Spears was born December 2, 1981 , in Kentwood Louisiana. The daughter of Lynne, an elementary school teacher, and Jamie, a construction contractor, Spears auditioned for the Disney Channel’s Mickey Mouse Club at the age of 8.
Producers for the show decided she was too young, but one was impressed enough to help her find an agent in New York.
Accompanied by her mother and younger sister, Spears lived in Manhattan for the next several summers, studying at the Professional Performing Arts School.
In 1991, she landed a part as a demonic child in Ruthless, an off-Broadway production based on the 1956 horror film, The Bad Seed.
At age 11, Spears auditioned again, this time successfully, for the Mickey Mouse Club. For the 1993 and 1994 seasons, she lived in Orlando, Florida, where the show is filmed, in a dorm with the rest of the cast—including two future members of the group ‘N Sync and Keri Russell, future star of the WB’s Felicity.
After her run on the MMC, Spears attended high school at home in Louisiana for a year, before heading back to New York at age 15 to audition for executives at Jive Records.
She signed a development deal with Jive and over the next two years recorded her debut album with producers Eric Foster White, who had worked with Whitney Houston (one of Spears’ professed influences, with Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Mariah Carey), and Max Martin, who worked with fellow pop stars the Backstreet Boys.
The album, Baby One More Time, was completed by early 1998 but wasn’t released until January 1999. During the interim, Spears set out on a promotional tour to shopping malls throughout America, prompting inevitable comparisons with ‘80s teen pop stars such as Tiffany and Debbie Gibson.
Her first single, also titled “Baby One More Time,” was released in October 1998; its success got Spears a gig opening for ‘N Sync, by then a popular teen band.
When Spears’ album was released on January 12, 1999 , it went straight to the top of the Billboard charts, becoming the first album of the year to debut at No. 1. The single, spurred along by a racy video featuring Spears dressed as a bare-midriffed Catholic schoolgirl, also shot up to No. 1.
By September, Baby One More Time had sold over 6 million copies. Spears’ first eagerly-awaited solo tour opened in June 1999.
Some controversy surrounded a Rolling Stone cover story in March 1999, picturing the 17-year-old Spears in a seductive, Lolita-esque pose. Spears has vigorously denied the widespread rumor that she has breast implants, as well as the rumor that she is actually in her 20s.
Before the Grammy Awards, held in February 2000, Spears had emerged as one of the leading contenders for Best New Artist. She eventually lost the award, to fellow ex-Mickey Mouse Clubber and teen pop sensation Christina Aguilera.
Spears' second album, Oops!...I Did It Again, hit stores in May of 2000. With 1.3 million copies sold in its first week in stores, the album became the top-selling debut by a solo female artist ever. It earned Spears two more Grammy nominations, for Best Vocal Pop Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (for the single “Oops!...I Did It Again”).
Spears released her third album, Britney, in November 2001, which featured the breakout single, I’m A Slave 4 U. With her next album, In the Zone (2003), she tried to sound more adult while at the same time playing up an even sexier image. She collaborated with Madonna on the popular track Me Against the Music and scored a top ten hit with Toxic.In recent years, Spears has become more famous for her personal life than her music. She dated fellow Mickey Mouse Club alum Justin Timberlake of the blockbuster boy band 'N Sync for a number of years. Their much-talked-about breakup was followed by an annulled impromptu marriage to childhood pal Jason Allen Alexander in 2003.
Spears married dancer Kevin Federline in a much-publicized wedding in September 2004. Their first child, a son, was born on September 14, 2005. Their second son was born on September 12, 2006. Spears filed for divorce in November 2006. The divorce became finalized in July.
After her break-up with Federline, Spears’ personal life seemed to spin out of control. Within days, she was photographed without underwear arriving at various parties. In February 2007, she shaved her head with electric clippers at a tattoo shop in Sherman Oaks, California.
Britney made several attempts at rehabilitation before completing a program at a Malibu, California-based treatment facility on March 20, 2007. But Spears' former bodyguard said he saw her doing drugs shortly after.Tony Baretto revealed in an interview on Sept. 24 that Spears had done drugs twice at a nightclub, but didn’t say what kind of drugs she did. Baretto, fired two months after that alleged incident, also filed a deposition in her child-custody case claiming to be witness to “nudity, drug use and safety issues” involving her kids. Spears, who is trailed almost everywhere by a mob of celebrity photographers, has also became notorious for distracted driving. In February 2006, she was photographed driving with her son on her lap.
