Britney Spears‘ memoir The Woman in Me comes out on October 27, but you can read excerpts now at People.com. In an email interview, Britney tells People, “My fans deserve to hear it directly from me. No more conspiracy, no more lies — just me owning my past, present and future.”
Britney says she hopes the message fans get from her book is to “speak up. Be loud. Know your worth. Inspire people and most of all, just be kind.”
Here are some revelations from the excerpts:
-The first time Justin Timberlake kissed her was during a game of Truth or Dare at a sleepover with her fellow Mickey Mouse Club cast members.
-While filming her 2002 movie Crossroads, Britney says, “I didn’t know how to break out of my character. I really became this other person …I didn’t have any separation at all …I was someone else for months while I filmed Crossroads.”
-Britney writes that she shaved her head and acted out to “push back” on the constant scrutiny of her body. But once her conservatorship was in place, she writes, “I was made to understand that … I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape.” She also says her father “repeatedly told me I looked fat.”
“I became a robot,” she writes. “But not just a robot — a sort of child-robot …The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child … [t]hey wanted me to be wild onstage … and to be a robot the rest of the time … It was death to my creativity as an artist.”
“Think of how many male artists gambled all their money away; how many had substance abuse or mental health issues,” she notes. “No one tried to take away their control over their bodies and money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”
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