Even before Britney Spears’ bestselling memoir described her terrible father’s actions, we all knew that he was the worst.
But The Woman In Me contains chilling details about his total control over her life. Things that the world didn’t know because Britney couldn’t share it.
It was other celebrities who first made the public aware that Jamie restricted Britney’s diet.
Now, Britney reveals that her father, convinced that she was “fat” after having two children, forced her to eat chicken and canned vegetables for years.
Britney Spears’ The Woman In Me is exposing the disturbing extent of Jamie Spears’ control over her during her 13-year conservatorship.
In multiple places in the memoir, she notes that her father was “always” telling her that she looked “fat.”
This is apparently his motive for placing her, a grown woman, on a “strict diet” against her will. Fair warning, this is going to be a tough read for a lot of people.
“The irony was that we had a butler — an extravagance — and I would beg him for real food,” Britney recalls.
She would specifically plead for simple treats that most adults can enjoy whenever they like — like a hamburger or ice cream.
Unfortunately, Britney did not have access to her human rights at the time. So even her own employees declined, as they were under “strict orders” from her father.
“So for two years, I ate almost nothing but chicken and canned vegetables,” Britney reveals.
(Obviously, the main point here is the violation of her human rights, but … considering Britney’s resources, which Jamie controlled, why canned vegetables?)
“Two years is a long time to not be able to eat what you want,” Britney reasons. “Especially when it’s your body and your work and your soul making the money that everyone’s living off of.”
“Two years of asking for french fries and being told no,” Britney laments. “I found it so degrading.”
It’s not just that Britney is a slender and extremely fit woman — one of the greatest performers that the world has ever seen. But even if that weren’t the case, no one has the moral right to restrict her diet. Jamie did it anyway.
Britney very reasonably highlighted that this micromanagement made her feel like “my body wasn’t mine anymore.” Because, legally, it wasn’t in several ways.
“I felt scared,” Britney then expresses in her bestselling memoir. “I’ll be honest, I was f–king miserable.”
She noted that, under Jamie’s insistent regulation of every aspect of her diet and exercise, she gained weight. (The human body will just do that — especially in times of stress)
“Even though I wasn’t eating as much, he made me feel so ugly and like I wasn’t good enough,” Britney writes of her irredeemable father.
She writes that she felt “so beaten down” by her father’s endless demands that, for years, she “just surrendered.”
Additionally, Britney adds that her family treated her body as a topic of discussion and even a commodity long before her conservatorship. She felt accustomed to this from childhood.
“My body was strong enough to carry two children and agile enough to execute every choreographed move perfectly onstage,” Britney remarks. “And now here I was, having every calorie recorded so people could continue to get rich off my body.”
Another thing that made her feel helpless is that “no one else” around her found it “outrageous” that Jamie was micromanaging her diet. At least, that was her perception.
“My family would stay in Destin, a pretty beach town in Florida, at a ridiculously beautiful condo that I bought for them,” she describes.
“And,” Britney continues, “eat good-tasting food every night while I was starving and working.” There can be no justification for this. We’re glad that Britney is free.
Britney Spears’ Book Details Father’s Control of Her Diet: I Was Working and … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.