Britney Jean Spears (born December 2nd, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the "Princess of Pop". She is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s. After appearing in stage productions and television series, Spears signed with Jive Records in 1997 at age fifteen. Her first two studio albums ...Baby One More Time (1999) and Ooops!...I Did It Again (2000), are among the best-selling albums of all time and made Spears the best-selling teenage artist of all time. With first-week sales of over 1.3 million copies, Oops!... I Did It Again held the record for the fastest-selling album by a female artist in the United States for fifteen years. Spears adopted a more mature and provocative style for her albums Britney (2001) and In the Zone (2003), and starred in the 2002 film Crossroads.
Spears was executive producer of her fifth studio album Blackout (2007), often referred to as her best work. Following a series of highly publicized personal problems, promotion for the album was limited, and Spears was involuntarily placed in a conservatorship. Since then, she released the chart-topping albums, Circus (2008) and Femme Fatale (2011), the latter of which became her most successful era of singles in the US charts. She embarked on a four-year concert residency, Britney: Piece of Me, at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas to promote her next two albums Britney Jean (2013) and Glory (2016). In 2019, Spears's legal battle over her conservatorship became more publicized and led to the establishment of the #FreeBritney movement. In 2021, the conservatorship was terminated following her public testimony in which she accused her management team and family of abuse.
BRITNEY SPEARS IN 2000 - Felicia Culotta / Sky Documentaries
Regarded as a pop icon, Spears has sold over 100 million records worldwide, including over 70 million in the United States, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. She has achieved six number-one albums on the Billboard 200 and four number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100: ...Baby One More Time", "Womanizer", "3", and "Hold it Against Me". The "S&M" remix also topped the Billboard chart. Her singles "Oops!... I Did it Again", "Toxic", and Scream & Shout" topped the charts in most countries. With "3" in 2009 and "Hold It Against Me" in 2011, Spears became the second artist after Mariah Carey in the Hot 100's history to debut at number one with two or more songs. Her heavily choreographed videos earned her the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. She has earned numerous other awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award, 15 Guinness World Records, six MTV Video Music Awards, seven Billboard Music Awards (including the Millennium Award), the inaugural Radio Disney Icon Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Britney Spears became the youngest musician ever to have a star on the infamous Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
Spears was ranked by Billboard as the eighth-biggest artist of the 2000s. In the United States, she is the fourth best-selling female album artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era as well as the best-selling female album artist of the 2000s. "...Baby One More Time" was named the greatest debut single of all time by Rolling Stone in 2020. In 2004, Spears launched a perfume brand with Elizabeth Arden, Inc; sales exceeded $1.5 billion as of 2012. Forbes has reported Spears as the highest-earning female musician of 2001 and 2012. By 2012, she had topped Yahoo!s list of most searched celebrities seven times in twelve years. Time named Spears one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021, while also winning the reader poll by receiving the highest number of votes.
Britney Jean Spears was born on December 2nd, 1981, in McComb, Mississippi, the second child of James "Jamie" Parnell Spears and Lynne Irene Bridges. Her maternal grandmother, Lillian Portell, was English (born in London), and one of Spears's maternal great-great-grandfathers was Maltese. Her siblings are Bryan James Spears and Jamie Lynn Spears. Born in the Bible Belt, where socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a particularly strong religious influence, she was baptized as a Southern Baptist demnomination and sang in a church choir as a child. As an adult, she has studied Kabbalist teachings. On August 5, 2021, Spears announced that she had converted to Catholicism. Her mother, sister, and nieces Maddie Aldridge and Ivey Joan Watson, are also Catholic. However, on September 5th, 2022, after Spears's ex-husband, Kevin Federline, and youngest son did an interview defending her father's actions during her conservatorship, she stated: "I don't believe in God anymore because of the way my children and my family have treated me. There is nothing to believe in anymore. I'm an atheist y'all".
National Train Day - McComb, Mississippi - Britney Spears was born in McComb.
Bo Diddley Blues Marker - McComb, Mississippi.
Bo Diddley..
Bo Diddley was known for many new musical styles and innovations. He was one of the first musicians of the 1950s to incorporate woman musicians including Lady Bo. He hired her full-time to play all of his stage performances whereupon she became the first female lead guitarist in history to be employed by a major act. Also the usage of special effects like reverb, tremolo and his manipulations of his guitar made him a ground-breaking musician. Diddley hopped and strutted around the stage while playing his guitar over his head, with his teeth, and even between his legs. In that regard he influenced numerous rock musicians from the 1960s on.
