The Woman in Me (memoir)

On February 21, 2022, it was reported that Spears signed a $15 million book deal for her then-upcoming memoir,[5] one of the biggest book deals of all time.[6] On July 11, 2023, Spears announced that the book would be titled The Woman in Me, and would be released on October 24, 2023.[7] It was reportedly ghostwritten by journalist Sam Lansky.[8]

The Woman in Me chronicles Spears's journey to stardom, the publicized challenges she faced, and her endeavors to break free from a longstanding conservatorship that once controlled her life.[9]

In the beginning of the memoir, Spears writes that her paternal grandmother, Jean, was sent to an asylum by Spears’s paternal grandfather. Their three-day-old baby had died and Jean was overwhelmed by grief. While at the asylum Jean was put on lithium; later she shot herself over the child’s grave. Spears writes, “Tragedy runs in my family”.[10]

Spears also writes that she was marketed as innocent, even though she had been a regular smoker since the age of 14 and lost her virginity around the same time.[11] In 2002, her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake dumped her by text on the set of a music video.[11] When she gets pregnant by Timberlake, she writes that he persuades her to undergo an abortion.[12] Spears writes that Timberlake continuously cheated on her, writing: "Photographers caught Justin with one of the girls from All Saints in a car."[8] After the break up, her public image suffers, she starts to burn out, and begins abusing the prescription drug Adderall.[8] She also admitted that she cheated on Timberlake with dancer Wade Robson.

She described her two-week sexual fling with actor Colin Farrell in the memoir. Spears wrote that the reason for her 55-hour marriage to Jason Alexander was, that she was "drunk and very bored." She wrote that her family got angry after finding out about her marriage. Spears wrote: "They made way too big a deal out of innocent fun. Everybody has a different perspective on it, but I didn't take it that seriously. 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."[13]

She meets backup dancer Kevin Federline and they have two children together. She suffers from postpartum depression, shaves her head and attacks a paparazzo's car with an umbrella.

The book received widespread acclaim from The New York Times,[14] Time,[15] and The Los Angeles Times.[16]

In a BBC review, Mark Savage called the book "an angry, cautionary tale,"[11] while The Independent called it "raw, unfiltered and breathtaking in its rage."[8] Writing for Forbes, Toni Fitzgerald stated that the memoir "changes the conversation on mental health" and child stardom.[17]

• Gallery Books (2023): ISBN 1668009048