BONUS Britney Spears Book Club with Eve Lindley

She's like, you know, in my normal life as a non-child actor, you just kind of get drunk with your mom and go to a school founded by white supremacists and are put in the stocks by your parents to have tomatoes thrown at you.

And, you know, it's all great.

Welcome to Your Wrong About, the podcast where sometimes we talk about celebrity memoirs.

And today, we are talking about Britney Spears with Eve Lindley.

This is part one of our four-part saga on Britney Spears' memoir, The Woman in Me.

You can listen to part two on Patreon and Apple Plus right now.

Part three is coming out in a couple of weeks, and part four will be out in May.

In this episode, Eve and I talk about Britney's early life, and we do have a content warning for the conversation getting into the topic topic of suicide around 22 minutes as part of Brittany's family history.

If this isn't the right episode or the right part of the episode for you, know that we care for you, we're here with you, and we are all here together with Brittany.

Thank you so much for listening.

Welcome to You're Wrong About, the podcast where sometimes we do a little celebrity book club.

And sometimes that little celebrity book is by Brittany Spears.

And sometimes the other celebrity is Evelyn Lee.

Hello.

Hello, Sarah Marshall.

How are you?

I'm really, I'm very excited about this because this book came out.

I'm not against reading it.

I guess my brain is just so tired.

So I'm really happy to just have you like gently spoon feed this book to me like Samantha did with Carrie with that yogurt in the Sex in the City movie.

Yeah, I'll give you a little wink.

Caroline O'Donoghue says that everyone is born under a diva star.

And I would say we're all born under like multiple diva stars because I love Judy, I love Cher, but like my first diva was Brittany.

Sometimes I don't even think of her as a diva because I think a diva, like there's a lot of control that a diva has over herself and those around her.

And I think when we talk about the Britney story, control is a big theme in the book, and it's a big theme in Britney's career and work.

So, yeah, sometimes I struggle to call her like a diva, but she is like a female performer who I resonated with kind of out the gate.

And I'm excited to talk about her in her own words because it's so hard to like.

do one of these about somebody who has passed or somebody who like hasn't told their own story

because you're here being like, Well, what's important?

And like, what should I emphasize?

What shouldn't I emphasize?

And I feel good about not being tasked with that.

Yeah, so Brittany is like the biggest topic possible.

It's like, do you want to talk about the history of the USSR?

Do you want to talk about Britney?

I'm like, I don't know.

They're equally complicated.

But only one of them is blonde and hot.

Well, debatable.

So I'd love for you to bring us up to speed in terms of like,

who is Brittany?

Because it feels like the past few years of our conversation about her have been dominated by, like, as far as I can tell, the public kind of really realizing to some extent that we almost killed her for fun.

And then the conservatorship thing.

Brittany Spears was a recording artist in the late 90s, early 2000s.

She was known as like the pop princess.

There was people who mimicked her and copied her.

And, you know, like all the record companies tried to have their own version of her, you know.

Right.

Yeah.

And then Christina Aguilera, I feel like, had to be branded as a Britney copycat.

And she was like, I'm my whole

person.

That was a terrible impression.

Yeah, that was a little share, actually.

That was share.

That was my share.

All of your impressions are just share.

You know, that's my secret.

And it's gotten me this far.

Yeah.

You're like going to do Slingblade, but it's just like, whoa.

I love that.

Yeah.

That'll be my, my,

that'll be my one woman show, Woman of a Thousand Voices.

And it's this share.

Four score and seven years ago.

My first memory of Britney Spears is, I remember Baby One More Time came out when I was 10 years old.

It was in 1998.

September.

Oh my God.

Yeah, that feels true.

I feel like I can feel September in that memory.

And weirdly, Britney Spears is like a core, unforgettable memory for me because I remember my best friend at the time's little sister showing us her CD being like, have you heard of Britney Spears or like seen the Britney Spears something?

And I was like, is she that really young one?

Because she was, I believe, 16 at the time and I was 10.

And I was just like, six years is not that many years.

I was very conscious of the fact.

And then my mom showed up at the door with a puppy because we'd been looking for a puppy.

So it's like Britney Spears, the most ecstatic memory I had ever had to that point of my mom showing up out of nowhere with a puppy.

And I've always, I don't know, felt very attached to her.

that period for her before everything happened the way it did, you know?

Yeah.

Well, so, okay, so the song came out in September and then the album came out in January of 99.

And get this, the album came out on my birthday.

So, how's that for cutting-edge journalism?

Look, you had a birthday, I got a puppy.

Like, it's proof that we're meant to be here talking about Britney today.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I similarly remember I have, you know, I'm the youngest of three, and my oldest sister is like nine years older than me.

So, I was five years old,

and my sister was 14.

So she was like watching TRL.

And we had this like basement that was like finished with the TV room in it.

And I remember coming down the stairs and hearing baby one more time and looking at the TV and seeing this girl, you know, in the pigtails, in like the tied up, knotted white button up

and the little skirt.

Like my brain exploded.

I was just like, who is that?

How do I become her?

And talk about control.

Something about the way that she moves for like a five-year-old who's learning how to be in their body,

each finger, each joint articulation was like so controlled.

You know, part of her thing is dancing.

