Last Monday, I watched “Crossroads” on the big screen (or any screen) for the first time in 21 years. It was the perfect prelude to the year’s biggest publishing event: the release of Britney Spears’s book The Woman In Me.
It’s a memoir, yes, but it reads as a firebrand reclamation of her freedom. Since dissolving the abusive conservatorship she was subject to for 13 years — with her father Jamie Spears, I man I’d like to personally assassinate, at the helm — Britney’s been working to reassert her voice in various (and at times perplexing) ways. Though she worked with ghostwriter Sam Lansky to shape the narrative and put into words experiences she hadn’t or couldn’t discuss previously, the book isn’t, uh, substantive. It reads more like a list of grievances or diary entries than an in-depth exploration of her life so far. That said, I still recommend it to fans, gawkers and people looking for airplane reads with the caveat that Britney’s an unreliable narrator whose treatment of events tends to be surface-level.
Here are some highlights, based on what I considered interesting or revelatory:
-Her paternal grandfather, June, was abusive and put two of his wives in an asylum. The first one, Jean, was given lithium there (foreshadowing Britney’s own experiences under the conservatorship). At 31, she shot herself on the grave of the son she’d lost three days after his birth (5).
-Britney’s maternal grandmother, Lilian (“Lily”), was British, so that’s why Britney’s drawn to the accent: “Talking in a British accent has always made me happy because it makes me think of her, my fashionable grandmother. I wanted to have manners and a lilting voice just like hers” (7).
-She started drinking in eighth grade under her mom’s supervision during beach trips to Biloxi. She’d sip a “little bitty White Russian” en route, and once they arrived, they’d have daiquiris, calling them “toddies” (39). If my husband were an alcoholic I probably wouldn’t feed my thirteen year-old daughter cocktails, but hey, I’m not Lynne Spears!
-She sang Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing” for her audition and signed with Jive Records at 15. That’s when family friend Felicia Culotta (“Miss Fe”) became her personal assistant, and her primary ally for many years going forward (48).
-She vetoed the original concept for the “Baby One More Time…” video, which featured her as “a futuristic astronaut.” The school setting, uniforms and dancing as soon as the bell rang were all her idea (53-54), and she deserves more credit for making some of the key creative decisions that launched her career.
-Justin Timberlake has always been a corny loser (58), as I’m sure you now know:
-After the moralizing backlash to her (instantly iconic) 2000 VMAs performance, she “started reading religious books like the Conversations with God series by Neale Donald Walsch. [She] also started taking Prozac” (60).
-She claims that while filming Crossroads — which is a teenage coming-of-age roadtrip film — she began inadvertently Method acting. “I really became this 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” (65). Her mind…it’s simply too powerful.
-She turned down Chicago (2002) and regrets it (71). Massive fumble, tbh.
-Justin cheated on her repeatedly, including with “one of the girls from All Saints” in 2000 (73). And as she writhed in pain from a medication-induced abortion on her bathroom floor, Justin “thought maybe music would help, so he got his guitar and he lay there with me, strumming it” (76). Straight to jail.
-She and Colin Farrell (UNF) had a two-week fling during which she accidentally wore a pajama top to The Recruit premiere (94). Slay.
-She couldn’t fathom her family’s reaction to her 2004 Vegas wedding: “I thought a goof-around Vegas wedding was something people might do as a joke. Then my family came and acted like I’d started World War III. I cried the whole rest of the time I was in Las Vegas” (106). Britney!
-In her partying days, her “drug of choice” was Adderall because it “gave [her] a few hours of feeling less depressed” (142). She claims she’s only smoked pot once, which seems…unlikely.
-She found out about Jamie Lynn’s teen pregnancy from a tabloid exclusive (160).
-One day while driving with Adnan Ghalib, the paparazzo she was dating, she spontaneously pulled a 360 on the edge of a cliff: “I honestly didn’t even know I could do a 360—it was completely beyond me, so I think it was God. But I stuck it; the back wheels of the car stopped on what seemed like the very edge, and if the wheels had rotated maybe three more times, we would have just gone off the cliff” (162). Britney!!!
-Under the conservatorship, Jamie repeatedly told her she was fat and controlled her food intake regardless of how much she was dieting or exercising. There was a two-year period where she’d “beg” the butler for “real food” so she wouldn’t have to consume “almost nothing but chicken and canned vegetables” (199).
-During her Vegas residency, she was given an allowance of ~$2000 per week — even though “each show paid hundreds of thousands of dollars” (201).
-One hairdresser saw her overpacked, conservator-designed schedule and encouraged her to take some downtime. “It must have gotten back to my father…because the next day, someone else was doing my hair. I never saw that hairdresser again” (207).
-After energy supplements were found in her purse, she was sent to a facility — a “luxury” rehab — where she was taken off Prozac and put on lithium (which made her disoriented). After a few months, she begged her father, mother and sister to be let out, but they refused: “This will sound crazy, but…I thought they were going to try to kill me” (229 - 238). She was there for three and a half months.
-While in that facility, “one of the nurses, the only one who was real as hell” clued her into the burgeoning #FreeBritney movement (239).
-She shouts out Amy Schumer, Kevin Hart, Sebastian Maniscalco and Jo Koy as comedians she enjoys via Instagram (248). I wish she’d get into Maria Bamford or Gary Gulman, but idk if she’d, um, appreciate their sensibility.
-The book was completed before her divorce from Sam Asghari, so it’s heartbreaking to see him described as “a gift from God” (271). Ugh.
Recommendations
Gen V on Amazon Prime
If you like the gore and dark satire of The Boys, you’ll probably enjoy this spinoff. It centers on a group of college-aged superheroes (“supes”) who discover that their campus conceals a disturbing secret. Blood, sexual exploits and trickery ensue.
Maria Bamford’s Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult
As a longtime fan, I devoured Maria’s first book. She’s one of the realest people in the comedy game and her willingness to excavate the darkest recesses of her psyche remains astounding. A comedy legend, a financial transparency icon and now a bestselling author? Go, Maria, go!
anddyradio’s Britney Lindsay Paris
My friend Anddy Egan-Thorpe’s first single is now streaming! It’s a hilarious, danceable paean to three of his pop culture idols. Crank it up and feel your serotonin levels increase in real time.
Shameless Self-Promotion
I’m collaborating with the inimitable Laura Merli to produce Squeaky, a stand up showcase, at Easy Lover in Brooklyn. Join us on November 21st at 7 PM for some standout comics doing clean material. Not boring or milquetoast, but clean — meaning no excessive cursing or obscenity. Watch me try to not say “fuck”!
The full lineup’s TBD but it MIGHT feature someone you’ve seen on HBO, Comedy Central and in the film Joker. Hmmm.
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Byeee!