Dozens of fans gathered at a London bar to celebrate the release of Britney Spears’ much-anticipated new memoir The Woman in Me.
A hyped crowd at the midnight book reveal party danced to Britney Spears’ iconic songs with some clutching copies of her book.
Drag performer Margo Marshall said society has learned a lot from Spears’ personal story.
“She’s such an important person to how we now also view mental health and celebrities, we’ve learned so much from her story – to be here in 2023 with this moment is like, WOW. It’s like three lifetimes!” Marshall said.
The book details her childhood and rise to stardom, along with her marriages and her nearly-14-year court conservatorship, enabling her to tell her story “on her terms, at last”, according to the book’s promotional video posted on X.
Silenced for thirteen years by her family, who placed her under guardianship, Britney Spears at the age of 41, takes the floor again from all those who had taken it from her, in uncompromising memoirs with feminist overtones.
Much of The Woman in Me focuses on the father and sons, the husbands and boyfriends, who have dominated her life, for better and for worse. Several chapters are devoted to her relationship with Justin Timberlake, including deeply personal details about pregnancy, abortion and painful breakup.
In others she chronicles her custody fight with ex-husband Kevin Federline, and how it fueled what was viewed as a public meltdown.
Spears speaks much less of recent events, making no mention of her pending divorce from Sam Asghari, whom she describes as holding her hand while she addressed a judge during a key hearing that freed her from court control in 2021.
After some excerpts from her book were made public and sparked controversy, she posted last Saturday on her Instagram that “she did not want to offend anyone” by publishing this book, and that she saw the release of the book as a setup for “a beautiful clean slate from here.”
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Over the last week, revelations about Spears’ past have made headlines, from insights into her relationship with Justin Timberlake, to the abortion that she had in the early 2000s.
In the memoir, Spears claimed that when she became pregnant, Timberlake said he “didn’t want to be a father” – creating much anticipation and renewed controversy around her image as a pop star.
