The Woman in Me

by Britney Spears

I can make my own way in life. I can make my dreams come true. Lying quietly on those rocks, I felt God.

In the Bible it says your tongue is your sword. My tongue and my sword were me singing.

I was half outside the world.

Artists make things and play characters because they want an escape into faraway worlds, and escape was exactly what I needed. I wanted to live inside my dreams, my wonderful fictitious world, and never think about reality if I could help it. Singing bridged reality and fantasy, the world I was living in and the world that I desperately wanted to inhabit.

Tragedy runs in my family.

I know that trauma is part of why my father was how he was with my siblings and me; why, for him, nothing was ever good enough.

My father’s world and my mother’s world were completely opposite from each other.

I wanted to hide, but I also wanted to be seen. Both things could be true.

I had simpler dreams, too, dreams that seemed even harder to achieve and that felt too ambitious to say out loud: I want my dad to stop drinking.

The night before we recorded “… Baby One More Time,” I was listening to Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” and fell in love with that sound.

I stayed up late so that I’d go into the studio tired, my voice fried. It worked. When I sang, it came out gravelly in a way that sounded more mature and sexier.

That’s probably the moment in my life when I had the most passion for music. I was unknown, and I had nothing to lose if I messed up. There is so much freedom in being anonymous. I could look out at a crowd who’d never seen me before and think, You don’t know who I am yet.

My demeanor was innocent—and it wasn’t an act. I didn’t know what I was doing.

I realized how powerful it can be when women defy expectations.

His band, NSYNC, was what people back then called “so pimp.” They were white boys, but they loved hip-hop. To me that’s what separated them from the Backstreet Boys, who seemed very consciously to position themselves as a white group.

I had a hard time being as carefree as he seemed. I couldn’t help but notice that the questions he got asked by talk show hosts were different from the ones they asked me. Everyone kept making strange comments about my breasts, wanting to know whether or not I’d had plastic surgery.

I never said I was a role model. All I wanted to do was sing and dance.

What did I think of the commenters telling me I was corrupting America’s youth?

It shook me up. And it was my first real taste of a backlash that would last years.

I was never quite sure what all these critics thought I was supposed to be doing—a Bob Dylan impression? I was a teenage girl from the South. I signed my name with a heart. I liked looking cute. Why did everyone treat me, even when I was a teenager, like I was dangerous?

Meanwhile, I started to notice more and more older men in the audience, and sometimes it would freak me out to see them leering at me like I was some kind of Lolita fantasy for them, especially when no one could seem to think of me as both sexy and capable, or talented and hot. If I was sexy, they seemed to think I must be stupid. If I was hot, I couldn’t possibly be talented.

I wish back then I’d known the Dolly Parton joke: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. A...

Trying to find ways to protect my heart from criticism and to keep the focus on what was important, I started reading religious books like the Conversations with God series by N...

Around the time of my first world tour for Oops!, I was able to build my mom a house and settle my father’s debts. I wanted to give them a clean slate.

I think I started Method acting—only I didn’t know how to break out of my character. I really became this other person. Some people do Method acting, but they’re usually aware of the fact that they’re doing it. But I didn’t have any separation at all.

That was pretty much the beginning and end of my acting career, and I was relieved. The Notebook casting came down to me and Rachel McAdams, and even though it would have been fun to reconnect with Ryan Gosling after our time on the Mickey Mouse Club, I’m glad I didn’t do it. If I had, instead of working on my album In the Zone I’d have been acting like a 1940s heiress day and night.

I remember feeling like, Oh, wow, I’m somebody now.

I had power back then; I wish I’d used it more thoughtfully, been more rebellious.

I wish I’d tried something different. If only I’d been brave enough not to stay in my safe zone, done more things that weren’t just within what I knew. But I was committed to not rocking the boat, and to not complaining even when something upset me.

I get that it was tacky, but it was also pretty great in its way, and I am always happy to see it parodied as a Halloween costume.

Ultimately, he ended our relationship by text message

When you’re successful at something, there’s a lot of pressure to keep right on doing it, even if you’re not enjoying it anymore. And, as I would quickly find out, you really can’t go home again.

Going through that breakup, going home and seeing how much I didn’t fit in anywhere anymore, I realized that I was technically growing up, becoming a woman. And yet, honestly, it was almost like I went backward at the same time and became younger in my mind.

Somehow that year, in becoming more vulnerable I started to feel like a child again.

At this point, you might be saying to yourself, “Oh my God, is she really going to talk about this New Age stuff?” Only for one more minute.

I looked over at my friend, wondering if I should say something. But what could I say? “Do you believe in aliens?”

The poet Rumi says the wound is the place where the light enters you. I have always believed that.

There have been so many times when I was scared to speak up because I was afraid somebody would think I was crazy. But I’ve learned that lesson now, the hard way. You have to speak the thing that you’re feeling, even if it scares you. You have to tell your story. You have to raise your voice.

There was a lot I still had left to discover that night, when I was lost and felt God in the desert. But I knew that I wouldn’t let the darkness consume me. Even in the darkest night, you can still find so much light.

I felt so much peace after announcing my intention to control my own life at last. Things are going to change around here! I thought excitedly. And then they did.

America’s sweetheart and the meanest woman alive.

Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you. I’d been the good girl for years. I’d smiled politely while TV show hosts leered at my breasts, while American parents said I was destroying their children by wearing a crop top, while executives patted my hand condescendingly and second-guessed my career choices even though I’d sold millions of records, while my family acted like I was evil. And I was tired of it.

I became incredibly angry. I think a lot of other women understand this. A friend of mine once said: “If someone took my baby away from me, I would have done a lot more than get a haircut. I would have burned the city to the ground.”

They watched Criminal Minds on the couch every fucking night. Who does that?

I used to be able to do that when I was younger, but again, I feel like I age backward when I’m afraid. And so I got to where I was very, very nervous if I knew I had to be on air, and I didn’t like being nervous all day long. Maybe I’m just not cut out for that anymore.

It felt like some people got a thrill from thinking I didn’t notice those things.

I went to Vegas the way everyone goes to Vegas—hoping to win.

Whether it was strangers in the media or within my own family, people seemed to experience my body as public property: something they could police, control, criticize, or use as a weapon. My body was strong enough to carry two children and agile enough to execute every choreographed move perfectly onstage. And now here I was, having every calorie recorded so people could continue to get rich off my body.

What do we have except our connections to one another? And what stronger bond is there than music? Everyone who spoke out for me helped me survive that hard year, and the work they did helped me win my freedom.

I don’t think people knew how much the #FreeBritney movement meant to me, especially in the beginning.