Britney Spears is officially a published author. The pop star put out her memoir, The Woman In Me, on Tuesday, after revelations from the book had already begun circulating the Internet. That includes her relationship with Justin Timberlake and her abortion, the emotions behind her infamous 2007 meltdown, and her brief acting career that included the movie Crossroads and a near-miss audition for The Notebook.
Spears also reveals that she was offered a role in Chicago. “I should’ve done it. I had power back then; I wish I’d used it more thoughtfully, been more rebellious,” she writes (via Variety). “If only I’d been brave enough not to stay in my safe zone, done more things that weren’t just within what I knew. But I was committed to not rocking the boat, and to not complaining even when something upset me.”
Other opportunities were less appealing, like her 2012 stint as a judge on the U.S. version of The X-Factor. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for that anymore. I’ve accepted that now and it’s okay. I can tell people who try to push me in that direction no. I’ve been forced into things I didn’t want to do and been humiliated. It’s not my thing at this point,” she muses (via The New York Post). “Now, if you’ve got me a cute cameo on a fun TV show where I’m in and out in a day that’s one thing, but to act skeptical for eight straight hours while judging on TV? Uh, no thank you. I absolutely hated it.”
Small wonder: Spears writes a lot about feeling humiliated by the press, from the infamous Diane Sawyer interview (which was “a breaking point for me internally”) to Ryan Seacrest questioning her parenting (“It felt like that was the only thing people wanted to talk about: whether or not I was a fit mother”). There were people who gave her comfort and mentorship, like Mariah Carey and Madonna; the latter, in particular, “told me I should be sure to take time out for my soul, and I tried to do that. She modeled a type of strength that I needed to see,” Spears shares (per USA Today).
But the singer’s struggles in the public eye led to her conservatorship, which isolated and infantilized her. As such, she tries to reclaim her autonomy where she can—including her sometimes puzzling Instagram account. “I know that a lot of people don’t understand why I love taking pictures of myself naked or in new dresses. But I think if they’d been photographed by other people thousands of times, prodded and posed for other people’s approval, they’d understand that I get a lot of joy from posing the way I feel sexy and taking my own picture, doing whatever I want with it,” she writes (via E! News). “At a certain point, I’d rather be ‘crazy’ and able to make what I want than ‘a good sport’ and doing what everyone tells me to do without being able to actually express myself. And on Instagram, I wanted to show that I existed,” the singer adds (per Vulture).
It all ties into Spears’ idea of freedom now that she’s on the other side of her conservatorship. “Freedom means being goofy, silly, and having fun on social media. Freedom means taking a break from Instagram without people calling 911. Freedom means being able to make mistakes, and learning from them. Freedom means I don’t have to perform for anyone—onstage or offstage,” she writes. “Freedom means I get to be as beautifully imperfect as everyone else. And freedom means the ability, and the right, to search for joy, in my own way, on my own terms.”