Britney Spears The Woman In Me Quotes

I wanted to hide, but I also wanted to be seen. Both things could be true.

There have been so many times when I was scared to speak up because I was afraid somebody would think I was crazy. But I’ve learned that lesson now, the hard way. You have to speak the thing that you’re feeling, even if it scares you. You have to tell your story. You have to raise your voice.

As if gaining weight was something unkind I had done to them personally, a betrayal. At what point did I promise to stay 17 for the rest of my life?

In that moment, I made peace with my family—by which I mean that I realized I never wanted to see them again, and I was at peace with that.

I wish back then I’d known the Dolly Parton joke: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I also know that I’m not blonde.

If no one is used to you being assertive, they get very freaked out when you start speaking your mind.

The saddest part to me was that what I always wanted was a dad who would love me as I was—somebody who would say, “I just love you. You could do anything right now. I’d still love you with unconditional love.

If someone took my baby away from me, I would have done a lot more than get a haircut. I would have burned the city to the ground.

I was quiet and small, but when I sang I came alive,

I realized how powerful it can be when women defy expectations.

You have to speak the thing that you’re feeling, even if it scares you. You have to tell your story. You have to raise your voice.

Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you. I’d been the good girl for years. I’d smiled politely while TV show hosts leered at my breasts, while American parents said I was destroying their children by wearing a crop top, while executives patted my hand condescendingly and second-

Think of how many male artists gambled all their money away; how many had substance abuse or mental health issues. No one tried to take away their control over their body and money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.

There is so much freedom in being anonymous.

All I wanted was to be taken away from the everyday world and into that realm where I could express myself without thinking. When I was alone with my thoughts, my mind filled with worries and fears. Music stopped the noise, made me feel confident, and took me to a pure place of expressing myself exactly as I wanted to be seen and heard. Singing took me into the presence of the divine.

But then, when it came time to end the conservatorship, I realized one thing: You can’t fuck with a woman who knows how to pray. Really pray. All I did was pray.

If you stood up for me when I couldn’t stand up for myself: from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

My father shoved aside my bowl of receipts, setting up his things on the bar. “I just want to let you know,” he said, “I call the shots. You sit right there in that chair and I’ll tell you what goes on.” I looked at him with a growing sense of horror. “I’m Britney Spears now,” he said.

I feel like a lot of women—and this is definitely true of me—can be as strong as they want to be, can play this powerful role, but at the end of the day, after we’ve done our work and made our money and taken care of everyone else, we want someone to hold us tight and tell us everything’s going to be okay.

Once you start to see yourself that way - as not just someone who exists to make everyone else happy but someone who deserves to make their wishes known - that changes everything.

I can make my own way in life. I can make my dreams come true. Lying quietly on those rocks, I felt God.

Everyone thought it was hilarious. Look how crazy she is! Even my parents acted embarrassed by me. But nobody seemed to understand that I was simply out of my mind with grief. My children had been taken away from me. With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom. No one would talk to me anymore because I was I was too ugly. My long hair was a big part of what people liked – I knew that. I knew a lot of guys thought long hair was hot… shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you.

If I was sexy, they seemed to think I must be stupid. If I was hot, I couldn’t possibly be talented.

Artists make things and play characters because they want an escape into faraway worlds, and escape was exactly what I needed. I wanted to live inside my dreams, my wonderful fictitious world, and never think about reality if I could help it. Singing bridged reality and fantasy, the world I was living in and the world that I desperately wanted to inhabit.

I was treated like a criminal and they made me think I deserved that. They made me forget my self-worth and my value. Of all the things they did, I will say the worst was to make me question my faith. I never had strict ideas about religion, I just knew there was something bigger than me. Under their control I stopped believing in God for awhile. But then when it came time to end the conservatorship I realized one thing: You can't fuck with a woman who knows how to pray. Really pray. All I did was pray.

Freedom means being goofy, silly, and having fun on social media. Freedom means taking a break from Instagram without people calling 911. Freedom means being able to make mistakes, and learning from them. Freedom means I don’t have to perform for anyone—onstage or offstage. Freedom means that I get to be as beautifully imperfect as everyone else. And freedom means the ability, and the right, to search for joy, in my own way, on my own terms.

And the fact that my friends and my fans sensed what was happening and did all that for me, that’s a debt I can never repay. If you stood up for me when I couldn’t stand up for myself: from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

All I wanted was to be taken away from the everyday world and into that realm where I could express myself without thinking

Singing takes me to a mystical place where language doesn’t matter anymore, where anything is possible.

But I knew that I wouldn't let the darkness consume me. Even in the darkest night, you can still find so much light.