In 1986 Bo Diddley was inducted into the Washington Area Music Association’s Hall of Fame. Then in the following year he was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. In 1996, Diddley received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in Los Angeles. While the following year his 1955 debut recording of is song “Bo Diddley” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as a recording of lasting qualitative or historical significance. Also in 1996, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards Ceremony. In 2000, Diddley was inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame as well as in the North Florida Music Association’s Hall of Fame. In 2007, Diddley went to Mississippi to receive the Governor’s Award of Excellence in the Arts for Lifetime Achievement, which is the State’s highest arts honor. He went back to see his Blues Marker revealed on the Mississippi Blues Trail.
Bo Diddley died of heart failure in Florida on June 2, 2008 at the age of 79. Married four times, he was survived by his five children, 15 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great grandchildren.
Bogue Chitto River.
Colourful Chairs..McComb Mississippi.
This photograph of Ronnie Van Zant shows him wearing his signature Texas Hatters hat and a Jimi Hendrix shirt while posing with his father Lacy Van Zant. Lacy has a large Lynyrd Skynyrd patch on his jacket and is holding an award from the Glasgow's Apollo Centre.
On October 20th, 1977, a chartered plane carrying members and crew of rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in a swamp near McComb, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, Steve's sister Cassie (a backup singer), road manager Dean Kilpatrick, as well as both the onboard pilots.
This Oct. 20, 1977 file photo shows the wreckage of a plane in a wooded area near McComb, Miss., where six people were killed, including three members of the music group Lynyrd Skynyrd.(AP)
A Convair CV-240 ran out of fuel and crashed into a wooded area near Gillsburg, Mississippi. Most of the survivors had been seated toward the back of the plane.
Argentine professional football player Emiliano Sala.
Cassie Gaines had been so fearful of flying in the Convair that she had preferred to travel in the band's cramped equipment truck instead, but Van Zant convinced her to board the plane on October 20. Keyboard player Billy Powell's nose was nearly torn off in the crash as he suffered severe facial lacerations and deep lacerations to his right leg. Decades later, he gave an account of the flight's final moments on a VH1 Behind The Music special, stating that Van Zant, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown violently from his seat and died immediately when his head hit a tree as the plane broke apart.
Another member of the band's trio of back-up singers (collectively known as the "Honkettes"), JoJo Billingsley, was not on the plane as she was under a doctor's care in Senatobia, Mississippi, dealing with health problems brought about by substance abuse. Billingsley planned on re-joining the tour in Little Rock, Arkansas, on October 23rd. She reported dreaming of the plane crash and begging guitarist and founding member Allen Collins by telephone not to continue using the outdated Convair aeroplane. A similar situation comes to mind when Argentine professional football player Emiliano Sala died in a plane crash.
On 21st January 2019, the Piper Malibu aircraft, which was flying Sala from Nantes to Cardiff, disappeared off Alderney. The same aircraft and pilot had flown Sala to Nantes two days earlier. On 23rd January, Channel Islands Air Search reported that there was "no hope" of finding any survivors in the water.
An audio message, allegedly sent from the plane by Sala to his friends via WhatsApp, was released by Argentine media outlet Olé. The audio message translates as follows:
Hello, my brothers, how are you? Boy, I’m tired. I was here in Nantes taking care of things, things, things, things, things, things, and it never stops, it never stops, it never stops. Anyway guys, I’m up in this plane that feels like it's falling to pieces, and I’m going to Cardiff. [It's] crazy, we start tomorrow. Training in the afternoon, guys, in my new team... Let's see what happens. So, how's it going with you guys, all good? If in an hour and a half you have no news from me, I don't know if they are going to send someone to look for me because they cannot find me, but you will know... Man, I'm scared!
After a lengthy search, Sala's body was eventually recovered from the aircraft on February 7 2019, though pilot David Ibbotson, 59, has never been found.
On 14th August, it was reported that toxicology tests on Sala's body showed high levels of exposure to carbon monoxide, and the AAIB considered it was likely that the pilot would also have been exposed to the gas, potentially leading to drowsiness or unconsciousness. In September 2022, the BBC released recordings of the pilot, David Ibbotson, who also died in the crash, saying "I'll be wearing my life jacket" on the journey from France to Wales. He had also stated to friends that the 35-year-old airplane was "dodgy". The recordings further revealed that Ibbotson said about a previous flight in the same aircraft: On 11 February, the results of a post mortem reported that Sala had died of "head and trunk injuries".
