Jamie Spears; Britney Spears.Photo:VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images; Image Group LA/Disney Channel via Getty Images
VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images; Image Group LA/Disney Channel via Getty Images
Britney Spearsspent years underdad Jamie’s watchful eye as part of her conservatorship — and now says that she was body-shamed during the difficult 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.Shaving my headand acting out were my ways of pushing back,” she writes. “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.”
Spears, 41, continues: “If I thought getting criticized about my body in the press was bad, it hurt even more from my own father. He repeatedly told me I looked fat and that I was going to have to do something about it.”
Britney Spears in 2003.Martin Schoeller / AUGUST
Martin Schoeller / AUGUST
The “Hold Me Closer” singer says she quickly lost the creative spark she’d had for singing and dancing, and blames Jamie, 71.
“Feeling like you’re never good enough is a soul-crushing state of being for a child,” she writes. “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.”
Spears writes that living under the conservatorshipmade her a “robot,”and that she felt “stripped” of her womanhood.
The Spears family in 2003.Kevin Mazur Archive 1/WireImage
Kevin Mazur Archive 1/WireImage
The Grammy winner was put under her conservatorship in 2008. Jamie was eventually removed from his role as Spears’s estate conservator in September 2021 after the singer’s lawyer asked the court to suspend him, andthe entire conservatorship was eventually terminatedthat November.
Britney Spears on the cover of PEOPLE.Britney Brands
Britney Brands
Though Spears has claimed that life under her father’s charge was a traumatic, controlling period, Jamie has repeatedly maintained that he was acting in his daughter’s best interest.
“I love my daughter with all my heart and soul,” he told theDaily Mailin a 2022 interview. “They’veheard 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.”
Britney Spears' The Woman in Me.
As for why now is the right time to tell her story, Spearstells PEOPLE in a new interview over emailthat upon leaving her conservatorship, she finally feels “free” to speak openly 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 adds. “No more conspiracy, no more lies — just me owning my past, present and future.”
The Woman in Meis available for pre-order. It will be released on Oct. 24 through Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
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
