Britney Spears wrote that her father Jamie Spears “body-shamed” her throughout her conservatorship.
In an excerpt from her upcoming memoir, The Woman in Me, the “Toxic” singer spoke candidly about the treatment she endured while under a 13-year conservatorship that began in 2008. She claimed that as she lost what little autonomy she had over her body and work, her creative spark was snuffed out.
“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. Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back,” she explained in the excerpt, per People. “But under the conservatorship I was made to understand that those days were now over. 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.”
“If I thought getting criticised about my body in the press was bad, it hurt even more from my own father,” Spears claimed, adding that Jamie “repeatedly told me I looked fat and that I was going to have to do something about it.”
She continued: “Feeling like you’re never good enough is 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.”
In the memoir, Spears largely blamed Jamie for destroying her love of performing and wrote that his cruelty from a young age took its toll on her, leading to her push back against his control in very public ways. She wrote that living under the conservatorship made her feel like a “robot” and feel as though she had regressed to a child-like state.
“If they’d let me live my life, I know I would’ve followed my heart and come out of this the right way and worked it out,” she wrote, reflecting on the harrowing period. “Thirteen years went by with me feeling like a shadow of myself. 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.”
The princess of pop was placed under a conservatorship in 2008. In September 2021, Jamie was removed as her conservator after the singer’s lawyer Matthew Rosengart asked the Los Angeles County Court to suspend him. A few months later in November, Britney’s conservatorship was officially terminated.
“The court finds and determines that the conservatorship of the person and the estate is no longer required,” Los Angeles County judge Brenda Penny said in court at the time. “Therefore, effective today, the conservatorship of the person and estate of Britney Jean Spears… is hereby terminated.”
Although Spears has alleged that life with her father as her conservator was traumatic, Jamie has maintained publicly that he only had his daughter’s best interests at heart. In a 2022 interview with the Daily Mail, he said: “I love my daughter with all my heart and soul. They’ve heard the allegations from Britney. I don’t mind taking that beating because I know it’s not true, and because I don’t want to start something else.”
Speaking to People over email about her new memoir, Spears said that she finally feels “free” to speak her truth without fear of “consequences from the people in charge of my life”.
“It is finally time for me to raise my voice and speak out. And my fans deserve to hear it directly from me,” she continued. “No more conspiracy, no more lies – just me owning my past, present and future.”
The Woman in Me is available for pre-order and will be released on 24 October through Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
