From her controversial conservatorship to painful personal struggles, we're taking a deep dive into the troubled life of one of pop's biggest icons. Join us as we explore the challenging moments that shaped this superstar's journey, revealing the dark reality behind the spotlight.
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00:00When you're hitting the bag, is there anyone's face you've got in mind?
00:02Oh, a couple of people.
00:04Yeah.
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:06And today, we're looking at the darkest facts about the troubled life of Britney Spears.
00:11How can you still say, but I'm lucky?
00:13Because I have to believe that I'm here for a reason.
00:18Her father struggled with alcohol use disorder.
00:22Britney's father, Jamie, struggled with heavy alcohol use
00:25from the time his eldest child, Brian, was born in 1977.
00:29He later goes to rehab.
00:31He drifts in between construction, being a cook,
00:34tries to open a gym business that didn't work out,
00:37and later ends up filing for bankruptcy.
00:39He doesn't seem to be a big presence in her life.
00:42In both Britney and sister Jamie Lynn's respective memoirs,
00:46the siblings detail the fear and uncertainty they felt when their father was drinking.
00:50In 2004, Jamie went to rehab to treat his disorder.
00:54And in 2008, he became Britney's personal conservator in a controversial move prompted
01:00by a decline in Britney's mental health.
01:02It's unusual because Britney is so young and productive.
01:06But there's speculation that she may be dealing with mental illness issues or drug abuse issues
01:12or otherwise would benefit from this layer of protection.
01:16And it's sort of surprising in that Jamie wasn't a huge figure in her life before this.
01:21As Britney began to fight against this conservatorship in later decades,
01:24she admitted she suspected her father was using alcohol again,
01:28though Jamie's lawyer denied this.
01:30James's attorneys were arguing that there's not really a conflict between Britney and James.
01:35But then Ingham came on and said that that's not true and that Britney is afraid of her father
01:41and that Britney has told him on multiple occasions that she is refusing to work
01:45until he is no longer managing her career.
01:47She went through a public miscarriage.
01:49I have girls and you have, I'm very jealous because you have boys.
01:52Oh, I want a girl.
01:54Oh, you do want a girl.
01:54So later on, maybe a little girl.
01:56Britney Spears currently has two children,
01:58but she's been vocal about her desire to have a third.
02:01This was one of her primary points of contention in her conservatorship,
02:05which required she have an IUD to prevent a pregnancy.
02:09Britney did not want her father to be the conservator of her person, right?
02:13The person who makes decisions about her medical care and treatment and so on and so forth.
02:19Just a few months after announcing her engagement to her long-term boyfriend,
02:23Sam Asghari, Spears excitedly announced that she was expecting.
02:27Her eagerness was understandable, but unfortunately, this reveal was ill-timed.
02:32Spears tragically miscarried, and to make matters worse,
02:36she now had to publicly announce the loss of her child.
02:39Spears' announcement was met with an outpouring of support from fans,
02:43but it must have been incredibly difficult to deal with such a tragic loss so publicly.
02:47She was very drunk when she married Jason Alexander.
02:57In 2004, Spears famously married her childhood friend, Jason Alexander, in Las Vegas,
03:04only for the marriage to be annulled just 55 hours later.
03:07The annulment was petitioned for by Spears' family,
03:10who claimed she didn't understand her actions at the time.
03:13What was her attitude? Was she just having fun, like, yes, yes,
03:16or were you both a little bit like, uh-oh, should we do this?
03:19We was both like, yes, yes, on the outside,
03:22and I think we was both on the inside, kind of like, I don't know, you know?
03:24It's that nervous kind of danger a little bit.
03:27This might be wrong.
03:29Yeah.
03:29Spears made headlines for the frivolous wedding,
03:31with critics claiming it demonstrated her immaturity and poor decision-making skills.
03:36In Spears' memoir,
03:37she revealed the whole thing was a consequence of one-too-many drinks on a wild Vegas night out.
03:42I was just honestly very drunk,
03:45and probably, in a more general sense at that time in my life, very bored.
03:51Unlike most ordinary 20-somethings,
03:53Spears' drunken escapades were considered fair game for public scrutiny and condemnation.
03:58Decades later, Alexander crashed Spears' wedding to Sam Asghari,
04:03resulting in Spears winning a restraining order against Alexander.
04:06I was really just trying to see her and ask her if this was really what she wanted,
04:12and, you know, because of the conversation we were having.
