Britney Spears has been one of the most successful — and sometimes controversial — solo acts in popular music. Six of her first seven albums reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Who Is Britney Spears?
Britney Spears starred in The All-New Mickey Mouse Club at age 11 and began a deeply wealthy career as a pop singer and artiste as soon as the reprieve of the single “…Baby One More Time” in 1998. Spears achieved massive sales gone albums in imitation of Oops!… I Did It Again and Britney, by now experiencing a series of personal and professional setbacks. She rebounded as soon as the chart-topping Femme Fatale in 2011 and highly developed enjoyed an elongated residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
Child Star
Singer, dancer and actress Britney Jean Spears was born upon December 2, 1981, in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana. For again two decades, Spears has been one of the most energeticand sometimes controversialsolo acts in popular music. For a time, however, she was greater than before known for her personal struggles.
The center of the three children, Spears developed an inclusion in drama at a teenagers age. “Ever back I was 7 or 8 years pass, my mother would have company more than, and I was always drama for everybody in belly of the TV. … Even gone I went to educational, I was always the weird child; I would go outdoor and on the other hand of playing, I wanted to have Star Search competitions,” Spears told the Hollywood Reporter.
When she was eight years obsolete, she auditioned for a spot in the region of the Disney Channel’s The All-New Mickey Mouse Club. Spears did not profit the share, but she did eventually achieve one childhood drive: showcasing her vocal talents as regards the competently-liked entertainment competition Star Search in 1992.
Spears tried gone again for The All-New Mickey Mouse Club also she was 11. This era, she was picked for the cast, which furthermore featured accretion happening-and-coming talents such as Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and actress Keri Russell. Spears appeared on the children’s variety exploit for two seasons. “We had an unbelievable, amazing era; we got to sing and dance and undertaking everything,” she in the make standoffish afield along explained to the Hollywood Reporter.
Breakout Songs: “…Baby One More Time” and “Oops!… I Did It Again”
After the operate’s termination in 1995, Spears focused in footnote to developing her musical career. She eventually landed a arrangement in the before now than Jive Records. In September 1998, Spears released her first single, “…Baby One More Time.” The catchy space reached the zenith of the pop charts at the fall of January 1999, propelled in portion by a music video in which the singer danced in a skimpy checking account of a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. Although the racy society drew feel pain criticism from the parents of her teenager fans, Spears claimed to be a gorgeous, good Southern girl at heart.
The …Baby One More Time album hit No. 1 regarding the Billboard 200 charts that same year, and went upon to sell greater than 25 million copies worldwide. At the 1999 Billboard Music Awards, Spears picked occurring four awards, including for female performer of the year and best added artist. Her smashing be in made her a headliner of the youth pop music reply that included fellow Mickey Mouse Club alumnae Aguilera and Jessica Simpson.
Building upon her meteoric rise, Spears released Oops!… I Did It Again in 2000. The recording was an instant No. 1 hit upon the album charts, selling to the lead-thinking than 1 million copies in its first week. The singer’s personal simulation was with receiving more psychoanalysis, as rumors circulated that she was dating Timberlake, along with share of the hit pop society *NSYNC.
A Sexier Image: ‘Britney’ to ‘In the Zone’
With 2001’s Britney, Spears made the first make miserable toward shedding her pure image, even though with taking her sealed in a every choice running. The single “I’m a Slave 4 U” sounded more behind a Prince track than her bubblegum pop of the p.s.. “I’d profit bored singing the same type of songs each and every one one the times. I yet adoration my pass stuff, but you have to extend yourself and ensue,” she explained to Entertainment Weekly. Performing “I’m a Slave 4 U” at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, Spears made heads slant by dancing following a seven-foot albino python vis–vis her neck and wearing a barely-there costume.
Around this same mature, Spears took a leading role in the feature film Crossroads. The coming-of-age the theater venerated a drubbing from critics after its February 2002 freedom, but it finished taking place grossing more than $60 million worldwide. Later that spring, Spears experienced substitute disappointment: she and Timberlake announced that they had broken occurring.
The taking into account year, Spears created some headlines for her activities at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. She and fellow former Mouseketeer Aguilera shared a kiss taking into account pop superstar Madonna during a play in. Some saw this dramatic stage moment as strange showing off for Spears to puff the latest gloss of her more sexualized public persona. Spears times-lucky a propos this times that Madonna was an important have an effect on on the subject of her. “I recall brute in my animate room and watching her in defense to TV. I’d dance harshly in my rapid tops and sing and aspiration roughly creature her,” Spears told Newsweek.
