 MTV VMAs.

Michael Caulfield/WireImage

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On the night of the VMAs, the “Hold Me Closer” singer said “nothing went right.”

“I didn’t sleep the night before. My head was spinning. It’s been less than a year since I gave birth to my second child in two years, but everyone acted like my lack of abs was insulting. I couldn’t believe I was going to have to go on stage feeling the way I did,” she wrote. “I had a panic attack. I didn’t practice enough. I hated the way I looked. I knew it was going to be bad.”

Spears, who had a public breakdown seven months ago, wrote: “I went out there and did the best I could in that moment, which – yes, of course – was far from my best on other occasions. I could see myself on video throughout the hall while I was performing; it was like looking at myself in a funhouse mirror.”

The Grammy winner told how she bumped into her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake, whom she broke up with five years ago, backstage for the first time in a long time. “You also usually don’t have one of the worst days of your life at the exact place and time your ex is having one of his best,” she wrote, referring to the pop artist’s solo and joint performance with Timbaland and Nelly Furtado.

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“Later that night, comedian Sarah Silverman came on stage to roast me. She said that at the age of twenty-five I had done everything worth living. She called my two babies ‘the most adorable mistakes you’ll ever see,’” the “Toxic” singer continued. “However, I only heard that later. I was backstage at the time sobbing hysterically.”

(Silverman apologized in 2021, writing on Twitter that she “had no idea” that Spears “didn’t kill” her performance. “I wish I could delete it, but I can’t.”)

Spears’ memoir The woman in me it arrived on Tuesday via Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

It happened almost two years after the “Circus” singer was released from her 13-year court-ordered supervision. The conservatorship was terminated in November 2021 after Spears publicly testified earlier that year.

Britney Spears for PEOPLE.

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Ahead of the memoir’s release, the pop superstar appeared in an exclusive cover story for PEOPLE. In an email interview, she opened up about her journey to being able to tell her own story.

“During the past 15 years or even at the beginning of my career, I sat while people talked about me and told my story for me,” explained the performer. “After I got out of conservatorship, I was finally free to tell my story without repercussions from the people who were in charge of my life.”

“It’s finally time for me to speak up and my fans deserve to hear it directly from me,” she said. “No more conspiracies, no more lies – only I own my past, present and future.”

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