And as we'll see, that's you know, not by accident.

And she just looked so in control of herself to me.

I had never seen somebody so

good at being in a body, so at ease, in their own body.

That wasn't always the case for her, but that's what it looked like.

And that's, to me, what was so compelling.

Yeah.

And I remember that video so well.

And it's many things, but one of those things is a gross old man fantasy of the sexy schoolgirl.

Right.

Yeah.

And this video is just like,

it feels hard to overemphasize just how apparent it was from the beginning that she was huge.

You know, there's no such thing as an overnight success.

But because of like the magnitude of what Brittany was and then what she became in like mere months,

it's hard not to use that term.

And that is also why I'm like, how the fuck do you grapple with that?

When you're, you know, she's from Louisiana.

She's, she's not from a big city.

She truly came out of nowhere and wowed people, you know?

Yeah.

Well, and you know, a point that I forget who made this, but on an episode of Sentimental Garbage where Caroline and Dolly Alderton were talking about Robbie Williams.

Yes.

Did you listen to that one?

I did, yeah.

You know, and I think the whole the Nepo baby conversation is there's a lot, a lot of different things happening and there's a lot of different conversations.

But the point they made that I hadn't thought of is like, you know, you look at somebody like Billie Eilish, whose parents are in the industry, and like, you don't actually want a very young person to become very famous and have parents who are just like work at a Toyota dealership in Lafayette or something.

Yeah.

Because then it's like they're going to be wowed and they're going to be knocked off their feet.

They won't know how the industry works.

And like, you know, and you can't have every famous child have a parent who's like a producer.

Like you can't, should we have famous children?

I don't know.

No one cares what I say anyway, so it doesn't matter.

But to me, the very persuasive point there is that fully grown adults are just as at sea in the entertainment industry as their children are most of the time.

If it's not a world that you're already a part of, it can be naturally extremely hard to navigate.

Yeah.

Well, I feel like it's like, you know, my dad is a pilot,

and his dad before him was a pilot, and his brother's a pilot.

I don't think nepotism works the same way in aviation necessarily, you know, because there's so much protocol and you can't just be like a mediocre pilot to like, you know, become one.

I hope not.

But the point is my dad knew what to expect, knew what the protocol would be.

You know, like nobody in my family is pursuing entertainment.

So like sometimes things happen to me and I'm like, I had no idea that this was going to be a thing, you know, and it's tough.

So like the argument to me, I mean, you know, feel however you want to feel about nepotism.

Yeah, I agree that like certainly in Brittany's case, it's like, you know, her mother, her father, they didn't like know this world.

It wasn't like old hat normal for them, you know?

And I think it really ruined the family.

I mean, spoiler alert, it caused a lot of grief to the family.

Yeah.

So let's get into the book.

Let's get into it.

Yeah.

Where do we, how do we begin to serve this banquet?

So The Woman in Me by Brittany Spears is a book.

It's about pegging.

Sorry.

That is funny.

Oh my God.

I never put that together.

Thank you.

That was my first thought.

It does have a very trans connotation to it.

Yeah.

The woman in me.

But I like that

you're feeling pegging.

There's just so many possibilities with that title.

Absolutely.

It's a line from her song, I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman, where she says, I'm just trying to find the woman in me.

Oh, Brittany.

That's from her third album, which is sort of the unofficial soundtrack to the movie Crossroads plug.

Which we will be discussing when you are good.

Probably, which will be out before

this one is out.

So if you're listening to this now, it's probably out right now.

So go find it.

So The Woman in Me was published on October 24th, 2023 by Gallery Books, which is a division of Simon ⁇ Schuster.

It became a number one New York Times bestseller in the first week of its release.

And as of this month, it has sold over 2 million copies in the U.S.

with an estimated 3 million copies in print globally.

Amazing.

Good for you, Britt.

And I know that there is this, for anyone who hasn't been steeped in this, the dynamic for the past few years has been that Brittany was under this conservatorship where there was some debate about, because some people were like, she can't do anything.

It's terrible.

Her human rights are being violated.

And other people were like, it's fine.

And then I think it did become, I mean, we'll get to this, but I think it did become unambiguous that it wasn't fine.

And so to me, there's a sort of excitement as well to this idea of like Britney in her own words, which is something that we didn't actually get to have for a really long time, or really ever in a way.

Because if you're a teen pop star, you're, and also in a time before you can express yourself on social media, then like you're more effectively muzzled than almost anyone I can think of.

Yeah.

In classic Britney fashion, she announced her book on Instagram, of course,

and you know, used a lot of emojis and a lot of exclamation points.

Basically, her sister, Jamie Lynn, announced a book.

And then a little while after that, it was announced that Britney signed some, you know, massive deal.

I think it was like a $15 million

book deal.

And then the Instagram post was, I want to address my recent post captioning my past.

To my understanding, to most, it's confusing.

Why express it now, shrug emoji?

Well, I'm writing a book, book emoji, at the moment, and it's actually healing and therapeutic.

It's also hard bringing up past events in my life.

I've never been able to express openly three exclamation points.

I can only imagine that I do sound childish, but I was extremely young when those events took place.

And addressing it now, I'm sure it seems irrelevant to most, and I'm completely aware of that.