On October 4, 1961, 115 students staged a mid-day walk-out from Burglund High School to protest the expulsion of two fellow classmates, Ike Lewis and Brenda Travis. Ike and Brenda had participated in a sit-in at McComb Mississippi's Greyhound Station in late August, and discovered that they were expelled following their release from jail. The walkout was also a protest for the murder of Herbert Lee, who had been murdered on September 25 as a result of his involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Burglund High School Walkout..Oct 4th1961
Jamie and Lynne, and Britney in the 1980s. Jamie said repeatedly his daughter would be a star. Photo: britneyspears/Instagram.
An early photo of Britney Spears (left) with her family. Jamie and Lynne Spears met in their hometown of Kentwood. Photo: Kentwood MuseumJamie,
Britney spears with her sibling Jamie Lynn Spears.
Bryan James Spears with sibling Britney..
At age three, Spears began attending dance lessons in her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana, and was selected to perform as a solo artist at the annual recital. Aged five she made her local stage debut, singing "What Child is This?" at her kindergarten graduation. During her childhood, she also had gymnastics and voice lessons, and won many state-level competitions and children's talent shows. In gymnastics, Spears attended Béla Károlyi training camp. She said of her ambition as a child, "I was in my own world, ... I found out what I'm supposed to do at an early age".
When Spears was eight, she and her mother Lynne traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, to audition for the 1990s revival of The Mickey Mouse Club. Casting director Matt Casella rejected her as too young, but introduced her to Nancy Carson, a New York City talent agent. Carson was impressed with Spears's singing and suggested enrolling her at the Professional Performing Arts School; shortly afterward, Lynne and her daughters moved to a sublet apartment in New York.
![[FULL] Little Britney Spears at Star Search - Love Can Build a Bridge](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wWuK5EnXaWU/sddefault.jpg)
[FULL] Little Britney Spears at Star Search - Love Can Build a Bridge
[FULL] Little Britney Spears at Star Search - Love Can Build a Bridge
Jive Records marketing executive Kim Kaiman worked with Britney early on in her career.
Britney Spears Interiew - ROD Show, 1999
Britney Spears Interiew - ROD Show, 1999
Britney Spears' First Appearance on The Ellen Show (Full Interview) (Season 1)
Britney Spears' First Appearance on The Ellen Show (Full Interview) (Season 1)
Britney Spears' 'Oops!... I Did It Again' Turns 20! Watch Her Flashback Interview From 2000
Britney as seen with Nancy: Agent Nancy Carson who represented child talent took up Britney's case and ‘Her mom was just so sweet, so proud of her daughter'
Old relationships: In the documentary produced by the New York Times the pop star's friend and ex-assistant Felicia Culotta said she knows 'firsthand' what Britney is 'capable of'
Britney Spears' 'Oops!... I Did It Again' Turns 20! Watch Her Flashback Interview From 2000.
Spears was hired for her first professional role as the understudy for the lead role of Tina Denmark in the off-Broadway musical Ruthless!, She also appeared as a contestant on the popular television show Star Search and was cast in a number of commercials. In December 1992, she was cast in The Mickey Mouse Club alongside Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling, and Ken Russell. After the show was canceled in 1994, she returned to Mississippi and enrolled at McComb's Parklane Academy. Although she made friends with most of her classmates, she compared the school to "the opening scene in Clueless with all the cliques...I was so bored. I was the point guard on the basketball team. I had my boyfriend, and I went to homecoming and Christmas formal, but i wanted more..
(L-R) Britney Spears and Natalie Portman host a New Year's Eve Party at the Hudson Hotel Dec. 31, 2002 in New York City.Matthew Peyton/Getty Images
The Mickey Mouse club: Ryan Gosling (front left), Britney Spears (front right), Christina Aguilera (2nd row, right) and Justin Timberlake (of 'N Sync, 3rd row, right) DISNEY
In June 1997, Spears was in talks with manager Lou Pearlman to join the female pop group Innosense. Lynne asked family friend and entertainment lawyer Larry Rudolph for his opinion and submitted a tape of Spears singing over a Whitney Houston karaoke song along with some pictures. Rudolph decided that he wanted to pitch her to record labels, for which she needed a professional demo made. He sent Spears an unused song of Toni Braxton; she rehearsed for a week and recorded her vocals in a studio. Spears traveled to New York with the demo and met with executives from four labels, returning to Kentwood the same day. Three of the labels rejected her, saying that audiences wanted pop bands such as the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls, and "there wasn't going to be another Madonna, another Debbie Gibson, or another Tiffany.
