Britney Spears seemed to hold nothing back in the now-deleted 22-minute voice memo she uploaded Sunday (Aug. 28). Throughout the memo, Britney, 40, detailed what it was like to be put under conservatorship by her family, the alleged “abuse” she endured at the hands of her father, and how she almost ran off with a guy just to get away from her family. Those who think Britney has no more tea to spill should think again. “Seeing ‘Hold Me Closer‘ [her duet with Elton John] soar to the top of the charts really brought Britney back to before the conservatorship and made her reminisce on the way that her life was then,” a source tells HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY. “She did the audio recording because she wanted her family to hear it, and she knows that they did.”
“She knows that the intended recipients heard this,” the insider added. “This is just a fraction of what she is going to say in her book. But, as she said, telling her story is the only way that she is going to heal from this, and she wants nothing more than to put this behind her and move on with her life and her career. She isn’t going to get that time back that was taken from her, but she does realize that she still has an entire life ahead of her.”
Britney reportedly landed a $15 million book deal with Simon & Schuster in February, months after her 13-year conservatorship (ran in part by her father, Jamie Spears) ended. The book doesn’t have an official release date, but a July report by TMZ claims that it was initially set for January 2023, but a paper shortage pushed it back. Britney first teased a tell-all in Oct. 2021, writing on Instagram, “I’ll just be honest and say I’ve waited so long to be free from the situation I’m in … Lord have mercy on my family’s souls if I ever do an interview!!!”
Britney wasn’t feeling merciful during her voice memo. “All I do remember is I had to do what I was told,” she said during the message. “I was told I was fat every day, [that] I had to go to the gym… I’d never remember feeling so demoralized. And just, they made me feel like nothing. And I went along with it because I was scared. I was scared and fearful.”
“[What made] the whole thing that made it really confusing for me is these people are on the street fighting for me,” Spears said of the “#FreeBritney” movement, but my sister and my mother aren’t doing anything.” Britney attacked her mother, Lynne, saying that she “innocently hide in the house and she wouldn’t speak up” when reporters would contact her about Britney’s status. “I feel like she could have gotten me a lawyer In literally two seconds, [but] my friend helped me get one in the end.”
Lynne, 67, fired back at her daughter following the note. “I have never and will never turn my back on you!” she wrote online. “Your rejections to the countless times I have flown out, and calls make me feel hopeless! I have tried everything. I love you so much, but this talk is for you and me only.”