After 16 years, American singer Britney Spears has finally revealed the reason behind her infamous 2007 head-shaving stunt. According to The Independent, the pop singer gave herself a buzzcut in 2008 in front of approximately 70 photographers after leaving rehab. This moment was among a series of breakdowns that ultimately landed Ms Spears in a court-mandated conservatorship controlled by her father, Jamie Spears. It was in 2021 that she was finally given back all her legal rights.
Now, in her upcoming memoir, 'The Woman in Me', Ms Spears has reflected on the highs and lows throughout her tumultuous career. Specifically, in an excerpt obtained by People, the pop icon explained why she cut off all her hair ahead of her conservatorship.
"I'd been eyeballed so much growing up. I'd been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager," the singer wrote in an excerpt. "Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back," she added.
Notably, at the time, Ms Spears was also in the middle of her divorce from ex-husband Kevin Federline while simultaneously fighting for custody over their two sons, Jayden and Sean.
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The 41-year-old in her memoir said once her father took control of her personal, medical and financial affairs in 2008, she no longer had a say in her day-to-day life. She said she was forbidden from keeping the new look. "I was made to understand that those days were now over," she wrote, adding, "I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take."
Elsewhere in an excerpt from her memoir, Ms Spears opened up about her conservatorship, saying that it "stripped me of my womanhood".
"The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child. I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me," she revealed.
Further, she also said that she "didn't deserve" what her family did to her. "The woman in me was pushed down for a long time. They wanted me to be wild onstage ... and to be a robot the rest of the time," she said.
The memoir, 'The Woman in Me' is set to be released on October 24.