Two weeks later, executives from Jive Records returned calls to Rudolph. Senior vice president of A&R Jeff Fenster said about Spears's audition that "it's very rare to hear someone that age who can deliver emotional content and commercial appeal ... For any artist, the motivation—the 'eye of the tiger'—is extremely important. And Britney had that." Spears sang Houston's "I Have Nothing" (1992) for the executives, and was subsequently signed to the label. They assigned her to work with producer Eric Foster White for a month; he reportedly shaped her voice from "lower and less poppy" delivery to "distinctively, unmistakably Britney". After hearing the recorded material, president Clive Calder ordered a full album. Spears had originally envisioned "Sheryl Crow" music, but younger; more adult contemporary". She felt secure with her label's appointment of producers, since "It made more sense to go pop, because I can dance to it—it's more me." She flew to Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, where half of the album was recorded from March to April 1998, with producers Max Martin, Denniz Pop, and Rami Yacoub, among others.
Britney Spears and Larry Rudolph, November 2017 (Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images)
June 6th, 2021 - Larry Rudolph has resigned as Britney Spears' manager. Rudolph had managed Spears for most of the last 25 years. In a letter to Spears’ co-conservators—her father James “Jamie” Spears and the court-appointed Jodi Montgomery—Rudolph reportedly explained: “It has been over 2 1/2 years since Britney and I last communicated, at which time she informed me she wanted to take an indefinite work hiatus. Earlier today, I became aware that Britney had been voicing her intention to officially retire.” Rudolf began working with Spears in 1995, taking time away from his role only in 2007 and 2008. He reportedly wrote in his resignation letter, “As you know, I have never been a part of the conservatorship nor its operations, so I am not privy to many of these details. I was originally hired at Britney’s request to help manage and assist her with her career. And as her manager, I believe it is in Britney’s best interest for me to resign from her team as my professional services are no longer needed.”
In January 2004, Spears married childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The marriage was annulled 55 hours later, following a petition to the court that stated that Spears "lacked understanding of her actions".
55-hour marriage :Jason Alexander says he was misled by Britney Spears' team about their relationship after they married in a Las Vegas ceremony in 2004.
Jason Alexander - who was married to the Toxic hitmaker in 2004 for just 55 hours after a 4am Las Vegas wedding - was made to sign legal documents with the impression that they would stay together and eventually marry in the 'right way' in the future. He said: 'They told me if I would sign the contracts - the annulment - they would let me and Britney continue our relationship, and if we felt the same way in six months they would give us a proper marriage. 'So I had no reason to believe otherwise. I thought that's what the truth was. They were allowing Britney and I to still have phone communication. So we were talking every day and I still believed the story I was told, that they were going to let us continue to talk and then we would have this marriage, right, in the future if we felt the same way.'
Jason added: 'Literally the day after, like, the 30 days was up, I remember trying to call the number I had for Britney and it was like, "Beep, beep, beep [like it had been disconnected]". I'm like, "F*** they got me! Motherf******!' So that was it."
In March 2004, Britney embarked on The Onyx Hotel Tour in support of In the Zone. In June 2004, Spears fell and injured her left knee during the music video shoot for "Outrageous". Spears underwent arthroscopic surgery. She was forced to remain six weeks with a thigh brace, followed by eight to twelve weeks of rehabilitation, which caused The Onyx Hotel Tour to be canceled. During 2004, Spears became involved in the Kabbalah Centre through her friendship with Madonna.
So what went down? Well, 'Outrageous' was allegedly meant to be the theme song for the 2004 Catwoman film starring Halle Berry. While shooting the video in Queens, New York City, with Snoop Dogg, who was due to appear on a remix of the song, Britney injured her knee while performing some choreography. Britney was rushed to hospital where they discovered she had floating cartilage in her knee and she underwent surgery.
Britney Spears with Snoop Dog on the set of her music video 'Outrageous'. Ultimately, 'Outrageous' was scrapped as a single, along with the video which was left incomplete.
Britney Spears, right, and her then-husband Kevin Federline, shown in 2006 in Beverly Hills. Federline said in a recent interview that their children “are not seeing her right now.”