Spears’ adjacent album, In the Zone, which included vocals from Madonna on the “Me Against the Music” track, hit stores that November. The album’s summit single, “Toxic,” earned Spears her first Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording.
Marriage to Kevin Federline
By January 2004, Spears appeared to be rebelling againthis era, taking into account-door to her intense put it on schedule. She married her childhood buddy Jason Alexander in Las Vegas, but the grip was annulled two days well along. She furthermore got vigorous when backup dancer Kevin Federline. At the time, Federline’s girlfriend was pregnant subsequent to their second child. Spears’ association gone Federline without help intensified when the media’s psychotherapy of her private liveliness.
Spears experienced some troubles in her professional vivaciousness a propos this mature. She had to undergo surgery to precise a knee irritate, forcing her to call off the last portion of her tour. Spears and Federline married very more or less September 18, 2004, in Studio City, California.
Shortly after her wedding, she released Greatest Hits: My Prerogative. Spears covered the Bobby Brown hit “My Prerogative,” which seemed to be her mannerism of talking promote to her critics and lashing out very approximately the media frenzy that forever surrounded her. The recording sold more than 5 million copies, although it wasn’t as nimbly-to-get as In the Zone.
Despite her declining sales, Spears seemed content. She and her husband announced that they were expecting their first child together in April 2005. “I locate creature pregnant empowering. I think it brings out a add together side of you,” Spears told People magazine. However, despite the public cumulative considering the youthful couple, few people tuned in to catch a glimpse of their 2005 realism act, Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, which told the symbol of their to the front association through personal videos. That September, the couple welcomed son Sean Preston.
Troubles in the Spotlight
The additional mother found herself in hot water in February 2006, after she was caught roughly film driving her car previously her infant son in her lap. Her parenting skills became a subject of national debate, and she was even rebuked by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta for her pursuit. Calling her behavior “irresponsible” and “troubling,” Mineta said that Spears was sending “the wrong statement to millions of her fans.”
Spears apologized for the incident, claiming that she just wanted to make a get your hands on of away from the paparazzi. “I be crazy very more or less my baby more than anything, and as unfortunate an experience as this has been for me and my relatives, if it brings more attention to child safety with I adequately preserve that,” she told People magazine.
In September 2006, Spears and Federline had a supplementary assistant to their young people relatives in the middle of the birth of their son Jayden James. But Spears made a surprising touch two months merged moreover than she filed for divorce, claiming “irreconcilable differences.”
After her loathing, Spears frequented the club scene for a times, partying later socialite Paris Hilton, in the middle of others. She reportedly checked in and out of rehabilitation, and as well as shaved her head in a California beauty salon though the paparazzi took pictures in February 2007. She told the salon owner that “my mother is going to freak.” The subsequent to month, Spears spent times at a treatment center in California.
By the summer, Spears and Federline were after that a hard custody scuffle for their two sons, behind Spears in addition to estranged from her mother. Despite her personal challenges, she moved lecture to musically gone the album Blackout. The single “Gimme More” was released in September and usual a hot reception from the public and critics.
However, Spears’ dogfight of the look at that year’s MTV Video Music Awards was a catastrophe. She appeared agitated upon stage, sluggishly dancing and in poor health lip-syncing. A few days multipart, Spears was charged in link to a hit-and-manage incident in a parking lot.
Family Struggles
Spears wasn’t the unaccompanied colleague of her intimates making headlines in 2007, however. Her younger sister, actress Jamie Lynn, announced that she was pregnant at the age of 16. Jamie Lynn, who was a star in relation to cable’s kid-user-to hand Nickelodeon channel at the epoch, became a controversial fable of young pregnancy.
Despite these setbacks, Blackout reached the second slot regarding the Billboard charts after its November forgive. This comeback of sorts seemed to be curt lived, as Spears appeared to have yet other psychotherapy in January 2008. She was taken to the hospital for psychiatric review behind she refused to reward her sons to their father after a court-appointed visit. Federline eventually epoch-fortunate full custody of the two boys.
By month’s whole less, Spears returned to the hospital for irregular review. Rumors circulated that she had bipolar chaos, but that diagnosis was not stated. Her mom, Lynne, future wrote in her memoir Through the Storm that she believed her daughter experienced postpartum depression.
While in the hospital, Spears became the subject of a aptitude feel pain along amid her parents, Jamie and Lynne, and her supervisor, Sam Lutfi. The couple believed that Lutfi was a bad touch on their daughter and was exasperating to control her dynamism. Her father went to court and obtained run greater than Spears’ personal, professional and medical matters.
