There’s Never Been a Story Like Britney Spears’s
Someday, with luck, Britney Spears will write a “good, mysterious book.” At least, that’s what she said in the closing moments of Britney: For the Record, a 2008 MTV special that capped off a few years of highly publicized turmoils for Spears: paparazzi skirmishes, child-custody battles, lethargic performances, an involuntary psychiatric visit, and one infamous head shaving. The documentary captured the singer’s attempt to move on from her scandals, but at the end of its hour-long running time, an interviewer noted that Spears had still discussed her problems in only vague terms. With a wistful smile and tilt of her head, Spears assured viewers that she’d eventually put all her answers in writing.
People who track down For the Record today—despite its absence from streaming services, official retailers, and even most bootleg sites—may be searching for clues to a mystery that still surrounds one of the world’s most famous people. In January 2008, the then-26-year-old Spears was committed to a hospital psychiatric ward against her will, and her father, Jamie, obtained temporary legal control of her affairs. She could no longer make her own appointments, go for impromptu drives, or freely use the millions of dollars she had earned since coming into superstardom at age 16. Spears initially tried to contest the arrangement—known as a conservatorship—in court, but a judge had determined her mentally unfit to choose her own attorney. By the time of For the Record’s November broadcast, the conservatorship, overseen by Jamie and a lawyer named Andrew Wallet, had become permanent. Spears had settled into what she called a “boring” new life of constant monitoring by doctors and lawyers. “Even when you go to jail, you know there’s the time when you’re gonna get out,” she said in the documentary. “But in this situation, it’s never ending.”
It was a shockingly quiet end to what had been a raucous story. Throughout her rise, Spears presented herself as the archetypal young girl rebelling into womanhood: a 16-year-old Catholic student shimmying provocatively in, a 19-year-old party animal complaining of , a newly married 22-year-old singing that she . The way her performances jibed with her at-times-wild personal life proved irresistible to the early 2000s’ unchecked gossip media, which magnified her every sartorial, romantic, or parenting snafu. Then, in 2008, Spears—a twice-married mother of two—became someone who really did need permission to make any significant decisions. Her next album, released later in 2008, was called , but Spears’s publicity circus had definitively ended.