(Danny Moloshok / Associated Press) Aug 8th 2022
In July 2004, Spears became engaged to dancer Kevin Federline, whom she had met three months earlier. The romance was the subject of intense media attention, since Federline had recently broken up with actress Shar Jackson, who was still pregnant with their second child at the time. The stages of their relationship were chronicled in Spears's first reality show Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, which premiered on May 17th, 2005, on UPN. Spears later referred to the show in a 2013 interview as "probably the worst thing I've done in my career". They held a wedding ceremony on September 18th, 2004, but were not legally married until three weeks later on October 6 due to a delay finalizing the couple's prenuptial agreement.
Shar Jackson.
In February 2006, pictures surfaced of Spears driving with her son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat. Child advocates were horrified by the photos of her holding the wheel with one hand and Sean with the other. Spears claimed that the situation happened because of a frightening encounter with paparazzi, and that it was a mistake on her part. The following month, she guest-starred on the Will & Grace episode "Buy, Buy Baby" as closeted lesbian Amber-Louise. She announced she no longer studied Kabbalah in May 2006, explaining, "my baby is my religion". Spears posed nude for the August 2006 cover of Harper's Bazaar, the photograph was compared to Demi Moore's August 1991 Vanity Fair cover. In September 2006, she gave birth to her second son, Jayden James. In November 2006, Spears filed for divorce from Federline, citing irreconcilable differences. Their divorce was finalized in July 2007, when the two reached a global settlement and agreed to share joint custody of their sons.
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On February 21st, 2022, it was reported that Spears signed a $15 million book deal for her upcoming memoir, one of the biggest book deals of all time. Two months later, she announced her pregnancy with Asghari's child, which ended in a miscarriage the following month. The couple married on June 9th at her home in Thousand Oaks, Los Angeles. None of Spears's immediate family (including her parents, sister, and brother) were invited; her two sons did not attend. Spears's first husband, Jason Alexander, attempted to crash the wedding by breaking into her home, armed with a knife, but was arrested. Spears had a three-year restraining order against him. Spears and Asghari soon moved from Thousand Oaks to a $11.8 million mansion in Calabasas.
Britney Spears and Sam Asghari. PHOTO: KEVIN OSTAJEWSKI/SHUTTERSTOCK
Britney Spears, Drew Barrymore, and Selena Gomez. KEVIN OSTAJEWSKI/SHUTTERSTOCK
Throughout her career, Spears has drawn frequent comparisons to Madonna and Janet Jackson in particular, in terms of vocals, choreography, and stage presence. According to Spears: "I know when I was younger, I looked up to people ... like, you know, Janet Jackson and Madonna. And they were major inspirations for me. But I also had my own identity and I knew who I was."
Spears is a soprano, other sources state that she possesses a contralto vocal range. Prior to her breakthrough success, she is described as having sung "much deeper than her highly recognizable trademark voice of today", with Eric Foster White, who worked with Spears on her debut album ...Baby One More Time, being cited as "[shaping] her voice over the course of a month" upon being signed to Jive Records "to where it is today—distinctively, unmistakably Britney".
Spears has also been criticized for her reliance on Auto-Tune and her vocals being "over-processed" on records. Erlewine criticized Spears's singing abilities in a review of her Blackout album, stating: "Never the greatest vocalist, her thin squawk could be dismissed early in her career as an adolescent learning the ropes, but nearly a decade later her singing hasn't gotten any better, even if the studio tools to masquerade her weaknesses have." Joan Anderman of The Boston Globe remarked that "Spears sounds robotic, nearly inhuman, on her records, so processed is her voice by digital pitch-shifters and synthesizers."
Madonna with Britney..
It has been widely reported that Spears lip-syncs during live performances, which often prompts criticism from music critics and concert goers. Some, however, claimed that, although she "got plenty of digital support", she "doesn't merely lip-sync" during her live shows. Sabrina Weiss of Refinery29 referred to her lip-syncing as a "well-known fact that's not even taboo anymore." Noting on the prevalence of lip-syncing, the Los Angeles Daily News opined: "In the context of a Britney Spears concert, does it really matter? ... you [just] go for the somewhat-ridiculous spectacle of it all". Spears herself has commented on the topic, arguing: "Because I'm dancing so much, I do have a little bit of playback, but there's a mixture of my voice and the playback. ... It really pisses me off because I'm busting my ass out there and singing at the same time and nobody ever gives me credit for it".
The April 1999 cover of Rolling Stone featured Spears lying on her bed, wearing an open top revealing her bra, and shorts, while clutching a Teletubby.