Britney Spears Says She Traded 'Freedom' For Her Sons Amid Conservatorship

Pop star Britney Spears is opening up about being a parent in her memoir "The Woman In Me."

The "Toxic" singer was married to Kevin Federline from 2004 to 2007. The former couple shares two sons: Sean Preston, 18, and Jayden James, 17. In 2007, Britney was going through a vicious custody battle over her sons, which was made even more complicated by the fact that she was placed under a conservatorship in February 2008. She was not freed from that conservatorship until November 2021.

In an excerpt from her memoir “The Woman In Me” published by People magazine on Thursday night, the “Overprotected” singer claims she stopped trying to fight the court-ordered conservatorship in order to spend time with her children.

The Princess of Pop was hospitalized twice for involuntary psychological assessments before control over her personal and financial affairs was turned over to her father, Jamie Spears. In the memoir, Britney recalled what the experience was like. “After being held down on a gurney, I knew they could restrain my body any time they wanted to,” she wrote. "And so I went along with it."

“My freedom in exchange for naps with my children — it was a trade I was willing to make,” she added. In an email interview with People magazine for their exclusive cover story, Britney said, “Starting a family was my dream come true,” adding, “Being a mom was my dream come true.”

Although the two boys moved to Hawaii on August 1 with their father, the two boys are reportedly still in contact with their mother despite years of estrangement. In September 2022, Jayden spoke to the Daily Mail and said that he was interested in repairing their relationship.

“I 100% think this can be fixed. It's just going to take a lot of time and effort. I just want her to get better mentally. When she gets better I really want to see her again,” he said at the time before sharing why they did not attend their mother's June 2022 wedding to actor Sam Asghari. (The "Special Ops: Lioness" actor later filed for divorce on August 16, 2023).

"At the time it just wasn't a good time to go. I'm not saying that I'm not happy for her," Jayden told the outlet. "I'm really happy for them, but she didn't invite the whole family and then if it was just going to be me and Preston, I just don't see how that situation would have ended on good terms."

In another excerpt from “The Woman In Me” published by People magazine, the “Stronger” singer said that it felt like she was becoming a “robot” under her conservatorship and noted that it was the “death” of her creativity.

“I became a robot. But not just a robot — a sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself,” she wrote. “The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child. I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me.”

“This is what’s hard to explain, how quickly I could vacillate between being a little girl and being a teenager and being a woman, because of the way they had robbed me of my freedom,” she continued. “There was no way to behave like an adult, since they wouldn’t treat me like an adult, so I would regress and act like a little girl; but then my adult self would step back in — only my world didn’t allow me to be an adult.”

In the book, she adds: “The woman in me was pushed down for a long time. They wanted me to be wild onstage, the way they told me to be, and to be a robot the rest of the time. I felt like I was being deprived of those good secrets of life — those fundamental supposed sins of indulgence and adventure that make us human,” she added. “They wanted to take away that specialness and keep everything as rote as possible. It was death to my creativity as an artist.”

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