As a girl in the late ‘90s and early aughts, few figures loomed larger than Britney Spears.

She was IT. Her blonde waves, her sugary sweet voice, her sexy-but-virginal winking public image, she represented an ideal I knew I was supposed to strive for and also knew I’d fail to achieve. I choreographed dances to “…Baby One More Time” in my best friend’s room, tying our shirts up in knots in a paltry simulacrum of the sexy schoolgirl outfits Spears and her dancers wear in the music video. I resented her and I revered her all at once.

And then, over the years… she morphed into something else: a cautionary tale. Her very public mental health struggles (and that infamous head-shaving incident) made her a prime target for public ridicule and dismissal.

We all know now that neither version of Spears — the ideal or the cautionary tale — were accurate portrayals of who she really was or is today. As Spears herself acknowledges in her new memoir, “The Woman In Me,” which came out last week, she didn’t know how to play the fame game — at least not well — and she was torn apart in the media (and by those closest to her) as a result.

By the time she was put under conservatorship — a legal designation which kept her working without any control over her life, her money, or her body — she was such an object of pity that it barely occurred to any of us to question it.

“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,” Spears writes in her memoir. “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 Woman In Me,” written by Spears alongside journalist Sam Lansky, and narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Michelle Williams, is illuminating, heart-wrenching and also feels thin on details at times. Spears’ pain is apparent throughout, and though she does her best to find lessons in her experiences, it’s clear that she’s still in the muck. It’s a tall order to find meaning and make sense of it all, when she was only released from her conservatorship in 2021. Regardless, it’s a book worth reading.

In this podcast, author Alison Greenberg joins me to discuss our overall feelings about “The Woman In Me,” its themes, what we want for Spears in the future, and the lingering questions this memoir leaves us to contemplate. Hope you enjoy!

**Also, it’s worth watching the 2003 Diane Sawyer interview Spears speaks about in her book. I’m struck by how poised she is throughout the whole thing — funny, honest, restrained, eloquent, emotional. Here it is in full:

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