Britney Spears has spent the last two decades not telling her story.
Her life has been the subject of more clinical dissection than most wildly famous people, thanks to the many court documents filed during the course of her conservatorship, which lasted from Feb. 1, 2008, until Nov. 12, 2021. And there have been countless attempts to peel that onion from the outside.
But aside from the pieces of the puzzle the 41-year-old has sporadically shared on Instagram, glimpses inside her private world have relied mostly on stuff other people have had to say.
Yet it felt for a long time that Britney really wanted to say more, though it was anyone's guess when—or if—she'd ever be in that zone. And even once she announced she'd be writing a memoir, who knew what to expect from the mercurial pop icon?
Well, if you put your money on OMG, you win: Britney has torched her veil of secrecy with The Woman in Me, which tackles everything from young stardom and Justin Timberlake to what it felt like to lose her legal right to make choices and eventually recover her strength to resist.
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The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
In this powerful memoir, Britney tells her own story on her own terms.
As her revelations inspired one explosive headline after another leading up to the book's Oct. 24 release, Britney wrote in an Oct. 20 Instagram post that her intent was not to offend or "harp on my past experiences"—but rather to put whatever she shared behind her for good.
"I have moved on and it's a beautiful clean slate from here!!!" her post read. "Either way this is the last of it and s--t happens!!!"
In any case, after years of keeping it all inside, you could say she's set herself free. Here are the biggest bombshells from Britney's memoir, The Woman in Me: