Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American singer. Referred to as the "Princess of Pop", she has had a significant cultural impact in the 21st century and is credited for helping revive the teen pop genre. She is known for her stage performances and elaborate dance routines.
Spears developed an interest in music from an early age and began her professional career in 1992 as a cast member for the Ruthless! musical and the final two seasons of The All-New Mickey Mouse Club television series before signing with Jive Records in 1997. She debuted with the best-selling albums ...Baby One More Time and Oops!... I Did It Again. The first album's title track reached number one in the US and is one of the best-selling singles in history. Her third album, Britney, became one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century. Following a co-starring role in Crossroads, Spears released her next two albums, In the Zone and Blackout. The former included the single "Toxic", which won the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Recording.
Facing lifelong public scrutiny and struggles with mental illness, Spears was placed under a controversial conservatorship in 2008, during which she recorded Circus that year and Femme Fatale, both for Jive, followed by Britney Jean and Glory for RCA Records. With "Womanizer", "3", "Hold It Against Me" and "S&M", she became the third woman with US number-one singles spanning three decades. In 2019, Spears withdrew from regular concert touring to focus on her conservatorship case, leading to the #FreeBritney movement and the 2021 documentary Framing Britney Spears. Also in 2021, the conservatorship was dissolved after she publicly testified against her family and management for maltreatment. Her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, debuted atop The New York Times Best Seller list.
With over 150 million records sold worldwide, Spears is one of the best-selling music artists in history, with Nielsen SoundScan ranking her the fourth best-selling female album artist of their era. Forbes listed her as the world's highest-paid female musician twice, in 2000 and 2012. Her awards include one Grammy Award, six MTV Video Music Awards, and seven Billboard Music Awards. Outside of music, Spears has launched numerous products over the years, with her 2005 fragrance Fantasy with Elizabeth Arden, Inc. generating over $1.5 billion in sales by 2011.
Life and career
1981–1997: Early life, family, and career beginnings
Britney Jean Spears was born on December 2, 1981, in McComb, Mississippi, the second child of Lynne Irene and James "Jamie" Parnell Spears. Her maternal grandmother, Lillian Portell, was English and born in London, and one of Spears's maternal great-grandfathers was Maltese. She spent her formative years with her siblings Bryan and Jamie Lynn and their parents in Kentwood, Louisiana.Born in the Bible Belt, where socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a particularly strong religious influence, she was baptized as a Southern Baptist and sang in a church choir as a child. As an adult, she studied Kabbalist teachings. On August 5, 2021, Spears announced that she had converted to Catholicism. Her mother and sister are also Catholic. However, in September 2022, after Spears's ex-husband, Kevin Federline, and youngest son did an interview defending her father's actions during her conservatorship, she stated: "I don't believe in God anymore because of the way my children and my family have treated me. There is nothing to believe in anymore. I'm an atheist y'all."
In 1984, Spears began attending dance lessons in Kentwood and was selected to perform as a solo artist at the annual recital. Not long after, she sang "What Child Is This?" at her kindergarten graduation. During her childhood, she also had gymnastics and voice lessons and won many state-level competitions and children's talent shows. In gymnastics, Spears attended Béla Károlyi's training camp. She said of her ambition as a child, "I was in my own world I found out what I'm supposed to do at an early age".
When Spears was eight, she and Lynne traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to audition for the 1990s revival of The Mickey Mouse Club. Casting director Matt Casella rejected her as too young but introduced her to Nancy Carson, a New York City talent agent. Carson was impressed with Spears's singing and suggested enrolling her at the Professional Performing Arts School.
Spears was hired for her first professional role as the understudy for the lead role of Tina Denmark in the off-Broadway musical Ruthless!. She also appeared as a contestant on the popular television show Star Search and was cast in several commercials. In December 1992, she appeared in The All-New Mickey Mouse Club. Fellow cast members included Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling, Keri Russell, and JC Chasez. After the show's 1994 cancellation, she returned to Mississippi and enrolled at McComb's Parklane Academy. Although she made friends with most of her classmates, she compared the school to "the opening scene in Clueless with all the cliques. I was so bored. I was the point guard on the basketball team. I had my boyfriend, and I went to homecoming and Christmas formal. But I wanted more."
In June 1997, Spears negotiated with manager Lou Pearlman to join the female pop group Innosense. Lynne asked family friend and entertainment lawyer Larry Rudolph for his opinion and submitted a tape of Spears singing over a Whitney Houston karaoke song along with some pictures. Rudolph decided that he wanted to pitch her to record labels, for which she needed a professional demo. He sent Spears an unused song of Toni Braxton; she rehearsed for a week and recorded her vocals in a studio. Spears traveled to New York with the demo and met with executives from four labels, returning to Kentwood the same day. Three of the labels rejected her, saying that audiences wanted pop bands such as the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls, and "there wasn't going to be another Madonna, another Debbie Gibson, or another Tiffany".
Two weeks later, executives from Jive Records returned calls to Rudolph. Senior vice president of A&R Jeff Fenster said about Spears's audition that "it's very rare to hear someone that age who can deliver emotional content and commercial appeal For any artist, the motivation—the 'eye of the tiger'—is extremely important. And Britney had that." Spears sang Houston's "I Have Nothing" for the executives and was subsequently signed to the label. They assigned her to work with producer Eric Foster White for a month; he reportedly shaped her voice from a "lower and less poppy" delivery to "distinctively, unmistakably Britney". After hearing the recorded material, president Clive Calder ordered a full album. Spears had originally envisioned "Sheryl Crow music, but younger; more adult contemporary". She felt secure with her label's appointment of producers, since "t made more sense to go pop, because I can dance to it—it's more me." She flew to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, where half of the album was recorded from March to April 1998, with producers Max Martin, Denniz Pop, and Rami Yacoub, among others.
1998–2000: ''...Baby One More Time'' and ''Oops!... I Did It Again''
After returning to the US, Spears toured shopping malls as part of her L'Oreal Hair Zone Mall Tour to promote her upcoming debut album. Her show was a four-song set, and she was accompanied by two backup dancers. Her first concert tour followed, as an opening act for NSYNC. Jive released her debut album ...Baby One More Time in January 1999. It debuted at number one on Billboard 200 and was certified two-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America after a month. The album topped the charts in fifteen countries and sold over 10 million copies in a year. It became the biggest-selling album ever by a teenage artist."...Baby One More Time" was released as the lead single from the album in September 1998. Jive originally wanted the associated music video to be animated, but Spears instead suggested the final concept of a Catholic schoolgirl. The single peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, topping the chart for two consecutive weeks in January–February 1999. It sold more than 10 million copies, making it one of the best-selling singles in history. "...Baby One More Time" later received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The title track also topped the singles chart for two weeks in the UK and became the fastest-selling single ever by a female artist, shipping over 460,000 copies. It would later become the 25th-most successful song in British chart history. Spears is the youngest female artist to have a million seller in the UK. The album's third single, " Crazy", became a top-ten hit worldwide and further propelled the success of the ...Baby One More Time album; the single would later appear in the John Schultz film Drive Me Crazy that year. The album has sold 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. It is the best-selling debut album by any artist.
In June 1999, Spears began her first headlining...Baby One More Time Tour in North America, which was positively received by critics. It also generated some controversy due to her racy outfits. An extension of the tour, titled Crazy Tour, followed in March 2000. Spears premiered songs from her upcoming second album during the show.
Oops!... I Did It Again, Spears's second Jive album, was released in May 2000. It debuted at number one in the US, selling 1.3 million copies, breaking the Nielsen SoundScan record for the highest debut sales by any solo artist. It has sold over 20 million copies worldwide to date, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone said that "the great thing about Oops! – under the cheese surface, Britney's demand for satisfaction is complex, fierce and downright scary, making her a true child of rock & roll tradition". The album's lead single, "Oops!... I Did It Again", peaked at the top of the charts in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and many other European nations, while the second single, "Lucky", peaked at number one in Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. The album, as well as the title track, received Grammy nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, respectively.
The same year, Spears embarked on the Oops!... I Did It Again Tour, which grossed $40.9 million; she also published her first memoir, Britney Spears' Heart to Heart, written with her mother. On September 7, 2000, Spears performed at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. Halfway through the performance, she removed her black suit to reveal a sequined flesh-colored bodysuit, followed by a heavy dance routine. It is noted by critics as the moment that Spears showed signs of becoming a more provocative performer. Amidst media speculation, Spears confirmed she was dating NSYNC member Justin Timberlake. Spears and Timberlake both graduated via distance learning from the University of Nebraska High School. She also bought a home in Destin, Florida. In her 2023 memoir, Spears revealed that she had an abortion in late 2000 while dating Timberlake after he said they were not prepared for parenthood. Spears called the abortion "one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced".