After weeks of buildup and a steady stream of leaks, Britney Spears’ bombshell memoir, The Woman in Me, has finally been released.
The pop star took to Instagram on Tuesday to thank her fans for making the book – which is packed with personal details about her high-profile relationships and controversial conservatorship – the “highest selling celebrity memoir in history.”
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by The Federalist contributor Evita Duffy-Alfonso and Will Witt, author of Do Not Comply, to discuss the revelations in the memoir and why young people would benefit from reading the cautionary tale.
Spears’ Toxic Past
Spears’ memoir, released on October 24, comes nearly two years after the songstress was released from her 13-year court-ordered conservatorship. According to a press release, it’s meant to highlight the “importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms.”
Last week, People magazine reported that Spears disclosed she got an abortion after finding herself pregnant at 19 with Justin Timberlake’s baby. According to Spears, her boy band beau “definitely wasn’t happy” about the pregnancy because he felt they were too young. “If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father,” she wrote. “To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.”
And that isn’t all she shared. “She reveals she lost virginity when she was 14 years old; she was drinking with her mother starting in the eighth grade; she was taking Adderall like it was candy to get high,” Megyn noted. “[Her] dad was constantly telling her she wasn’t good enough… Even as recently as her big tour out in Vegas, her diet was being monitored. He was always telling her she was fat.”
Life Lessons
While Megyn said the book is “a string of horror stories” that leaves little doubt as to why Spears wound up “as screwed up as she is,” she believes it is well worth a read. “I think there are actually a lot of life lessons in this thing for people thinking about putting their child anywhere near the entertainment industry,” she shared. “And frankly, it’s a manual on how not to raise your children.”
In Megyn’s view, it is “not that hard” to raise “good” kids. “You just have to spend time with them,” she shared. “They do have to feel that they’re unconditionally loved.” She said family dinners are vital, as is making sure “they know you’re rooting for them and not for them to be skinny, or a star, or [someone] you’re trying to mooch off of.”
She sees the perils of Spears’ upbringing as part of a larger “societal rot” that has only gotten worse. “Why do you think you see Taylor Swift all over the place just because she is… dating a football player? It’s our obsession with celebrity,” Megyn said. “I don’t put that on her. I put it on our disgusting media that can’t get off of the celebrity obsession.”
Ultimately, Megyn hopes the “next generation” of teens and parents will use the book as a cautionary tale. “I hope young girls read it and I hope young parents read it and the takeaway is: I don’t want anything to do with that industry, I don’t want to be a star, I don’t need millions, I can find myself worth someplace else,” she concluded. “The point is, chasing after fame is a vapid, unfulfilling game.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Duffy-Alonso and Witt by tuning in to episode 655 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.