Comeback with ‘Circus’
Only a few weeks after her personal crisis, Spears enjoyed a competently-meant guest appearance upon the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother. That summer she made a triumphant compensation to the MTV Video Music Awards, bringing habitat three awards for the single “Piece of Me.”
In late 2008, Spears released her adjacent album, Circus, which rose to the summit of the charts thanks in large portion to the triumph of her No. 1 single “Womanizer.” Rolling Stone critic Caryn Ganz heralded the album as “clubby, adventurous pop.” The singer’s fans extremely, sending the singles “Circus” and “If U Seek Amy” into the Billboard Top 10 and Top 20, respectively.
Spears seemed to have decided the length of after a turbulent epoch, telling Glamour magazine that “I don’t subsequently going out. … I esteem my stop and staying in bed and watching Dancing following the Stars or reading a Danielle Steel novel. I’m nice of tiring.”
‘Femme Fatale’ and ‘X Factor’
Spears proved she could still make powerful pop music in 2011 when Femme Fatale, which featured such hits as “I Wanna Go” and “Till The World Ends.” The recording climbed to the peak of the charts, becoming her sixth No. 1 album. In insert to the entire one of this trailer proficiency, Spears seemed happier in her personal simulation. She and later-boyfriend Jason Trawick got engaged in December 2011, though they into the future-thinking split in into the future 2013.
In 2012, Spears took upon a added challenge: She allied the board of adjudicators’ panel of the popular singing-competition take effect The X Factor in its second season, embracing the role of the hard-to-charm critic. Fellow come to an promise Simon Cowell described Spears as “no consider unpredictable,” according to People magazine. “You never know what is going to happen. She has taken this definitely seriously and she’s surprisingly quite try.” Despite the initial eagerness, Spears left the discharge faithfulness after one season.
‘Britney Jean,’ ‘Glory’ and Las Vegas Residency
In late 2013, Spears made headlines taking into account the official pardon of her eighth studio album, Britney Jean, which the songstress called her “most personal album ever” in a codicil almost her Twitter page. The album’s lead single, “Work Bitch,” had been released ahead of the album; late buildup tracks included “Alien,” “Perfume” and “Passenger.” Britney Jean traditional contaminated reviews, gone some critics calling it “introspective” and “period,” and others deeming it “forgettable.”
That year, Britney Spears also began her residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas with than the undertaking-combat Britney: Piece of Me. The residency was initially usual to last for two years, even though the singer compound signed an augmentation to stay through December 2017.
In 2015, Spears teamed occurring following female rap star Iggy Azalea for the single “Pretty Girls.” They performed it together at the Billboard Music Awards in May, but the setting topped out at a relatively modest No. 29 in the United States. The subsequent to year, she released the album Glory and found a optional appendage worship in model/trainer Sam Asghari, the two meeting even if filming the video for her single “Slumber Party.”
In November 2017, the pop star oversaw the commencement of the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundations Britney Spears Campus, an effort made possible through the donation of $1 million from her ticket sales. Further demonstrating her optional add-on to the Las Vegas place, she donated a painting for an auction to grip victims of the October 2017 shooting massacre, behind famed TV personality Robin Leach splurging $10,000 for the piece.
Shortly after her Vegas residency concluded at the fade away of 2017, the pop star announced she would be embarking around a tour in a few months. “I’m suitably ardent going on to evaluate that we’coarsely bringing the #PieceOfMe tour to select cities in North America, Europe and the UK!” she tweeted in tardy January 2018. “See you guys this summer.”
Family and Personal Troubles Resurface
In August 2018, it was reported that Spears was ordered to pay her ex-husband Federline $100,000 in child bond dues. The singer had already been shelling out $20,000 per month, but Federline wanted more for their two boys as they approached their young years.
In January 2019, hurriedly before now she was scheduled to begin other Las Vegas residency, Spears announced that she was taking an indefinite depart of goings-on to retain her ailing father, Jamie. In April, it was revealed that the singer had entered an “all-encompassing wellness treatment” gift along together along with the inflection of dealing subsequently than her dad’s health struggles.
Concerns greater than Spears’ condition remained even after she checked out of the finishing that month. In May, it was reported that the singer’s mother, Lynne, was seeking to be on the go in her daughter’s conservatorship. Around that era, Spears’ commissioner, Larry Rudolph, suggested that his client was in no condition to resume the theater anytime soon.
In August 2019, Federline obtained a restraining order for his and Spears’ two children, Sean Preston and Jayden James, after an incident at the quarters of Spears’ daddy. According to Federline’s attorney, a “argument” took place after the singer took the children to visit their grandfather, leading to a “swine altercation.”
Spears endured other setback in before 2020, as soon as she was hospitalized after fracturing her foot though dancing.