But instead of using my heart, heart emoji, I'm using the intellectual approach, as Justin so respectfully did when he apologized to Janet and me.

Although he was never bullied or threatened by his family, he took the opportunity to apologize 20 years later.

Exclamation point.

Oh, wow.

There's a lot happening in there.

There's a lot happening.

I mean, if you know Britney's Instagram, sometimes it's hard to follow.

And she's really just sort of scorching the earth sometimes.

He took the opportunity to apologize 20 years later.

Three exclamation points.

Timing is everything.

Three exclamation points.

Good timing is the bitch.

Three exclamation points.

Good timing is the bitch.

Anyway, I wanted to just let people know I care, and I'm so sorry.

My mom and sister also did the intellectual approach, in quotes, in indulgence by writing their own books, as I couldn't even get a cup of coffee or drive my car, or really anything.

I'm not the type of person to bring up uncomfortable conversations, well, because it's not respectful, shrug emoji.

But come on, let's actually talk about it, three exclamation points.

When I was younger, there was more of a playful and light approach to everything.

It was easy not taking yourself so seriously.

Yet in this business, I will just say it, I was indeed treated less than.

And it goes on and on and on.

But she is referencing Jamie Lynn's book and then her mother's book, which is called Through the Storm, a Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World, which came out in 2008.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Just when the conservatorship started.

Huh.

Now, when I first heard about this book, I was like, how is Brittany gonna write a book?

It's just like so much work to write a book.

And like, there are people who have been writing for years who can barely get through it.

And when I read it, I was like, this feels like it's in her voice.

But it is speculated that there was a ghostwriter named Sam Lansky.

And I don't take any umbrage with that.

I think Brittany's...

got a lot going on and she might have needed help writing the book and that's totally cool.

I mean, look, I am a writer and I can't write a goddamn book, right?

You know, nor do I particularly want to.

And it is, I don't know, it feels like maybe we used to be more,

I don't, I don't know what I think.

I feel like you used to see ghostwriters credited on the cover, maybe more often, maybe not, I don't know, right?

Like Britney Spears with Sam Lansky, yeah, the with, yeah, and we all knew what the with meant, or like in magazines where they would be like, as told to, right, uh, like those Cosmo articles where you were like, diet culture, diet, culture, weird sex tip.

My husband died on our wedding day, as told to.

Right.

Right.

And yeah, it feels like there's been discourse lately about the ethics of having a ghostwriter.

And, you know, I'm not up to speed on all of that, but I think, I really think that ghostwriters exist for a reason.

And I don't expect people like Prince Harry to know how to write because they didn't learn how to write.

Yeah.

You know, some people are famous for other things and also learn how to write.

But like.

Britney was busy.

Britney was busy.

Britney was being worked to death yeah she had a lot on her plate

and she just never learned how to write a book that's totally fine it's really it's really okay yeah and ghostwriters you know are great at what they do for a reason he put it in her voice like it doesn't feel like

who is this robot telling this story you know which I think is actually a talent.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

That's amazing when people can do that.

He has written for many, many things, and he recently did the Taylor Swift time profile when she was person of the year.

So he's doing good and he knows how to write about our blonde gals, you know.

In the book, there's a lot of like themes of, as I said before, control.

And then like there's this ongoing thing about Britney being a child versus being a woman, which is really interesting.

So much of the Britney Spears thing at first was the like the Lolita thing.

Yeah.

And once again, the issues of like

being a child who looks like a woman.

And then later on during the conservatorship, like being a woman who has the rights of a child.

So there's a lot of that, but it starts in her childhood in Louisiana.

And she talks a lot about being a young southern Christian girl and, you know, what's expected of her, following the rules, going to a Christian school.

and there's a lot of talk of God she was raised Christian she passes into other religions at certain points in her life but she was definitely had like a strong Christian upbringing and Kentwood as we said before is like an extremely small town everybody knows everybody you know people don't lock their doors it's very sort of like idyllic in that way it's hard to like nail down if she was middle class or working class sometimes.

And I think maybe it changed over the course of her childhood because she liked talks about having a housekeeper at some points.

But then she also talks about possibly like, you know, like losing everything and like being the sole breadwinner in her family.

And that was interesting to me.

But there's this story she tells about the first time that she

understands music.

And her housekeeper was in the laundry room singing.

And the housekeeper was singing gospel music.

And it like changed her.

It was this huge awakening for her.

She got shivers down her spine and she realized and like decided that singing was magic and like music was magic.

And to her, it was like passing out of sort of the real world and like communicating on another level.

She gets really into like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey and you know music becomes her way of communicating.

And it's interesting because she

has this thing that happens when she's a kid where she starts hiding in cabinets.

And

everyone in her family is like, where's Brittany?

Like, what cabinet is she hiding in?

And, you know, when she sings, she like wants to be perceived.

And then the rest of the time, she is hiding in cabinets.

I really identify with that.

I need a cabinet right now.

That's what my house is missing.

Yeah, a huge, I know, I need like a me-sized cabinet.

Yeah.

And this is like a thing that I think continues on in some ways for like the rest of her life, like oscillating between this sort of extremely extroverted performance side and

then being so socially anxious that she like doesn't want to leave the house or whatever.

