Britney Spears Finally Explains Why She Shaved Her Head
In a stunning new memoir, The Woman In Me, Britney Spears is opening up about some of the biggest mysteries
Ivy Griffith
In a stunning new memoir, The Woman In Me, Britney Spears is opening up about some of the biggest mysteries of her life in the spotlight. Including why she shaved her head before a messy public breakdown. And the pop singer, whose behavior is often considered “erratic,” is surprisingly introspective about her motives. PEOPLE recently gave people a sneak peek into her upcoming memoir, and the tales it tells are numerous.
Britney Had A Breakdown And Shaved Her Head
Britney Spears seems quite cheerful as she arrives at LAX from Miami after a brief visit at Eric Clapton’s rehab facility, Crossroads. She spent only a day in Crossroads (Antigua) before checking herself out. The normal stay is a minimum of 30 days. There was no indication of the crazy activities that would follow for the rest of the day. She went to a cheap and nasty hair salon in the San Fernando Valley and shaved her head. 16 Feb 2007 Pictured: Britney Spears. Photo credit: Bauer Griffin/MEGA
To remember the story of Britney Spears shaving her head, we have to go back in time. Back to 2007, when everything went off the rails for the wildly popular singer.
Spears had just signed divorce papers with Kevin Federline, father to her two sons. The young pop star, then around 26, had lived a bizarre life of non-stop rehearsals, PR events, and constant media scrutiny. As an adult, she jumped into a relationship with Federline, where she lived the life of control that comes from being a working wife and mother.
After their split, Spears’ behavior went off the rails. In February of 2007, the pop star wandered into a hair salon and demanded that they shave her head bald. Britney herself participated in the ritual, giving herself a buzzcut that left nothing but stubble behind. From there, her behavior in public escalated to a wild bender of partying. She was seen out and about at nightclubs with Paris Hilton over the following weeks, photographed without underwear, and even attacking paparazzi with an umbrella.
Photographs of the singer often appeared wide-eyed, and her suddenly wild public behavior was a stark departure from the disciplined and private persona she had always displayed before.
While many fans and even mental health experts have taken a crack at why Britney shaved her head and went off the rails, she has remained silent about her motives. Until now.
Britney Spears Finally Reveals WHY She Shaved Her Head
Britney Spears seems quite cheerful as she arrives at LAX from Miami after a brief visit at Eric Clapton’s rehab facility, Crossroads. She spent only a day in Crossroads (Antigua) before checking herself out. The normal stay is a minimum of 30 days. There was no indication of the crazy activities that would follow for the rest of the day. She went to a cheap and nasty hair salon in the San Fernando Valley and shaved her head. 16 Feb 2007 Pictured: Britney Spears. Photo credit: Bauer Griffin/MEGA
In The Woman In Me, Britney Spears is telling everything about her tumultuous life so far. She claims it’s not designed to attack anyone. Yet Hollywood stars are watching and waiting with apprehension. After all, before her wild behavior landed Spears in a 13+ year conservatorship under her father Jamie Spears, Britney was popular and befriended everyone who was anyone. That means that many people in Hollywood knew Britney at the height of her troubles.
Spears has not been shy about pointing fingers and placing blame on those who failed to help her when she needed it most, at the height of her mental health struggles. And when she was trapped in the conservatorship for over a decade, Spears says that family and friends conspired to keep her there.
However, there are parts of her past that Britney has remained mum on. Including the head-shaving incident. The highly introspective pop star explains in her memoir, “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.” She adds, “Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back.”
Once the conservatorship was placed on her in 2008, Spears said that her bodily autonomy was removed. She explains, “Under the conservatorship I was made to understand that those days were now over. 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.” While she continued to perform, her heart wasn’t in it anymore.
Spears Recalls Other Celebrities Who Didn’t Lose Their Freedom
Britney Spears poses topless on the cover of her newly announced memoir ‘The Woman in Me’, set to be released in October., Publisher Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, ‘is promising a brave and moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope’, Gallery Books says in a statement announcing the book Gallery Books/Mega. 11 Jul 2023 Pictured: The cover of Britney Spears’ memoir ‘The Woman in Me’. Photo credit: Gallery Books/Mega
In her memoir, Britney talks about how she felt gutted while living under the rules of other people. “Thirteen years went by with me feeling like a shadow of myself,” she writes. The pop diva adds, “I think back now on my father and his associates having control over my body and my money for that long and it makes me feel sick… Think of how many male artists gambled all their money away; how many had substance abuse or mental health issues. No one tried to take away their control over their bodies and money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”
In 2021, Britney Spears was freed from her conservatorship. Since then, she has worked hard to tell her story and share her truth. She explained her motivations for writing the memoir in an email to PEOPLE. She says of the book, “Over the past 15 years or even at the start of my career, I sat back while people spoke about me and told my story for me. After getting out of my conservatorship, I was finally free to tell my story without consequences from the people in charge of my life.”
The above excerpts from the book come from PEOPLE‘s exclusive sneak peek. The memoir itself, The Woman In Me by Britney Spears, is out October 24th.