WhenBritney Spearsshaved her head during a difficult period in her life in 2007, the tabloids pounced.
The pop star, who was going through a painful divorce at the time, was already a constant paparazzi target and gossip fixture, and the head-shaving incident seemed to support a narrative that she had become erratic.
But what was Spears herself thinking at the time?
“I’d been eyeballed so much growing up. I’d been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager,” she writes inher much-anticipated memoir,The Woman in Me, out Oct. 24 andexcerpted exclusively in this week’s PEOPLE cover story.
“Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back,” Spears adds in the book.
After Spears, 41, was put in a court-ordered conservatorship in 2008, grantingher fatherand a lawyer control over her financial and personal affairs, she says she was forbidden from keeping the new look.
“Under the conservatorship I was made to understand that those days were now over,” she writes. “I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take.”
Britney Spears performs her Piece of Me Las Vegas residency in June 2016.Marco Piraccini\Archivio Marco Piraccini\Mondadori via Getty
Marco Piraccini\Archivio Marco Piraccini\Mondadori via Getty
While Spears recorded and released four successful albums and headlined her Piece of Me Las Vegas residency during what would be a nearly 14-year conservatorship, she was desperately unhappy.
Spears continues, “I think back now on my father and his associates having control over my body and my money for that long and it makes me feel sick… Think of how many male artists gambled all their money away; how many had substance abuse or mental health issues. No one tried to take awaytheir control over their bodies and money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”
Britney Spears on the cover of PEOPLE.Britney Brands
Britney Brands
In September 2021, after Spearspleaded with the judge in open courtto end the legal arrangement, her father Jamie was suspended as her conservator. Two months later, theconservatorship was terminated.
It was then Spears set out to share her journey, on her own terms.
“Over the past 15 years or even at the start of my career, I sat back while people spoke about me and told my story for me,” she tells PEOPLE in a new interview done via email. “After getting out of my conservatorship, I was finally free to tell my story without consequences from the people in charge of my life.”
Britney Spears' The Woman in Me.
With her new memoir,The Woman in Me, she shares often-brutal truths, and details her incredible journey from teen superstar to one of the best-selling female artists of all time.
“It is finally time for me to raise my voice and speak out, and my fans deserve to hear it directly from me,” she says. “No more conspiracy, no more lies—just me owning my past, present and future.”
The Woman in Meisavailable for pre-orderahead of its release on Oct. 24.
For more of the exclusive excerpt and interview with Britney Spears, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.
source: people.com