So Brittany says tragedy runs in her family.

Her name is Brittany Jean Spears and she's named after her her father's mother who lost a baby, like gave birth to a baby who died at three days old and

fell into a deep depression.

And her father's father, Brittany's father's father, the husband of this woman, sent her to Southeast Louisiana Hospital, which Brittany calls a by all accounts horrible asylum in Mandeville, where she was put on lithium.

And we're going to want to remember the lithium thing and the mental hospital thing.

And people say that Brittany looks a lot like Jean.

Yeah, and it's interesting to think of this as like, you know, many things, but also a family story.

And like maybe a family dealing not very well with a legacy of mental illness.

Yeah, I think it is a family story.

I mean, I think most of our stories are family stories, whether we like it or not.

Yeah.

But in this case, it's all so

symmetrical, unfortunately.

So after this, in 1966, Jean is 31 years old and she lays herself down on the grave of her infant son and she shoots herself.

And it's something like eight years after his death.

And Brittany's father, Jamie, is 13 when Jean does this.

And is this his mother?

This is his mother, yes.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

Jamie Spears, Brittany's father, is more often than not the villain in the story.

But I think we all kind of know that,

you know, hurt people hurt people.

Yeah, I mean, that's really what succession was about.

So, yes.

So that is her father's childhood.

Her father's father then gets a second wife, who he also puts in a mental hospital, which is interesting.

That does kind of establish a pattern.

Yeah.

I mean, two is not a lot, but it's definitely a pattern.

It's more than most people have.

Exactly.

So that is Jamie Spears's childhood.

And then there is Brittany's mother, Lynn, who's English and whose mother was from like an elegant, high-society family in London.

And then during World War II, Lynn's mother met an American soldier and went with him to America.

Just like Vicki Morgan's mother.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Bimbo Summit.

Bimbo.

And also, and I forget how this worked for the Cattrall family, but Brittany and Kim Cattrall are both like secretly kind of British, which I love.

Yeah, well, I don't know if you remember, but in the 2000s when the paparazzi were like chasing her, one of the reasons why everyone was like, she's crazy, is because she would talk in a British accent.

There is like video of her literally in a gas station, like walking in and being like, Excuse me, where's the loo?

You know, like it was a thing.

And then, even in she does a song with Will I Am where she's like speaking in a British accent.

It's called Scream and Shout.

I think we should encourage more celebrities to speak in a British accent for no reason.

This really seems like a victimless crime.

Absolutely.

Well, listen to this.

She says, All I knew was that my grandmother was beautiful and I loved copying her British accent.

Talking in a British accent has always made me happy because it makes me think of her, my fashionable grandmother.

I wanted to have manners and a lilting voice just like hers.

So it's like, in context, there's nothing crazy about that.

Yeah, it's interesting that that's, that we're like, hey, you don't really talk like that.

You're pretending to talk like that.

Like our, our need to feel like we're getting the authentic package.

or at least to be tricked into feeling that is interesting.

Yeah.

And, you know, on some level, like, like I do accents all the time, you know, like I'll just be talking to anybody and I'll be like, well, let me tell you.

you, still start, you know, like, whatever.

And to me,

I don't know.

I mean, maybe there's like something to be said about like how doing an accent sort of takes you out of the moment and takes you out of, you know, the responsibility of what you're about to say or something.

But like, what could be more authentic than me basically telling you, I don't want to say this.

So like I'm going to create some other person to say it.

So maybe all of a twist can say it, government.

Exactly.

Like you start to talk like the things around you.

So in Madonna's case, if she's living in London, like of course she's going to develop an accent, you know.

Right.

That is the thing.

And that like different people have different levels of susceptibility to that.

Yeah.

I mean, I have a friend from South Carolina and we had lunch recently and at the end of two hours, I was like noticing myself picking up speech patterns subconsciously.

I think voice is very transmissible.

Yeah, I agree.

Anyway, good for her.

Anyway, love her.

So, okay, so Britney's mom, Lynn, is like very cool because she's sort of like got the influence of London in her, you know, like she comes from a city.

She's the city mouse, so to speak.

And she wears like short skirts and has like an edgy haircut.

And she hangs out with Britney says she hung out with the gay guys in town who gave her rides on their motorcycles.

I just love that.

Because like, how many gay guys were there, really, at the time?

Right?

Three.

And they were all riding motorcycles, I guess.

They were in a gang.

Yeah, they were in a gay gang.

So then her parents meet, they get together.

Let me tell you, between you and me, Sarah Marshall, I read a lot of memoirs.

My least favorite part of the memoir is the childhood because there's only been one memoir where I've been like, I love the time before

you became famous.

And that was Elvira's memoir.

And I would say Brittany's also was compelling to meet, and how her father was sort of this tragic country mouse, and her mother was this cool city mouse.

Yeah, and how did they meet?

Apparently, she saw him play basketball

after his mother died.

He threw himself into sports in like a very major way, and people would drive from other towns to go watch him play basketball.

Wow.

Yeah.

There was really nothing to do in the 70s.

It's true.

It's true.

I mean, like, you couldn't even just go watch a video of your favorite, you know, like you had records and then you had local sports and that was it.

