Britney Spears Claims She Was 'Exploited' During 2003 Diane Sawyer Interview

Pop star Britney Spears is opening up on her viral 2003 interview with Diane Sawyer in her memoir "The Woman In Me."

Many fans lamented how the pop star was treated during the interview, and it seems that Britney herself felt the same way.

In November 2003, Britney was only 21 when she was grilled by Diane Sawyer about her life and career. In her memoir, “The Woman In Me,” Britney claimed that the interview was a “breaking point” for her. In an excerpt from the memoir obtained by People magazine, Britney wrote, “I felt like I had been exploited, set up in front of the whole world.”

During the Primetime interview, Diane Sawyer, now 77, grilled Britney about her split from Justin Timberlake and seemed to only add fuel to the rumors that the pop star had cheated on him. “He’s going on television and saying you broke his heart," Sawyer said. "You did something that caused him so much pain. So much suffering. What did you do?’”

At one point, Diane asked Britney about the “spasm of publicity” surrounding her personal life. After the “Toxic” singer broke down in tears, the crew put an end to the interview. Britney has frequently stated that she was “embarrassed” by the interview over the years, including on social media. Diane Sawyer’s treatment of the pop star came under fire after the release of The New York Times’ Framing Britney Spears documentary in 2021.

That same year, Britney took to Instagram to call out the way she was treated during the interview. “What was with the ‘You’re in the wrong’ approach?? Geeze… and making me cry???” Britney asked at the time.

Only four years later, the pop star suffered a public mental health breakdown and publicly shaved her head. This, and a series of other events, led to her conservatorship, which started in February 2008 and lasted until November 2021. Looking back, Britney recalled how she attacked a photographer’s car with an umbrella less than a week after shaving her head.

In another excerpt of “The Woman In Me” released by People magazine, Britney claimed that she "out of my mind with grief" after her aunt, Sandra Bridges Covington, died of ovarian cancer in January 2007. The same year, she was also involved in a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband, Kevin Federline. The two share two sons: Sean Preston, 18, and Jayden James, 17.

"With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom," Britney wrote. "Flailing those weeks without my children, I lost it, over and over again. I didn’t even really know how to take care of myself."

"I am willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my adored aunt Sandra, and the constant drumbeat of pressure from paparazzi, I’d begin to think in some ways like a child," she continued.

She also revealed that shaving her head in 2007 was a way to try to take back her appearance after she had been scrutinized by the media for so long. “I’d been eyeballed so much growing up. I’d been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager,” she wrote in another People magazine excerpt from her tell-all book. Unfortunately, once her father Jamie Spears, 71, was named her conservator, she lost all choice in how she wanted to look.

“Under the conservatorship, I was made to understand that those days were now over,” she wrote. “I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take.”

In her memoir, she explained how being under the conservatorship robbed her of her creativity. “I would do little bits of creative stuff here and there, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. As far as my passion for singing and dancing, it was almost a joke at that point,” she wrote. “Thirteen years went by with me feeling like a shadow of myself."

"I think back now on my father and his associates having control over my body and my money for that long and it makes me feel sick,” she continued. “Think of how many male artists gambled all their money away; how many had substance abuse or mental health issues. No one tried to take away their control over their bodies and money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”

Britney Spears' tell-all memoir "The Woman In Me" is scheduled for release on Tuesday, October 24, 2023.