04:15So it was out of care for her?
04:17You wanted to make sure?
04:18Yes, absolutely.
04:19Right.
04:20Her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, was obsessed with fame.
04:23You just see Brittany, and you think you can just go,
04:25hey, how you doing?
04:26Hey, actually, it was her that was like, hey, how you doing?
04:30Really?
04:30Uh-huh.
04:31Uh-huh.
04:31And then right away, you knew that that was it?
04:34Mm-hmm.
04:34Really?
04:35Mm-hmm.
04:35Just kind of clicked.
04:36Brittany's second marriage was with dancer Kevin Federline and lasted from 2004 to 2007.
04:43During that time, Spears and Federline had two children together,
04:47fulfilling Spears' lifelong dream of motherhood, but their relationship was tumultuous.
04:52In her memoir, The Woman and Me, Spears revealed that Federline was obsessed with fame
04:56and wanted to be famous at any cost.
04:59When I first saw him, I was like, this guy's just out here for a free ride.
05:06I don't like the way he looks.
05:08I'm getting it on camera views right here.
05:09I don't like the way he walks.
05:11I don't like the way he wears clothes, his hair.
05:13There was nothing I liked about Kevin the first day I met him.
05:15His desire for recognition calls into question the legitimacy of their relationship at all,
05:20considering Spears is one of the most famous celebrities of all time,
05:23and anyone in a relationship with her is bound to make headlines.
05:27Speculation aside, Spears wrote about the difficulty of watching her husband's desire
05:31for fame and fortune consume him entirely, leading to the downfall of their marriage.
05:37Her fitness as a mother was questioned.
05:55Once her two sons were born, caring for them and keeping them in her life
06:03was one of Spears' absolute top priorities.
06:06Unfortunately, her massive celebrity made motherhood far more complicated,
06:11especially with the predatory paparazzi of the early 2000s.
06:14In 2006, photos of Spears driving with her infant son on her lap caused intense public backlash.
06:21Spears admitted she made a mistake in doing so,
06:23but claimed she felt unsafe when paparazzi surrounded her
06:27and wanted to quickly remove herself and her son from the situation.
06:31They're coming up on the, you know, the sides of the car,
06:34which is a scary situation for me, you know, when they're banging on the windows,
06:39and that's not something I want my baby to, you know,
06:43so I get my baby out of the car and I go home.
06:45The photos caused many to question whether she was fit to be a mother,
06:48even though the photographers themselves were the reason Spears felt panicked in the first place.
06:53Make you weep?
06:56Oh, I've wept.
06:57Yeah.
06:58I've definitely wept just with the world, you know, how judgmental they are.
07:05She was sexualized from a young age.
07:07What was that?
07:09Everyone's talking about it.
07:10Why?
07:11Well, your breasts.
07:15Spears was introduced to life in the spotlight from an early age
07:18due to her role in the Mickey Mouse Club,
07:20but her public image wouldn't maintain its youthful innocence for very long.
07:23Spears' image started becoming more sexualized from the young age of 16,
07:28notably with her Baby One More Time music video.
07:32Baby, baby, how was I supposed to know?
07:38The video is set in a high school,
07:39with the teenage pop star wearing a school uniform modified to include a short skirt
07:44and midriff-bearing top.
07:45The song and video were both massively successful,
07:49but looking back,
07:49it's clear Spears was way too young to be sexualized in that way,
07:53and we can't help but question how the adults around her were okay with this.
08:00Her comeback was ridiculed.
08:02There was a lot of pressure placed on Spears before her 2007 VMA performance,
08:14which was supposed to be her comeback after a year of heavily publicized personal challenges.
08:19In her memoir, Spears writes that she didn't feel ready to perform,
08:23but her team wanted her to do so to counter the negative media attention she was receiving.
08:28Unfortunately, Spears' instincts were right.
08:30The performance was a low-energy, messy embarrassment for Spears,
08:40and the media didn't cut her any slack for it.
08:43Tabloids and talk shows relentlessly ridiculed Spears' performance
08:46and cruelly attacked her appearance.
08:49The media showed no mercy for the new mother of two
08:51dealing with a heavily publicized mental health crisis
08:54during what was supposed to be her triumphant comeback.
08:57This has just made things worse for Britney.
08:59We actually did a flash poll on usmagazine.com immediately afterward asking,
09:04is Britney back?
09:05And 81% said no.