Yeah.

And the gay guys in town.

Yeah.

You had gay guys on motorcycles.

That was it.

And the carnival occasionally.

And this is sort of something that, you know, my parents, my biological parents divorced long before I remember.

And I recently had my dad here in town.

And, you know, I'm closer with my dad than with my mom.

And something that I've always appreciated is that my dad will say, like, that they came together in a pure way.

They didn't always hate each other, you know, like there was love at the beginning.

And Brittany talks about how their relationship was born of a mutual attraction and a sense of adventure.

And then she says, the honeymoon period was over long before I came.

So they get married when the mother is 21, Lynn is 21, and Jamie is 23.

In 1977, they have Brittany's older brother, Brian, and pretty quickly the dad falls into like alcoholism.

He works as a welder, and he disappears for days at a time.

Lynn is left with this baby, and you know, that goes on for a little while.

And then at a Christmas party, when Brian is a toddler, Jamie goes, you know, gets very belligerent on Christmas morning, the day after a big Christmas party, and Lynn files for divorce.

This is 1980.

So he's like three.

And then Jamie's father, the one who put both of his wives in insane asylums, begs Lynn not to go through with the divorce.

Oh.

Well, he does have very good judgment.

So yes, he obviously is somebody to trust and he's very pure of heart and and this much we know.

So Lynn doesn't amazingly.

And that is why Britney Spears is born because she doesn't go through with that divorce.

Don't you find it like, I feel like we hear less of this now, but like in, I feel like in the 90s and secular media, it was still very common to be like, the divorce rate's going up and that's bad.

And it's like, why is it bad that more people feel empowered to get out of marriages?

where they are unhappy and potentially being abused.

I mean, I always think of Samantha Jones, Kim Cottrell, who says, you get married, you hope for the best.

If it doesn't work out, you get a divorce.

And it's like, why is that so tough for us?

Like, we think of them as failed marriages.

I don't think of any relationship I've ever had that didn't go on for, you know, years and years and years as a failure.

It was...

important.

I learned something.

I got something out of it.

Even if, you know, a relationship ends after one night, you theoretically can get something out of it.

And as we'll see later on, Brittany is sort of admonished for, you know, not respecting the sanctity of marriage and all of that.

Oh, brother.

Get ready, babe.

Things are going off.

So they say, as many great minds have, including Jack Donaghy in that episode of 30 Rock, maybe everything will calm down if we have a baby.

Exactly.

So they don't get divorced.

And, you know, as I said, he was very like serious about athletics, Jamie.

So he opens a gym business.

Oh.

And they start doing really well from this gym business.

And they start having these big backyard crawfish boils.

They become like sort of like a wealthy family in town.

They move into a bigger house.

And then on December 2nd, 1981, a day that will live on in infamy, we are blessed with Brittany Jean Spears.

Her mother is in labor for 21 hours.

Yeah, 21 hours of anything is not easy, really, when you think about it.

Like, if someone were to feed me grapes for 21 hours, I would lose my mind at a certain point.

Even if Jack Black himself were to feed me grapes.

I love the idea of you and Jack Black in a grape-eating tableau, though, I will say.

Yeah, me too.

Somebody do fan art of that.

Yeah.

So, okay, here's an interesting thing.

When Brittany's in the conservatorship, I know I'm jumping around here, but when Brittany's in the conservatorship, one of her main things is she wants to drive her car.

Brittany loves driving.

She drove a lot, you know, during the paparazzi sort of frenzy around her.

She like ran over a paparazzi's foot, you know, which like was totally understandable because of the way they were crowding her.

But in her childhood,

she

is in two car accidents.

And then her brother Brian is in like a four-wheeler, like ATV huge accident that gets him in a full body cast.

So, like, there's like all of these like automobile accidents in her childhood.

She's in one with her grandmother.

She's in one with her mother.

She's, and like, three big accidents feels just like more than the norm to me.

Maybe there are really bad roads where she grew up.

I don't know, but it's interesting though.

It's just like, and regardless of why, it's like, yeah, it, it's, I like knowing that about her.

Yeah, it feels notable.

So she starts taking gymnastics classes, which thank God,

at her rear day in elementary school, she says that she wants to be a lawyer.

And then her teachers say,

no, you're Broadway bound and you're the entertainer.

And they don't let her choose being a lawyer.

Isn't that crazy?

It is a bit.

It's also like, it's so weird for teachers to encourage an interest in the performing arts, honestly.

I know.

It's like, in a way, it's like everyone around her was like, you've got the thing.

So, yes.

And at that point, she is taking gymnastics classes.

She's taking dance classes three times a week.

She's singing in church choir and she sings a big solo for a Christmas concert.

She sings, What Child Is This?

You know, she's hiding in cabinets and then she's singing Christmas solos.

And that push and pull continues and continues.

Her father is still drinking very heavily.

His business was doing well, seems like for most of her childhood, well enough that they had a housekeeper, as I said.

And then he would drink and disappear for several days.

She has this really amazing part that actually made me get really teary when I first read it.

And it's basically where she talks about the type of dad that she wanted.

And she says,

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, and I'd still love you with unconditional love.

And

I just think that's so honest.

