Spears’ memoir to be released in October

LOS ANGELES – Britney Spears’ highly anticipated memoir, which is expected to chronicle the years she spent in a

restrictive conservatorship

that ultimately came to a dramatic end at a Los Angeles courtroom, will be released on Oct 24 by Gallery Books, the publisher announced on Tuesday.

Titled The Woman In Me, the book will discuss the

termination of the conservatorship

in 2021 and the impact it had in changing “the course of her life and the lives of countless others”, according to the publisher, which is an imprint of Simon and Schuster.

On Twitter, Spears posted a link to a website for the book, with a graphic with the words, “My story. On my terms. At last”.

The singer’s father, Mr James Spears, was named her conservator in 2008 amid concerns about her mental health. He went on to exercise control over her personal life and finances for more than a decade, even as she continued to perform.

After news articles and documentary films began to explore the nature of the conservatorship and thousands of her fans lobbied to end it as part of what became known as the #FreeBritney movement, Spears publicly denounced the arrangement two years ago.

She made an impassioned speech to the judge overseeing her case in which she asserted that she had been drugged and compelled to work against her will, calling the arrangement abusive and her treatment traumatising.

“I just want my life back,” she said.

A few months later, the judge suspended Mr Spears from his position as overseer of her estate. And on Nov 12, 2021, the judge ruled to end the conservatorship.

Since then, Spears, 41, has discussed aspects of her experience in Instagram posts, criticising her father’s involvement in the arrangement, but she has not given a formal interview or her full account.

She mentioned the forthcoming book in a since-deleted post in 2022, calling the process “healing and therapeutic”.

Since the legal arrangement was terminated, she has announced her

marriage to Sam Asghari,

something she had said she was not able to do under the conservatorship. She also briefly returned to the music industry, releasing a track with pop superstar Elton John.

Spears’ career has been relatively quiet otherwise since the high-profile court proceedings, though she offered her support for a Broadway musical centred on her music.

On the book’s website, the publisher described it as a “brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith and hope”. NYTIMES