This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Woman in Me" by Britney Spears. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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How did Britney Spears and Kevin Federline’s relationship ruin the pop star’s reputation? Why did Spears want a divorce from Federline?
Spears and Federline were married for three years and have two sons together. The tabloids followed their messy divorce through many custody battles and arrangements, leading to an infamous moment in Spears’s career.
Let’s look at how Spears’s relationship with Federline led to a nasty fallout.
Turmoil and Unwanted Attention (2003-2007)
As she felt the media turning against her, the pop star sought fulfillment in creating a family, only to have what she loved used against her. The Woman in Me details the media backlash that followed her breakup with Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline’s marriage, and the fallout from their messy divorce.
The media was sympathetic to Timberlake as he promoted his take on his relationship with Spears, but it wasn’t supportive of her side of the story. She recounts an incident in which her father and three men she didn’t know barged into her home and interrogated her about the breakup. Following that came a TV interview in which journalist Diane Sawyer publicly grilled her about how she’d treated Timberlake, seemingly accepting his version of events as fact and pushing Spears to break down on camera. In what Spears asserts should have been a time for healing and grief, she was forced to expose her most private feelings in an open forum for everyone to see.
(Shortform note: Others have likewise criticized Sawyer’s tactics, arguing that her questions were based on a presumption of Spears’s guilt for any problems that existed between her and Timberlake. Sawyer was openly critical of Spears’s clothing and questioned her about her sex life, painting Spears as a bad role model. In Going There, journalist Katie Couric criticizes Sawyer’s interview methods in general, stating that Sawyer crosses the line into sensationalist exploitation.)
After these events and a grueling tour, Spears became involved with a former backup dancer, Kevin Federline, who Spears says treated her with a tenderness that had been missing in her life. She didn’t learn until after they were dating that he had children from a prior relationship. Nevertheless, she married Federline in 2004 and tried to restore some normalcy to her life by taking a break from recording and touring.
(Shortform note: According to Spears, she fell in love and married Federline in a very short space of time. Psychologists have long been aware that during the early days of a romance, anyone’s judgment can be clouded by a rush of the body’s neurochemicals. In Getting the Love You Want, Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt describe this “honeymoon phase” as a time when you view your partner as an idealized caregiver who fills whatever needs are missing in your life. However, this illusion eventually fades and each partner finally sees that the other has flaws. This can elicit feelings of betrayal that your partner isn’t who you imagined they were.)
Spears hoped the tabloid press would give her some distance, but instead, their efforts to hound her ramped up when she had her first son in 2005. Three months later, she was pregnant again, and the paparazzi became even more persistent.
(Shortform note: The word paparazzi derives from “Paparazzo,” the name of a fictional photographer in the 1960 film La Dolce Vita. Paparazzi are often criticized for their alleged reckless and abusive behavior, and in 1998, California passed a law allowing celebrities and other private individuals to sue paparazzi for invasion of privacy, though Spears never mentions making use of this option. More recently, paparazzi have sued celebrities for unauthorized use of their photos, claiming that their subjects are violating copyright. Despite the tense relationship between celebrities and freelance photographers, some stars and paparazzi have forged mutually beneficial relationships in which each uses the other for publicity or financial gain.)
Spears Versus Federline
Spears feels that she ignored the warning signs that Federline was pushing her away. She supported his ambition as an aspiring rapper, but once he started recording his album, he refused to see her. After their second son was born, Spears tried to find comfort in raising her children, but, although she didn’t realize it at the time, she was experiencing postpartum depression. Because of Federline’s extended absence and the never-ending pressure from the paparazzi, Spears had no consistent emotional support. Her only escape was the recording studio, where she produced her album Blackout, one of her favorites to this day.
With her marriage seemingly doomed, Spears’s attorney advised her to file for divorce before Federline did. Supposedly, this would spare her the humiliation of being publicly dumped for a second time. According to Spears, this was a mistake. Once again, the media painted Spears as the villain for splitting up a young family. Federline told the press that Spears was an unfit mother as they both sued for custody of their children. The media put everything Spears did under a microscope without giving Federline the same treatment.
In an act of rebellion, Spears shaved her head, throwing away her “good girl” image, a choice that the tabloids pounced on. She tried using wigs to go incognito, but photographers followed her every step, even as Federline refused to let her see her children. Feeling the weight of all these pressures, Spears’s composure in public began to slip. She describes an incident when a photographer provoked her and she attacked his car with an umbrella, giving the press the reaction they wanted. After this, her parents forced her into rehab for substance abuse (possibly for overusing her prescription Adderall, though Spears doesn’t specify). She insists her problem wasn’t substance abuse—her problem was not being allowed to work through her depression and grief like a normal human being.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Woman in Me summary:
- The key takeaways of Britney Spears' memoir about her career and private life
- How the media's portrayal of Spears differed from her experiences
- How the music industry treats women differently than men