And it feels like her dad, with all of his kids, she talks about how her brother, her dad really pushed him to be the best at sports, you know, the way that he was when he was younger.

You know, the type of dad who's like, if you're going to do something, you have to be the best at it.

If you're going to do gymnastics, you have to be doing it seriously and in a way that you're going to pursue this as a profession.

Like there was no hobby.

There was no, wouldn't it be fun to paint a picture?

It's like, no, you're creating art for your portfolio, you know, like that kind of parent, which I think is,

I mean, on one hand, it's like those types of parents are known to produce stars or whatever, but

you know.

So her dad is not warm and fuzzy, and he's really pushing his children a lot.

And, you know, quite abusive to the mother.

They would argue all night long and he would go away for days at a time.

And Brittany says that,

to be honest, it was a kindness to us when he went away.

I preferred when he wasn't there, which is so sad.

Yeah.

I loved it when my dad wasn't around.

Really?

Yeah.

Cause he was, I don't know.

I think that there's, in my experience, this kind of ongoing psychic load of being in a household with somebody who's like, can be very nice and sometimes is, so that when they are, you feel like you have to keep performing.

So they'll keep doing it.

And then when it breaks inevitably and they attack you for no reason, you know, whether it's verbally or physically or however else, then you feel more responsible for it.

And I think that, yeah, I guess this feeling of like

peace when he was away.

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.

Like, you know, my dad was such a source of support and kindness.

And, you know, I had divorced parents and it's like when I was at my mom's house.

I was always on edge.

Everybody was anxious.

You never knew what you were going to get.

And then when we were at our dad's house, we could all take a deep breath and relax and like be ourselves.

Yeah.

And, you you know, I love my dad so much.

I love how supportive he was of me.

It's something I wish everybody could experience.

It's something I wish Brittany could experience and you could experience.

And there's no better feeling than like being held by your dad.

Like it's, I mean, you know, there's your mom, of course, but like, you know, that wasn't something that I was experiencing.

And so I learned to rely on my stoic father who, you know, flew airplanes.

He was like fucking Superman.

He flew in the air for a living.

Like he was so tall and so kind and he laughed so big and he was just so like

jolly.

He reminds everyone of Steve Martin.

God.

Yeah, everybody should have a Steve Martin pilot dad.

That's, that can be one of our initiatives.

I mean, I also, I feel like, you know, in one sense, the term daddy issues can be very dismissive.

In another sense, I kind of suspect everybody has daddy issues because everybody has a daddy and we have issues about everything in our life.

But this also makes me think that like, you know, I'm always like, well, because my dad never felt like completely emotionally available, like that's probably why I want like a beautiful, you know, giant to come pick me up and put me in his pocket.

But now I'm like, but if you had that, you would just want that again.

So, like, we, it's fine to want that.

Yeah.

Oh, Sarah.

I love you so much.

I love you so much.

I love how you're able to articulate

these feelings that like feel so universal.

And yet, I feel like when I say them, I am like a bundle of words and phrases that make no sense.

And then you say them and you just thread the needle all the way.

Like,

it's just amazing just like in the cutting egg thank you yeah I mean I just like in the cutting edge

there's also the thing of like if I say something like I don't know if it makes sense unless I say it to somebody else who's like that makes sense it's like the sense only happens you know between people it takes two to make sense

yeah I just the way Brittany so honestly articulates wanting this also to me in this bit is like, I just want to hold her.

Yeah.

So, as I said, her father pushes the kids.

She starts getting into local dance competitions and she's like doing routines and she's twirling a cane and wearing a top hat and she's winning them all.

She's like working her way through the talent circuit and all of these judges and you know, like this is, I'm not familiar with this world of like, I guess, child pageantry or whatever, but I guess there are like talent scouts and important people go to these.

So some talent scout is at one of these and suggests that they go to the all-new Mickey Mouse Club auditions.

And they drive eight hours to Atlanta and there are 2,000 children there.

And she goes through the auditions and they're looking for people who are 10

and she at this point is eight years old.

So she auditions, she nails it, she meets this girl from Pennsylvania.

Her name is Christina.

Dot, dot, dot, Aguilera.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

So they meet, and they will be in and out of each other's lives, probably for the rest of their lives.

They will be uttered in the same sentence, and they meet at this audition, and they're both told that they are simply too young and that they're not going to make the cut.

But one of the people there urges Lynn, Brittany's mom, to take her to New York City so she can start working and like sort of build up a resume because they might be, you know, having auditions for the Mickey Mouse Club again in a year or two years.

So Lynn sort of, you know, holds on to that.

And then she sends footage of Brittany to an agent that this person recommended to them.

And it's a video of Britney singing.

And the agent is this woman, Nancy Carson.

And she says, please come to New York and meet me.

So they get on an Amtrak.

They go to New York.

And our gal, Brittany Jean Spears, is signed to a talent agency at eight years old.

Wow.

Wow.

And oh, and at this time, Lynn must have been pregnant because then Brittany's little sister, Jamie Lynn, is born.

God.

The thing about memoirs specifically, I think, is like it's all in the person's mind, you know, like it's all their take on everything.

But sometimes I'm like, I just need to see a timeline of like, you know, when did your mom get pregnant?

When did this happen?

When did, because, like, how did people have the time, you know, and like the last time we heard of Lynn and Jamie interacting, it was that he was abusive and drunk.

But she, you know, is pregnant for all of the Mickey Mouse Club audition.

So, like, they were interacting in other ways too.

And of course, Brittany wouldn't know that, but it's just always so, I'm always like wanting to follow it and wanting to make sense of it.

And I'm like, I wish I could sit you down and ask you questions.

We really, yeah, we need, we need to get to the bottom of the circumstances surrounding the conception of Jamie Lynn Spears.

Absolutely.

And I'm glad that you, once again, articulating everything that I need articulated.

Yeah, Zoe 101 herself is born, and then her mother, Lynn, is with Brittany soon after the birth and has a postpartum hemorrhage and starts just like losing a ton of blood.

And Brittany is like hugely traumatized by this event.

She like sees her mom nearly bleed out.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

And this is like, you know, a few days, you know, like her mom was back out in the world, so to speak, when this happened.

So she kind of, it was a big shock to her.

And then she becomes like obsessed with her mom.

Like she's like, I don't want to leave her side.

I'm very afraid that something will happen.

And I'm sure, in a way,

this almost has less to do with the postpartum hemorrhage, even though that is visually very traumatic, but probably more to do with her dad and the idea of losing her mom, who is sort of the parent that she

gets along with more.

Like that would be so traumatic, you know?

So she starts like when she goes to gymnastics class and all that, her mom has to be nearby.

There's this one passage that I love so much, uh, and it sort of speaks to the dad stuff that Brittany was talking about.

She says, I was a little girl with big dreams.

I wanted to be a star like Madonna, Dolly Parton, or Whitney Houston.

But I had simpler dreams too, dreams that seemed even harder to achieve and that felt too ambitious to say out loud.

I want my dad to stop drinking, I want my mom to stop yelling.

I want everyone to be okay.

Yeah.

You know, when she was talking about like when she's performing, people are watching her, everyone's happy.

So it's like she really is becoming this

little soldier for her family, you know, where it's like, dad's drunk, mom's upset, mom's bleeding out, let me dance, you know, like,

like, let me do what I, what I can to keep everyone happy.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

It's a perfect storm.

You know, it's a, it's like, yeah, it's creating somebody who

says yes, follows the rules, tries to make everyone happy, and then eventually, as we all know, snaps.

Justifiably so.

I think is the thing we've realized lately.

Exactly.

She's 10 years old at this time, and she's talking about like her big dreams and her small dreams in a way that is like, no 10-year-old should be thinking this way.

And unfortunately, many are.

here i'm going to read you this passage okay this is from a rolling stone story called the tragedy of britney spears which is very inexcusably mean in some places and then

uh still provides material for empathy in others so here's a paragraph from this

britney's first two albums sold more than 39 million records making her part of a teen pop trifecta with the backstreet boys and in sync that comprised the best-selling acts in jive's history some in her camp argued that britney was too young to be pushed so hard and wanted her to return to Kentwood to reconnect with girlfriends.

There were meetings where people would fight about giving Brittany a break, but in the end, the machine always won, says a friend.

Brittany wanted it too, but she wasn't aware of the price tag.

Those who advocated too much were shoved aside.

Wow.

So now Brittany is invited to be on Star Search.

Do you remember Star Search?

I know of Star Search.

I feel like it would show up in a lot of each or Hollywood stories, and it was like Ed McMahon would have on a child and mispronounce their name.

And yeah.

And they would sing a song.

That is my experience with Star Search also.

It's like in everyone's story, but I don't remember ever watching it.

Brittany does a version of a Judy Garland song in the first round, and she advances to the next round.

So Star Search is like a kid's, I think it's only kids, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Where they come and sing or perform and then they go through rounds.

so she gets on to the next round after singing i don't care by judy garland and then in the next round she sings love can build a bridge

by the juds by the juds

and i don't know if you've seen the clip of her singing this but what is remarkable is when we think of brittany's voice now

We think of like that baby, that sexy baby voice, right?

All of her recent music speaks to that and truly in this clip and even on her first album there's like a depth there's like a deepness literally to her voice she has a deep voice and she belts and you know she's 10 years old in this star surge clip there's not even a little bit of the baby voice it's all like this sort of deep rmb with a lot of like power behind it you know which is so interesting i don't know how the evolution happened And you hear it on her first album too.

On her first album, you do hear a little bit of the baby thing, which probably was like something that somebody came up with because of like the Lolita image.

Yeah.

I would assume.

But if you think of baby one more time, it's the deep sort of like, oh,

you know, like

really like, you know, it's not that stuff that we think of when we now think of Brittany, but we'll get to that.

She's interviewed by Ed McMahon.

She's 10 years old.

Ed McMahon says, you have the most adorable pretty eyes.

Do you have a boyfriend?

Come on.

She says, no.

He says, why not?

She goes, they're mean.

And he goes, all boys are mean.

I'm not mean.

What about me?

Why do we talk to children this way?

It's like already at 10 years old, her first time being on television.

Yeah.

She is being interviewed and it's like inappropriate and suggestive.

And like,

it's just baffling.

It's just baffling.

And it, and it's baffling to her too.

