Britney Spears is one of the most successful — and often polarizing — solo artists in mainstream music. Six of her initial seven albums debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart.
Spears has experienced several prominent ups and downs throughout her nearly 30-year career in the limelight.
However, since leaving her residency in Las Vegas in January 2019 and entering a mental health facility a few months later, she has been in the news extensively for one reason: her conservatorship.
Britney Spears: Who Is She?
At the age of 11, Britney Spears starred in The All-New Mickey Mouse Club, and with the release of the single “…Baby One More Time” in 1998, she launched an enormously successful career as a pop singer and performer.
Prior to enduring a series of personal and professional setbacks, Spears achieved tremendous sales with albums like Oops!… I Did It Again and Britney. She made a comeback in 2011 with the number-one single Femme Fatale and then had a lengthy residency at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
While she is primarily acknowledged for her pop career, the “Every time” singer has a background in gymnastics and dancing. She started developing her skills at a young age by participating in local talent shows and recitals.
She shared with Variety in 1999 that as a child, she traveled an hour to receive dancing lessons and trained at the Off-Broadway Dance Center in New York City, which helped her get ready for her international tour as a teenage idol.
She has showcased her gymnastic abilities onstage and on social media in recent years, posting Instagram videos of her intense training and gravity-defying stunts.
Britney Spears Early Life
Spears began singing and dancing at the age of two and quickly began competing in talent competitions. She grew up in Kentwood, Louisiana.
She tried out for Disney’s television show The All-New Mickey Mouse Club when she was eight years old but was considered too young for the show.
The producers were so impressed that they advised her to get an agent in New York City, and she started spending her summers there at the Professional Performing Arts School. During this time, she started acting in television commercials and had her Off-Broadway debut in Ruthless in 1991.
Spears finally joined the cast of The All-New Mickey Mouse Club two years later, joining a group that included future pop sensations Justin Timberlake (with whom she later had a personal relationship) and Christina Aguilera.
Britney Spears – Child Star
Britney Jean Spears is an American singer, dancer, and actress who was born on December 2, 1981, in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana.
Spears has been one of the most successful—and often contentious—solo acts in mainstream music for more than two decades. However, for a time, she was more well-known for her personal troubles.
Spears, the middle child, showed an early interest in performing at a young age. “My mother has been entertaining guests since I was about 7 or 8 years old, and I’ve always been the center of attention in front of the television.
Even when I was in school, I was the odd child; instead of playing, I would walk outside and organize Star Search competitions “According to The Hollywood Reporter, Spears said.
She tried out for a role on Disney Channel’s The All-New Mickey Mouse Club when she was eight years old. Spears did not earn the position, but she did fulfill one of her childhood dreams in 1992 when she performed on the famed entertainment competition Star Search.
Spears applied for The All-New Mickey Mouse Club again when she was 11 years old. This time, she was chosen for the cast, which also included Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and actor Keri Russell, among others.
For two seasons, Spears appeared on the children’s variety show. She later told the Hollywood Reporter, “We had a great, amazing night; we got to sing and dance and do everything.”
Acting and residency are two of her other interests
Spears dabbled in acting as well, making her big-screen debut in the coming-of-age picture Crossroads in 2002.
She was a judge on the TV talent show The X Factor in 2012. The following year, she debuted a residency show at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas called Britney: Piece of Me. That residency concluded in late 2017, and the following summer, she embarked on a world tour. Spears said in 2019 that she will be on an “indefinite work hiatus.”
Controversy and conservatorship
Spears was frequently in the headlines due to events in her personal life, most notably her troubled marriage to dancer Kevin Federline (2004–07).
Her erratic behavior during this time—she shaved her head at one point and was briefly hospitalized—led to her being placed under a court-ordered conservatorship (also known as guardianship) in 2008, with her father as a conservator.
Concerns about the legal agreement prompted fans to launch the #FreeBritney internet movement. The conservatorship was also the topic of two TV documentaries that aired in 2021: Framing Britney Spears and Controlling Britney Spears. Spears filed a petition to dissolve the conservatorship that year, arguing that it was “abusive” and unneeded, especially because she was performing and recording.
Spears’ father was removed as conservator in September 2021 after a judge found that the “present scenario is not tenable.”
The conservatorship was ended two months later. For many, Britney Spears embodied the endemic rise in the public’s infatuation with celebrities, fueled by gossip and controversy and catered to by paparazzi and tabloid journalism.
