“The woman that I am” is the portrait that Britney Spears offers about his dizzying and troubled stardom, written with platinum records, photo flashes and massive videos. But it is also a story about paternal captivity, disturbingly visible, the conditions of which were revealed in court hearings in recent years.
In the publication, he describes how for thirteen years, under strict guardianship supervised by his father, Jamie Spears, she could not see her two children without permission or choose her own meals, she was prohibited from driving her car, drinking coffee or removing her IUD. In addition, she was forced to maintain a rigorous performance schedule, which included a series of shows in Las Vegas that generated tens of millions of dollars, of which she could only have a maximum of $2,000 per week.
Most of his admirers already know the details of those events. You can also glimpse the story of the artist’s upbringing in rural Kentwood, Louisiana, where she cultivated an early love of singing and dancing. Of course, her transformation into a cast member of “Mickey Mouse Club”along with a group of future stars that included Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling; at the age of only eleven years old.
But the intimacy of the voice of “Toxic” and “Baby One More Time” is found in her prose about the family dysfunction and fear that led her to seek refuge in her artistic career. Within her family, one can discover the alcoholism of her father, the economic problems of the house and the abuse and constant disappearances of her mother, Lynne Spears. A surprising passage is the moment that Spears reveals that her mother started giving her alcohol at age 13, on road trips to the beach in Biloxi, Mississippi.
The book also details a brief relationship with the actor Colin Farrell, whom she lovingly describes as having a torrid two-week romance. There are other revelations along the same lines, the most notable being her relationship with Justin Timberlake with whom she was “pathetically” in love. The confession of abortion, which the former singer of N’Sync she demanded it be done when she became pregnant, is one of the crudest in the story.
Finally, the role of main villain goes to Jamie Spears. Elusive, erratic and often cruel, the influence of the diva’s father is evident in one of the passages of him taking legal control of the professional and personal life of his daughter saying: “Now I am Britney Spears”. It is almost impossible for reading it not to inspire genuine indignation and empathy for the blonde artist, whose admitted bitterness over the terrible circumstances of the last decade of her life is tempered by an enduring and insistent optimism.
by RN
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