Britney on Her 2007 VMAs Performance: "Everyone Was Acting Like My Not Having Six-Pack Abs Was Offensive”
Britney Spears has lifted the lid on the devastating reality behind her 2007 MTV Video Music Awards performance – an infamous moment which made her the target of ridicule for years.
In her new memoir she recalls being a bundle of nerves backstage, when she happened to run into ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake, who had broken her heart just five years earlier.
“It had been a while since I’d seen him,” Spears wrote in her book, adding that the moment highlighted just how far apart their careers were at the time.
“Everything was going great in his world. He was at the top of his game in every way, and he had a lot of swagger. I was having a panic attack. I hadn’t rehearsed enough. I hated the way I looked. I knew it was going to be bad.”
The high-profile performance had been touted as Spears’ big comeback, as she prepared to take the stage to showcase her latest single, Gimme More.
But, according to the singer, she didn’t even want to take the stage as “nothing was going right” behind the scenes.
“There was a problem with my costume and with my hair extensions. I hadn’t slept the night before. I was dizzy. It was less than a year since I’d had my second baby in two years but everyone was acting like my not having six-pack abs was offensive,” Spears wrote.
“I couldn’t believe I was going to have to go out onstage feeling the way I felt.”
Singer ultimately went through with it – but was universally panned, exactly as she’d feared.
“I went out there and did the best I could at that moment in time, which — yes, granted — was far from my best at other times,” she explained.
“I could see myself on video throughout the auditorium while I performed; it was like looking at myself in a fun-house mirror.”
To make matters worse, Timberlake was at the top of his game, taking home numerous awards and putting on a showstopping performance with Timbaland and Nelly Furtado.
It only served to make Spears feel worse about herself.
“Justin glided down the runway,” the singer said.
“He was flirting with girls in the audience, including one who turned around and arched her back, shaking her breasts as he sang to her.”
Timberlake and Spears were one of the most high-profile couples in Hollywood when they dated between 1999 and 2002.
Spears says that after the split, the media portrayed her as the “harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy”.
The narrative was heavily fuelled by Timberlake’s break-up anthem Cry Me A River, which was released just months after their split and featured a Britney lookalike in the music video.
But ironically, as Spears details, Timberlake allegedly cheated on her twice during their relationship, both times with famous women. She claimed that he hooked up with “one of the girls” from a hit ‘90s girl band while in London in 2000.
However, as she writes, Timberlake had actually broken her heart rather than vice versa – dumping her with a text message that read simply: “It’s over.”
Spears admitted she was “devastated” and considered quitting the music industry entirely after Timberlake dumped her.
“I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood,” she wrote.
Here is her performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loTiqkI7hyw
And here is Justin's that night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRpHAIZ0MfA
The thing is - no one forced Britney to perform in her bra and pants when she didn't have body for it at the moment. It was her own choice of a wardrobe. It was her choice not to prepare better and rehearse. She was partying instead. She could have cancelled her performance any day if she didn't feel ready. None of it was someone else's fault. Only her own.
Yet she never admits it in her book. Everything is always someone else's fault. Justin was guilty because he looked great and prepared that night. Public and press was guilty that she was having port-baby-body and not thin enough to rock that pants and bra stage costume...
Justin was guilty because he looked great and his career was thriving. While she was unhappy single mother with 2 babies and loser husband. Even tho she was the one who cheated on him and then married K-Fed and then decided to have 2 children back to back. Then divorced and was wondering around town high and hanging out with shady people. Turning herself into laughing stock.
Everything she did prior that 2007 meltdown - she did it to herself. When she was dating Justin she became bored with him and cheated. Then when he was gone she started missing him and envied how cool, swaggy, pretty and successful he was....
Lots of things in her life was bad because press WAS shitty to her. Yet she needs to accept her own role in her downfall. Madonna was ridiculed and attacked worse when she was young yet never allowed herself to become laughing stock. share