09:07She terminated an unplanned pregnancy.
09:10What's your idea of a perfect Valentine's Day?
09:13Probably just waking up in the morning and being with the person that I was and eating a big, big breakfast.
09:18One of the biggest bombshells dropped in Spears' 2023 memoir, The Woman and Me,
09:23was the story of her unplanned pregnancy with then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake.
09:28Spears was surprised by the pregnancy, but not opposed to having a child.
09:32It was Timberlake who wasn't yet ready for fatherhood.
09:35We were teenagers, you know, and...
09:38Famous teenagers.
09:39Yeah, and I think that's basically the best way to describe what happened to us.
09:44Spears terminated the pregnancy at Timberlake's suggestion,
09:48but wrote about what a difficult and heartbreaking decision it was to do so.
09:52It's impossible to say how going through with the pregnancy
09:55could have changed the trajectory of Spears' life and career,
09:59but it's heartbreaking she went through with a decision she didn't agree with.
10:02I see you in my dreams.
10:05I see your face.
10:08You're haunting me.
10:10A painfully public custody contributed to her breakdown.
10:13She refused a court order to turn her two children...
10:16She was supposed to hand over her two sons last night to Federline, but refused.
10:20She reportedly had barricaded herself inside the room at one point.
10:23She was rushed to the hospital overnight.
10:25We'll have to go out here to Cedars-Sinai Hospital last distressed.
10:28That major depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder.
10:30No one can say what it is.
10:31It's under psychiatric evaluation.
10:34Britney Spears' highly publicized 2007 mental health crisis
10:37felt like watching pop culture history in the making,
10:40but the public's perspective of the incident has changed greatly in recent years.
10:45Spears made headlines when she shaved her head
10:47and attacked a paparazzo's car with an umbrella.
10:49And the harsh media culture of the early 2000s
10:52was quick to ridicule Britney's lowest moments
10:54without considering the context.
10:57Thank you, Britney Spears.
10:58Being bad is good for my business.
10:59Oh, I know that.
11:00So she's your number one.
11:02By far.
11:02Your bread and butter this year.
11:03At this time, Spears was juggling superstardom
11:06with intense personal struggles,
11:08including the death of her beloved aunt,
11:10postpartum depression,
11:12and a painful custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline.
11:16Looking back, it's clear Spears was cracking
11:18under an unbearable amount of pressure,
11:20and her breakdown was a cry for help
11:22the media never should have ridiculed.
11:23The custody suit grew more contentious
11:26when the judge gave Kevin Federline
11:28full custody of the two boys.
11:31Soon thereafter,
11:32Britney would return to the hospital
11:33under another involuntary psychiatric hold.
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11:53The dark reality of her conservatorship.
11:56Following her 2007 mental health crisis,
11:58Spears was placed under a controversial
12:00financial and personal conservatorship,
12:03which granted her father near total control
12:05over Spears' entire life.
12:07When I tell them the way I feel,
12:09it's like they hear me,
12:10but they're really not listening.
12:13They're hearing what they want to hear.
12:14They're not really listening
12:15to what I'm telling them.
12:17It's like, it's bad.
12:20Initially supposed to be
12:21a temporary arrangement,
12:23the conservatorship was extended indefinitely
12:25and continued for many years
12:27before Spears began speaking out
12:29against her father.
12:30Britney alleged she was afraid of her father,
12:33forced to perform against her will,
12:35and wanted out.
12:36She can work too?
12:37Two is Ellen.
12:38That's right.
12:39Two is her birthday.
12:40Is she going to be okay
12:40working on her birthday?
12:41Sure.
12:42What do you want her to play?
12:44No, no, I mean,
12:44can she rehearse on her birthday?
12:46She's good.
12:46Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm asking.
12:47The Free Britney movement
12:48became massively popular online,
12:51advocating for Spears to be freed
12:52from her conservatorship
12:54and allowed to live a normal adult life.
12:56In 2021,
12:57the conservatorship was terminated
12:59and after 14 years,
13:01Spears was once again
13:02in control of her life and career.
13:05What's next for Britney,
13:07and this is the first time
13:08this could be said
13:09for about a decade,
13:11is up to one person,
13:13Britney.
13:15Is Britney's music career truly over?
13:18Or do you think
13:19the star's latest comeback
13:20is coming soon?
13:21Let us know in the comments.
13:23I, I,
13:25stronger
13:27I'm stronger