Like, she doesn't understand, you know, she doesn't understand why that keeps happening and why it continues to happen.

Yeah.

So she loses.

She's very sad, but her mom gets her a hot fudge Sunday.

So,

you know, it's a toss-up.

But then she goes to New York and she gets a job in an off-Broadway show called Ruthless, which is

like a comedy musical inspired by The Bad Seed.

Which is incredible that The Bad Seed was one of the first things she did, basically.

Yeah.

She plays like a psych, or well, she understudies.

Oh, like a psychotic young girl who kills somebody to get the lead in the school play.

It's very all about Eve.

There's like...

you know, there's some gypsy in it.

It's very, very funny.

And she's the understudy to a woman named Laura Belle Bundy, who goes on to be nominated for a Tony playing Elle Woods in Legally Blonde the Musical.

What?

Oh my God.

But get this.

The other understudy.

Because when you have a child in a show, you need to have several understudies because, you know, anything can happen.

Anything can go wrong.

So there are two understudies, and they are Brittany Spears.

And Natalie Portman.

What?

Yes.

Did you not know know that?

No, I didn't.

I was fully ready for you to say Christina Aguilera.

Natalie Portman.

I cannot imagine those two women in the same room.

I mean, should we do like an Edinburgh Fringe Festival show imagining their day together?

Waiting for this girl to break her leg so that they, one of them can then perform.

Just baby Natalie and baby Brittany riding the Staten Island Fairy.

Literally.

It's wild.

And, you know, one of them is a Grammy winner now.

One of them is an Oscar winner now.

And the girl who actually was playing the role, she's only been nominated for a Tony.

So who's the real winner?

No, just kidding.

Just kidding.

They're all incredibly talented.

Okay, so she's in New York.

She's the understudy.

Eventually, the lead girl leaves the show and Brittany is offered the lead, you know, to take over.

And she does, but she doesn't do it for very long because she doesn't enjoy being away from home.

She like finds out that she's got to perform on Christmas Day and she's literally like, I don't want to do this.

Yeah.

Also, who's seeing a bad seed musical on Christmas Day?

Gays.

That's who's seeing it.

And like, probably me and you.

But I mean, yes, given the opportunity.

I mean, come on.

So she literally like wants to go home.

So she like leaves the show.

She goes back to Kentwood.

But she does say that, like, this was a huge training thing for her.

Like, she was performing eight shows a week or, you know, seven shows a week.

I don't know what the rules probably were for being a kid.

And also, what she really admires, and this also reminds me of Amy Winehouse, what she likes is the intimacy and the closeness with the audience in a small off-Broadway theater.

And obviously, she goes on to be in much bigger venues, but yeah, she can kiss that goodbye.

Yeah,

but she really just thrives off the audience and she realizes how much she likes that.

And so, after Ruthless, she goes back and auditions for the Mickey Mouse Club.

And guess what happens?

And she gets it.

She gets it.

She gets it.

And so does Christina Aguilera.

There were some people who were already on it.

I think Ryan Gosling was already on it at that point.

And Carrie Russell was already on it.

God.

And then a young boy gets on it.

And do you know his name?

Um,

Justin Timberlake.

And that's exactly right.

Justin Timberlake is on the show with her.

They are these kids, and they're having the time of their life.

They're like low-key in boot camp for the entertainment industry, dancing, singing, acting.

You know, it's like a variety show.

So they're doing everything.

Like Russian figure skaters.

Absolutely.

I mean, they're workhorses, you know, but then they get to like explore the lot and they get to, you know, run around and go to like the store and get lunch together.

I mean, it really does sound like

for a child performer, like kind of a dream scenario.

I know that there's like

sort of negative side effects to working that young, but it sounds so fun to me.

But there's negative side effects to going to school for eight hours as well.

Absolutely.

And who's having that conversation?

Yeah.

One bad thing that happens is Brittany's grandmother passes away and Justin's mother lends Lynn and Brittany the money for plain fare.

Oh, wow.

That's not necessarily important, but I did think it was interesting.

So Brittany and Justin are inseparable.

They are the best of friends.

And at a sleepover, which I guess was a co-ed sleepover, they're playing Truth or Dare, and someone dares Justin to kiss Brittany.

and it's her first kiss

and playing in the background is a janet jackson song and the song is

she doesn't say oh god she doesn't say but i do like the idea that those three people have that moment together even though janet is not part of it but then they all go on like oh my god right oh jesus i didn't think of that oh god imagine destroying the career of the person whose song is playing when you have your first kiss it's hard to picture can you imagine i would never do that to bruce springsteen

oh my god

um so yes there's a lot of firsts on the mickey mouse club for brittany it's an amazing experience she considers it something that ignites her she she doesn't think of it at all as being anything bad, which is really great.

I mean, she looks back on it as really like one of the best times of her life.

And so, a year and a half after getting on the show, the show ends and does not get renewed.

And it's sort of like this group of friends disbands, and some of them go to New York, some of them go to Los Angeles.

They all keep, you know, performing and chasing their dreams.

And Brittany, she's sort of given a choice, and she decides she wants to go back to Kentwood and like be normal and live a normal life.

And that is where I'll stop for now.

Oh boy.