She found a mentor in Madonna
Britney Spears remembers feeling lost and depressed after the Justin Timberlake breakup. “When he left me, I was devastated,” she writes. Seeking support, Britney befriended Madonna. “Madonna’s supreme confidence helped me see a lot about my situation with fresh eyes,” she writes. “I needed a little guidance at that time. I was confused about my life. At one point, she did a red-string ceremony with me to initiate me into Kabbalah, and she gave me a trunk full of Zohar books to pray with. She told me I should be sure to take time out for my soul, and I tried to do that. She modeled a type of strength that I needed to see.” Not long after, the duo collaborated on Me Against the Music.
Her 55-hour Las Vegas Marriage to Jason Alexander was “innocent fun”
In 2004, Britney famously married her childhood friend Jason Alexander during an impromptu trip to Las Vegas. (They wed at the famous Little White Chapel.) Their marriage lasted only 55 hours before being annulled—and making international headlines. “People have asked me if I loved him,” reflects Spears. “To be clear: he and I were not in love. I was just honestly very drunk—and probably, in a general sense at that time in my life, very bored.” She also recalls how her parents reacted, taking the situation too seriously. “They made way too big of a deal out of innocent fun,” she writes. “My family came and acted like I’d started World War III.”
Her marriage to Kevin Federline ended because he was “ruined” by fame
Britney claims that Kevin Federline, to whom she was married from 2004 to 2007, became obsessed with his music career, eventually refusing to see her at all while recording his solo album. “He and the other guys would all be getting high, and it felt like I was in the way. I wasn’t invited to their party,” writes Spears. “Maybe this is the way married couples are, I thought as Kevin and I grew more and more estranged…He wouldn’t see me. It seemed like he wanted to pretend I didn’t exist…I’ve seen fame and money ruin people. And I saw it happen with Kevin in slow motion.” Britney also writes about how she was often left at home with their children. “I’d had his babies inside of me for a very long time, and I’d sacrificed a lot,” she writes. “I had done everything to make our life possible.”
She suffered from both perinatal and postpartum depression
Britney Spears had two children with Kevin Federline and the star is open about how difficult both pregnancies were for her, especially as her marriage deteriorated and media attention around her was relentless. “Becoming a mother while under so much pressure at home and out in the world was also much, much harder than I expected it would be,” Britney writes. “I was suffering, I now know, from severe postpartum depression. I’ll admit it, I felt that I couldn’t live if things didn’t get better.” She continues, “I’d had these two kids back-to-back. My hormones were all over the place. I was meaner than hell and so bossy…Unfortunately, there wasn’t the same conversation about mental health back then that there is now. I hope any new mothers reading this who are having a hard time will get help early…I now know that I was displaying just about every symptom of perinatal depression: sadness, anxiety, fatigue.”
Her 2007 “breakdown” was fueled by her custody battle with Federline
After Britney Spears’s marriage to Kevin Federline ended, the two were engaged in a tumultuous custody battle. “As part of his bid for full custody, Kevin tried to convince everyone that I was completely out of control,” Britney writes. “He started to say I shouldn’t have my kids anymore—at all…He not only wouldn’t bring them back to me, he wouldn’t let me see them for weeks on end.” Such was the case on February 16, 2007, the night Britney Spears famously shaved her head: “After not getting to see the boys for weeks and weeks, Kevin wouldn’t let me in. The paparazzi watched it all happen…so that night I gave them some material. I went into a hair salon, and I took the clippers, and I shaved off all my hair. Everyone thought it was hilarious. ‘Look how crazy she is!’…But nobody seemed to understand that I was simply out of my mind with grief. My children had been taken away from me.”
Britney also looks back on the moment when she made headlines for hitting a paparazzo’s car with an umbrella. “I was, once again, denied entry to Kevin’s. Turned away, trying to see my own children…I snapped,” she writes. “I grabbed the only thing within reach, a green umbrella, and jumped out the car…I hit the next closest thing, which was [a paparazzi’s] car. It was a desperate move by a desperate person.”
Britney goes on to describe the period in January 2008 when she was put on a psychiatric hold and taken to a hospital via ambulance; that, too, was ignited by being separated from her children. She recalls becoming terrified when Kevin Federline picked them up from her. “I ran into the bathroom with Jayden and locked the door,” she writes. “Before I knew what was happening, a SWAT team in black suits burst through the bathroom door as if I’d hurt someone. The only thing I was guilty of was feeling desperate to keep my own children for a few more hours.”
She gets real about her best—and worst—musical moments
Amid Britney Spears‘s personal turmoil in the late 2000s, there was much discussion around her work—both the good (her masterful pop album Blackout) and the bad (her 2007 VMAs performance of Gimme More). Britney gets candid about it all. Of recording Blackout, she writes that it’s “the thing I’m most proud of in my whole career…Blackout was one of the easiest and most satisfying albums I ever made,” she writes. “Even though it was a very hard time in just about every other way, artistically it was great. Something about where I was in my head made me a better artist… The album was a kind of battle cry. After years of being meticulous, trying to please my mom and dad, it was my time to say ‘Fuck you.’”