How Britney Spears turned her toxic life around - from breaking down to breaking a sweat
How Britney Spears turned her toxic life around - from breaking down to breaking a sweat
This is Britney Spears showing off her enviable abs. Yet it seems not so long ago, she was in a very different place.
Incredibly, this year marks a decade since the singer, with a worryingly vacant look, shaved off her blonde hair in front of stunned photographers.
That moment of meltdown in 2007, as she stormed a LA salon, demanded a razor and held it to her head, is painfully ingrained in our minds. Later, in a wild-eyed frenzy, she attacked a photographer’s car with an umbrella.
These became images of the era. We witnessed her unravelling.
Today, she admits she cannot believe what she
did, saying: “I sit there and I look back and I’m like, ‘I’m a smart
person, what the hell was I thinking?’”
The truth was, she was not thinking. She was out of control.The breakdown came after years of alleged drug and medicine misuse, a failed marriage and ugly wrangles over her kids’ custody. She was in self-destruct mode, partying hard and resisting attempts to get her into rehab.
Now, at 35, she candidly confesses she had simply spun off the rails. “I truly hit rock bottom,” she says. “I don’t think that it was alcohol or depression. I was like a bad kid running around.”
But a new Instagram fitness video, with a successful Las Vegas show under her slim belt and an estimated £26million in the bank, provides the evidence of how she has recovered.
She
says: “I think my life has done a complete 360. Things are just
different now. It’s a different time. It’s a different era. Things are
really good now. I try to stay away from places where I get nervous;
parties, clubs. When there are a lot of people around, I get anxiety.”But Britney’s recovery has not happened overnight.
In the past few years, she has been stoically rebuilding. And her latest pictures reveal a more content person.
A dancer friend has said: “The happy,
smiley, fun-loving Britney of yesteryear is back. It has been a long
time coming but it’s like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.”
And Britney, who had five UK No1 singles, admits: “I like my 30s way more than my 20s. My 20s were horrible.“My 30s are great – you know who you really are.”
From such an early age, she was the performing seal others wanted her to be – first as a cutesy child Disney star, then as a seductive schoolgirl brand in pigtails and finally as an all-out bad girl sex symbol with a python around her neck. Her parents, managers, the men she dated, all had their say.
In that moment she shaved her head, it was almost like the Toxic hitmaker was trying to obliterate all of it in a desperate attempt to find herself.
Growing up in the small town of Kentwood in Louisiana, teacher mum Lynne had her entering the pageant circuit.
By age three, Britney was enrolled in choir,
dance and gymnastic lessons. The next few years saw her do adverts plus
play a Broadway lead.
When the family went bankrupt, Britney, aged just 12, was the saviour by landing that role in Mickey Mouse.But her fame spiralled to a different plane when lawyer Larry Rudolph launched her pop career. And in 1999, she appeared in the iconic video Baby One More Time. Her first two albums sold more than 39 million copies and she was dating singer Justin Timberlake.
Yet by 2001, Britney’s good-girl image was changing. And in 2004, she married school pal Jason Alexander in a crazy Las Vegas wedding. Eleven hours later, lawyers were annulling the nuptials. That same year came another speedy marriage, to dancer Kevin Federline.Britney ditched her manager and
manically recorded her life with Kevin in a reality show aptly titled Chaotic.
But that chaos was beginning to eat at her. She had two sons quickly, Sean Preston, a year after she and Kevin were married, and Jayden, one year further on.
Her mum believes that Britney had post-natal depression. By 2006, she was asking Kevin for a divorce and partying hard in LA with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.
Worse was to come... In 2008, she was forcibly hospitalised and evaluated for 72 hours under California’s “psychiatric hold” code.
But today, those wild days appear to be behind her. Now she is happy to reveal: “I am actually a very boring person away from work. I do not really go out. I am a homebody and I love spending time with my boys. That makes me happy.
“I love going to the grocery store. I am just a normal girl. I love doing yoga, reading. I love being bored and I love breakfast in bed.”
Recovering her enviable figure, through a fitness and yoga routine plus a healthy diet, has been key in her amazing revival.
She says: “Consistency helps, so I eat a lot of salads with chicken. I try to stay away from fatty foods like hamburgers, which are my favourite.”
You do a get a sense that Britney, one more time, has really found who she is
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