I’d been the good girl for years. I’d smiled politely while TV show hosts leered at my breasts, while American parents said I was destroying their children by wearing a crop top, while executives patted my hand condescendingly and second-guessed my career choices even though I’d sold millions of records, while my family acted like I was evil. And I was tired of it.

To cement their marriage, my parents had a second baby—me. I was born on December 2, 1981. My mother never missed an opportunity to recall that she was in excruciating labor with me for twenty-one hours.

The truth: I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.

For thirteen years, I wasn’t allowed to eat what I wanted, to drive, to spend my money how I wanted, to drink alcohol or even coffee.

Even in my family, it was said that the Spears men tended to be bad news, especially in terms of how they treated women.

as if gaining weight was something unkind I’d done to them personally, a betrayal. At what point did I promise to stay seventeen for the rest of my life?

The woman in me was pushed down for a long time.

It makes me want to cry, how strong my little heart had to be.

What do we have except our connections to one another?

Even in the darkest night, you can still find so much light.

I swear to God the woman sang the whole song, to my face. It was just so awkward, and every time I stood next to her she started singing it again. I thought how that would be like me going up to Britney and singing the whole of 'Baby One More Time' in her face. Can you imagine how weird that would be?

The magazines seemed to love nothing more than a photo they could run with the headline “Britney Spears got HUGE! Look, she’s not wearing makeup!” As if those two things were some kind of a sin—as if gaining weight was something unkind I’d done to them personally, a betrayal.

It reminded me of what I’d always heard about the way they’d test to see if someone was a witch in the olden days. They’d throw the woman into a pond. If she floated, she was a witch and would be killed. If she sank, she was innocent, and, oh well.

My freedom in exchange for naps with my children -- it was a trade I was willing to make. There is nothing I love more -- nothing more important to me on this earth -- than my children. I'd lay down my life for them. So, I thought, why not my freedom?

If you’re a girl, you have to play the game. What is that game? You’re allowed to be pretty, and cute, and sexy. But don’t act too smart. Don’t have an opinion.

If you follow me on Instagram, you thought this book was going to be written in emojis, didn't you?

I realized how powerful it can be when women defy expectations. I can make my own way in life. I can make my dreams come true.

Giving a person no grace in a hard time is just not nice, especially when you can’t take as good as you give.

Then I pulled myself together and I thought: I can get a new notebook, and I can start over. I’ve been through a lot. The reason why I’m alive today is because I know joy.

A friend of mine once said: “If someone took my baby away from me, I would have done a lot more than get a haircut. I would have burned the city to the ground.

Tragedy runs in my family.

She was disappointed, though, when he brought her with him to America.

By all accounts, their relationship was born of mutual attraction and a sense of adventure. But the honeymoon was over long before I came along.

It was a huge loss for me. I didn’t understand how being with someone I loved could be considered dangerous.

I became pregnant with Justin’s baby. It was a surprise, but for me it wasn’t a tragedy. I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one day.

Artists are weird, you know?

He was in the studio all the time. He really thought he was a rapper now. Bless his heart—because he did take it so seriously.

The poet Rumi says the wound is the place where the light enters you.

Raising kids in the South used to be more about respecting your parents and keeping your mouth shut. (Today, the roles are reversed - it's more about respecting the kids.)

I watch scary movies. I’ve seen The Conjuring. I’m not scared of anything after those months at that treatment center. Seriously, I’m not scared of anything now.

The reason why I’m alive today is because I know joy.

I’m probably the least fearful woman alive at this point, but it doesn’t make me feel strong; it makes me sad. I shouldn’t be this strong.

I had a hard time being as carefree as he seemed. I couldn’t help but notice that the questions he got asked by talk show hosts were different from the ones they asked me. Everyone kept making strange comments about my breasts, wanting to know whether or not I’d had plastic surgery.

That’s the kind of thing I’m doing now—trying to have fun and trying to be kind to myself, to take things at my own pace. And, for the first time in a long time, allowing myself to trust again.

Making that video was the most fun part of doing that first album. That’s probably the moment in my life when I had the most passion for music. I was unknown, and I had nothing to lose if I messed up.

I was a little girl with big dreams. I wanted to be a star like Madonna, Dolly Parton, or Whitney Houston. I had simpler dreams too, dreams that seemed even harder to achieve and that felt too ambitious to say out loud: I wanted my dad to stop drinking. I want my mom to stop yelling. I want everyone to be okay.

A girl from Pennsylvania named Christina Aguilera and I were told we hadn’t made the cut but that we were talented. Matt said we could probably get on the show once we were a little older and more experienced.

