Britney Spears Recalls Working ‘For Hours Straight’ At Age 15

Pop star Britney Spearsreflects on the early start of her career in her memoir “The Woman In Me.”

The 41-year-old pop star looked back at her life in “The Mickey Mouse Club,” which she joined in 1993, and her very first record deal at age 15.

In an excerpt from “The Woman In Me” obtained by People magazine a week before the book’s official release, the “Toxic” singer explained that she “missed performing” and was ready to pursue a career in music at age 15.

“My mom had been in touch with a lawyer she’d met on my audition circuit, a man named Larry Rudolph, who she would call sometimes for business advice,” Britney wrote, referring to her one-time manager.

“He suggested I record a demo. He had a song that Toni Braxton had recorded for her second album that had ended up on the cutting room floor,” she explained. “This would become the demo that I would use to get in the door at record labels.”

“Larry took me around [New York City], and I went into rooms full of executives and sang Whitney Houston’s ‘I Have Nothing,’” Britney recalled. “Gazing out at the rooms full of men in suits looking me up and down in my small dress and high heels, I sang loud.”

As soon as the contract was in place, Britney revealed that “the label wanted me in a studio immediately,” which led to her debut album “…Baby One More Time.”

“I worked for hours straight. My work ethic was strong. If you knew me then, you wouldn’t hear from me for days,” she recalled. “I would stay in the studio as long as I could. If anyone wanted to leave, I’d say, ‘I wasn’t perfect.’ When all the songs were done, someone said, ‘What else can you do? Do you want to dance now?’ I said, ‘H--- yeah, I do!”’

In another excerpt of “The Woman In Me” published by People magazine, Britney opened up on her start on “The Mickey Mouse Club” and the start of her relationship with Justin Timberlake. The two dated from 1999 to 2002.

“Being in the show was boot camp for the entertainment industry: extensive dance rehearsals, singing lessons, acting classes, time in the recording studio, and school in between,” she wrote in her memoir. “The Mouseketeers quickly split into our own cliques, divided by the dressing rooms that we shared: Christina Aguilera and I were the younger kids, and we shared a dressing room.”

“We looked up to the older kids–Keri Russell, Ryan Gosling, and Tony Lucca, who I thought was so handsome,” she added. “And I quickly connected with a boy named Justin Timberlake.”

“[Once] at a sleepover, we played Truth or Dare, and someone dared Justin to kiss me,” she wrote. “A Janet Jackson song was playing in the background as he leaned in and kissed me.”

In her memoir, Britney said that working on the show was “unbelievably fun.” However, she also admitted that it was “exceptionally hard work,” with her and her fellow child stars expected to practice choreography and routines “thirty times in a day.”

In a third excerpt of “The Woman In Me,” released by People magazine on Tuesday, Britney revealed that she became pregnant while the two were dating; however, they made the difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy after Justin made it clear that “he didn’t want to be a father.”

“It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy. I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one day. This would just be much earlier than I’d anticipated,” she wrote in her memoir. “But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young.”

“I don’t know if that was the right decision. If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father,” she continued, adding, “To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.”

Britney’s memoir, “The Woman In Me,” is scheduled for release on Tuesday, October 24, 2023.