Britney Spears says that the point of her upcoming memoir, The Woman in Me, wasn’t to offend anyone, and called out the press for its “dumb” and “silly” headlines following excerpts of the book being released.
The singer’s memoir has included revelations about her past, including that she had an abortion during her relationship with then-NSYNC frontman Justin Timberlake and how her Diane Sawyer interview following her and Timberlake’s breakup was a “breaking point” for her.
“My book’s purpose was not to offend anyone by any means !!! That was me then … that is in the past !!! I don’t like the headlines I am reading … that’s exactly why I quit the business 4 years ago,” she wrote on Instagram. “Most of the book is from 20 years ago … I have moved on.”
She explained that her purpose for writing The Woman in Me was to give herself a clean slate for the rest of her life, acknowledging that “shit happens.”
“This is actually a book I didn’t know needed to be written … although some might be offended, it has given me closure on all things for a better future,” the pop icon continued. “Hopefully I can enlighten people who feel particularly alone in most cases or hurt or misunderstood !!!”
She concluded, sharing that she wasn’t trying to harp on her past experiences despite that being the main focus of the articles that have come out detailing the released excerpts. “It’s dumb and silly !!! I have moved on since then !!!”
The memoir also detailed her experience with her father, Jamie Spears, who served as her conservator for 13 years until she was finally released from it in 2021, following a massive #FreeBritney Movement led by her fans.
That excerpt shined a light on how she lost control over herself when she was forced into the conservatorship and the way she was objectified by the industry and her father as a child. Jamie Spears belittled her, frequently telling her that she “looked fat,” ultimately making her feel like she was never good enough, which she called “a soul-crushing state of being for a child.”
“He’d drummed that message into me as a girl, and even after I’d accomplished so much, he was continuing to do that to me,” she told People in a cover story. “I became a robot. But not just a robot — a sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself.”
Michelle Williams narrates the audio version of The Woman in Me, which hits shelves Oct. 24.