June sent Jean to Southeast Louisiana Hospital, a by-all-accounts horrible asylum in Mandeville, where she was put on lithium. In 1966, when she was thirty-one, my grandmother Jean shot herself with a shotgun on her infant son’s grave, just over eight years after his death. I can’t imagine the grief that she must have felt.

When I found him, he had his head shaved. He was getting ready to shoot the cover for his album. He was in the studio all the time. He really thought he was a rapper now. Bless his heart—because he did take it so seriously.

Later, I walked all the way home so I could take in the city, breaking one of my heels along the way. When I got to my apartment, I went to my terrace and just looked up at the stars for hours. At that moment, I felt one with New York.

When the magazine came out, the photos were controversial because the cover shot of me in my underwear holding a Teletubby played up how young I was. My mother seemed concerned, but I knew that I wanted to work with David LaChapelle again.

Three months into my confinement, I started to believe that my little heart, whatever made me Britney, was no longer inside my body anymore. Something bigger must have been carrying me through, because it was too much for me to bear alone.

Giving a person no grace in a hard time is just not nice. Especially when you can't take as good as you give. When I started to speak and throw it back at them a little, God knows they were far from perfect, they didn't really like it that much.

My father was thirteen when Jean died on that grave. I know that trauma is part of why my father was how he was with my siblings and me; why, for him, nothing was ever good enough. My father pushed my brother to excel in sports. He drank until he couldn’t think anymore.

I was never quite sure what all these critics thought I was supposed to be doing—a Bob Dylan impression? I was a teenage girl from the South. I signed my name with a heart. I liked looking cute. Why did everyone treat me, even when I was a teenager, like I was dangerous?

I feel like my emotions are always syncing up with those around me. I don’t know what hippie word you want to use for it—cosmic consciousness, intuition, psychic connection. All I know is that, 100 percent, I can feel the energy of other people. I can’t help but take it in.

I did everything Mariah Carey told me to do and we took the photo. Of course she was completely right about everything—the photo looked incredible. I know I won an award that night, but I couldn’t even tell you what it was. The perfect photo with Mariah Carey—that was the real prize.

There have been so many times I was scared to speak up because I was afraid somebody would think I was crazy. But I've learned that less now, the hard way. You have to speak the thing that you're feeling, even if it scares you. You have to tell your story. You have to raise your voice.

I was sixteen when, on October 23, 1998, the “… Baby One More Time” single hit stores. The next month the video premiered, and suddenly I was getting recognized everywhere I went. On January 12, 1999, the album came out and sold over ten million copies very quickly. I debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart in the US. I became the first woman to debut with a number one single and album at the same time. I was so happy.

I was rebelling, yes, but I can see now that there’s a reason why people go through rebellious times. And you have to let people go through them. I’m not saying that I was right to spiral, but I think to hinder someone’s spirit to that degree and to put them down that much, to the point where they no longer feel like themselves—I don’t think that’s healthy, either. We, as people, have to test the world. You have to test your boundaries, to find out who you are, how you want to live.

May I just say that on his explosive album and in all the press that surrounded it, Justin neglected to mention the several times he’d cheated on me? There’s always been more leeway in Hollywood for men than for women. And I see how men are encouraged to talk trash about women in order to become famous and powerful. But I was shattered.

I’m no saint, but I do know God.

I look at the fact that I survived and I think, That wasn’t me; that was God.

Feeling like you’re never good enough is a soul-crushing state of being for a child.

Freedom means that I get to be as beautifully imperfect as everyone else. And freedom means the ability, and the right, to search for joy, in my own way, on my own terms.

My voice had been used for me, and against me, so many time that I was afraid nobody would recognise it now if I spoke freely.

It’s funny how one split second can change a family’s dynamics forever.

I was so embarrassed. Isn’t it funny that out of all the things that happened to me in that first year of recording, that is one of my most vivid memories? That was over twenty-five years ago! I was devastated! But honestly, I think I was more in shock because I did not know that screen was there. It made me think I might have been recording in that booth for too long.

in which I would play a futuristic astronaut. The mock-up I saw had me looking like a Power Ranger. That image didn’t resonate with me, and I had a feeling my audience wouldn’t relate to it, either. I told the executives at the label that I thought people would want to see my friends and me sitting at school, bored, and then as soon as the bell rang, boom—we’d start dancing.

When Justin began making his first solo album, Justified, he started being very standoffish with me. I think that was because he’d decided to use me as ammunition for his record, and so it made it awkward for him to be around me staring at him with all that affection and devotion. Ultimately, he ended our relationship by text message while I was on the set for the video for the “Overprotected

There was a lot I still had left to discover that night, when I was lost and felt God in the desert. But I knew that I wouldn't let the darkness consume me. Even in the darkest night, you can still find so much light.

