Madonna and Britney Spears: It's them against the world
While Britney Spears was trying to get over her very public breakup with fellow pop star Justin Timberlake, Madonna came to visit her.
"She walked into the place and immediately, of course, she owned the room," Spears writes in her new memoir, The Woman in Me. "I remember thinking, It's Madonna's room now. Stunningly beautiful, she exuded power and confidence... She modeled a type of strength that I needed to see. There were so many different ways to be a woman in the industry: you could get a reputation for being a diva, you could be professional, or you could be 'nice.' I had always tried so hard to please — to please my parents, to please audiences, to please everyone."
As it happens, a massive new biography of Spears' role model — Mary Gabriel's — landed just two weeks before Spears' tell-all. It's easy to trace a generational line from Madonna,
