Britney Spears sheds light on the public breakdown she experienced in 2007.
In the pop superstar’s highly anticipated upcoming memoir The woman in meshe recalled hitting a photographer’s car with an umbrella after shaving her head that year and explains that grief and a custody battle weighed heavily on her at the time.
The “Toxic” singer writes in the book that she “went crazy with grief” after her aunt Sandra Bridges Covington died of ovarian cancer in January 2007. That same year, Spears went through a legal battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline over custody of their children, sons Sean Preston and Jayden James, who are now 18 and 17 years old, respectively.
“With my shaved head, everyone was afraid of me, even my mom,” Spears writes in The woman in me. “Going through those weeks without my kids, I lost it, over and over again. I didn’t even know how to take care of myself.”
Sean Preston, Britney Spears and Jayden James 2013 Gregg DeGuire/WireImage Britney Spears Reveals Why She Shaved Her Hair and ‘Acted’ in 2007 (Exclusive)
The difficult experiences eventually led to incidents such as head shaving and attacks on the paparazzi’s car.
“I’m willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my beloved Aunt Sandra, and the constant pressure of the paparazzi, I would begin to think like a child in some ways,” Spears adds in the memoir.
In 2008, the Grammy winner was granted guardianship by a court, giving father Jamie Spears and a lawyer control over her financial and personal affairs. In the book, it is written that those in charge of her life forbade her to keep her shaved head and ordered her to focus on fitness, “lie down early” and take various medications.
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The woman in me is Britney Spears. Britney Spears Says She Feels ‘Sick’ About Conservatorship: ‘I Didn’t Deserve What My Family Did To Me’ (Exclusive)
In September 2021, Spears asked a judge in open court to end the legal arrangement, and Jamie was suspended as her guardian. Two months later, the conservatorship was terminated.
From then on, she sought to take control of her journey.
“For the past 15 years or even the beginning of my career, I sat while people talked about me and told my story for me,” Spears told PEOPLE in a recent email interview for this week’s exclusive cover story. “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.”
The woman in me is available for pre-order ahead of its October 24th release.
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Source: HIS Education