She was arguing with this person who wasn’t even conscious. But she wouldn’t listen. I would go back to bed furious, staring daggers at the ceiling, listening to her yell, cursing her in my heart. Isn’t that awful? He was the one who was drunk. He was the one whose alcoholism had made us so poor. He was the one passed out in the chair. But she was the one who ended up pissing me off the most, because at least in those moments, he was quiet. I was so desperate to sleep, and she wouldn’t shut up.

I don’t think people knew how much the #FreeBritney movement meant to me, especially in the beginning. Toward the end, when the court hearings were going on, seeing people advocating for me meant a whole lot. But when it first happened, that got my heart, because I was not okay, not at all. And the fact that my friends and my fans sensed what was happening and did all that for me, that’s a debt I can never repay. If you stood up for me when I couldn’t stand up for myself: from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

The way social anxiety works is that what feels like a totally normal conversation to most people, to you feels mortifying. Being around people at all, especially at a party or some other situation with expectations of presenting well, for no apparent reason causes surges of embarrassment.

As parents we’re always telling our children, “Stay safe. Don’t do this; don’t do that.” But even though safety is the most important thing. I also think it’s important to have awakenings and challenge ourselves to feel liberated, to be fearless and experience everything the world has to offer.

No one could seem to think of me as both sexy and capable, or talented and hot. If I was sexy, they seemed to think I must be stupid. If I was hot, I couldn’t possibly be talented. I wish back then I’d known the Dolly Parton joke: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I also know that I’m not blonde.” My real hair color is black.

And then, through that fear, I remember that there were still things I could hold on to: My desire for people to understand what I’d been through. My faith that all this could change. My belief that I had a right to experience joy. My knowledge that I deserved my freedom. This sense, deeply felt and profound, that the woman in me was still strong enough to fight for what was right.

victory, he told me that I deserved the credit for what had happened. He said that by giving my testimony, I’d freed myself and probably also helped other people in unfair conservatorships. After having my father take credit for everything I did for so long, it meant everything to have this man tell me that I’d made the difference in my own life. And now, finally, it was my own life. Being controlled made me so angry on behalf of anyone who doesn’t have the right to determine their own fate. “I’m just grateful, honestly, for each day… I’m not here to be a victim,” I said on Instagram after the conservatorship was terminated. “I lived with victims my whole life as a child. That’s why I got out of my house. And worked for twenty years and worked my ass off… Hopefully, my story will make an impact and make some changes in the corrupt system.

Was I mad at being “outed” by him as sexually active? No. To be honest with you, I liked that Justin said that. Why did my managers work so hard to claim I was some kind of young-girl virgin even into my twenties? Whose business was it if I’d had sex or not? I’d appreciated it when Oprah told me on her show that my sexuality was no one else’s business, and that when it came to virginity, “you don’t need a world announcement if you change your mind.” Yes, as a teenager I played into that portrayal, because everyone was making such a big deal out of it. But if you think about it, it was pretty stupid for people to describe my body in that way, for them to point to me and say, “Look! A virgin!” It’s nobody’s business at all. And it took the focus off me as a musician and performer. I worked so hard on my music and on my stage shows. But all some reporters could think of to ask me was whether or not my breasts were real (they were, actually) and whether or not my hymen was intact.

In February, after not getting to see the boys for weeks and weeks, completely beside myself with grief, I went to plead to see them. Kevin wouldn't let me in. I begged him. Jayden James was five months old and Sean Preston was seventeen months old. I imagined their not knowing where their mother was, wondering why she didn't want to be with them. I wanted to get a battering ram to get to them. I didn't know what to do. The paparazzi watched it all happen. I can't describe the humiliation I felt. I was concerned. I was out being chased, like always, by these men waiting for me to do something they could photograph. And so that night I gave them some material. I went into a hair salon, and I took the clippers, and I shaved off all my hair. Everyone thought it was hilarious. Look how crazy she is! Even my parents acted embarrassed by me. But nobody seemed to understand that I was simply out of my mind with grief. My children had been taken away from me. With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom. No one would talk to me anymore because I was too ugly. My long hair was a big part of what people liked-I knew that. I knew a lot of guys thought long hair was hot. Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you. I'd been the good girl for years. I'd smiled politely while TV show hosts leered at my breasts, while American parents said I was destroying their children by wearing a crop top, while executives patted my hand condescendingly and second-guessed my career choices even though I'd sold millions of records, while my family acted like I was evil. And I was tired of it. At the end of the day, I didn't care. All I wanted to do was see my boys. It made me sick thinking about the hours, the days, the weeks I missed with them. My most special moments in life were taking naps with my children, That's the closest I've ever felt to God-taking naps with me precious babies, smelling their hair, holding their tiny hands.