On August 6, 2007, paparazzi photographed Spears steering her car into another vehicle as she tried to park in a space in a lot in Studio City. The video showed her walking away after assessing the damage to her own car. The owner of the other car, Kim Robard-Rifkin, learned it was Spears who had hit her car through a video posted on the Internet and filed a police report three days later. Investigators later determined that Spears also did not have a license. A hit-and-run charge against Spears was dismissed Oct. 25 after she paid an undisclosed amount to the other car's driver in the fender-bender. She also pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of driving without a valid driver's license and later obtained a temporary California license.
The damage continued to pile up into that October and November as three people, including two paparazzi and a Los Angeles sheriff's deputy, reportedly had their feet crushed as Spears drove her car through crowds. In addition to her motoring misfortunes, Spears was also dropped by her management company, the Firm, on Sept. 17, eight days after her widely panned performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. Still, her new album Blackout came out October 30 to broadly favorable reviews. She also suffered from pinkeye, a common infection when you have little kids. Spears made that revelation coming out of the Los Angeles courthouse Oct. 15 where she was booked on charges in the Aug. 6 incident. She was wearing large designer sunglasses at night to hide her infection, which she said hurt “really bad.”
The biggest blow, however, was yet to come. Citing concerns about her use of drugs and alcohol, Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon removed Spears from physical custody of her children Oct. 1. Gordon ordered Spears to undergo random drug and alcohol tests and meet weekly with a parenting coach who would report back to the court about her parenting skills.Gordon later granted some visitation rights to Spears, but reversed that on Oct. 17 after finding she had failed to comply with some conditions for shared custody. He withdrew the visitation ban a few days later, but only in the presence of a court-approved monitor.Gordon also ordered both parents to complete the court's “Parenting Without Conflict” class. Indeed, they attended their first of six sessions on Oct. 24 at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Spears and Federline reportedly discussed how a divorce can affect children, and received instructions on what they should be doing to be good divorced parents.Spears failed to regain custody of her children Oct. 30, following a damning review of her parenting skills. She was, however, granted two supervised visits per week with her kids if she has regular drug and alcohol tests, childproofs her home, buckles the kids in car seats and continues meeting with a court-appointed parenting coach.
In that ruling, Gordon also noted that Spears had failed to keep appointments with a court-appointed parenting coach, Lisa Hacker, on three occasions before finally holding a series of sessions. Gordon added that while Hacker felt Spears “loves her children and the children are bonded” to her, she had expressed “several observations that are of concern.”“It seems that her (Spears) choices are dependent more upon what she wants to do at any given time rather than what would be more enjoyable for the children,” Hacker stated in the Oct. 19 report. She added that the Spears household: “Ranged from chaotic to almost somber with no communication at all.”During all three visits, Hacker said Spears “rarely engaged with the children in either conversation or play” and had displayed a “lack of general attention at times.” Hacker closed her report by stating bluntly: “The problem is that unless Ms Spears realizes the consequences of her behavior and the impact that it has (on) her children, nothing is going to be successful.”
Gordon's nine-page ruling said Spears could have overnight visits with her kids. She would get two visits a week from noon to 7 p.m. and one from noon to 10 a.m. the next morning. All the visits would be monitored. Spears and Federline were also ordered to meet to agree a holiday schedule.The Oct. 30 ruling followed a tense three-hour hearing Oct. 26 attended by both Spears and Federline. During a break, Spears reportedly began cursing, Access Hollywood reported.
“Eat it! Lick it! Snort it! F*** it!” she was overheard repeating when a reporter tried to ask her a question. Spears also seemed distraught when she eventually left the courthouse for the day.
Spears was ordered to show up for a deposition to determine whether she misused alcohol and substances in front of her young children. But she missed several sessions, including ones scheduled for Dec. 12, 2007 and Jan. 2, 2008.Another deposition was scheduled for Jan. 3, but Spears arrived so late that it was called off after only 14 minutes. Later that night, she was taken to a hospital after a standoff in her Beverly Hills mansion when she refused to return the children to Federline's bodyguard following a visit.Spears finally turned over her children after ambulances showed up. She was conscious, alternately smiling and looking distraught, when paramedics took her out of her home in a gurney.The exact reasons for Spears being taken to hospital were not revealed although there was speculation she was suffering from a long-standing psychological illness, possibly bipolar disorder.
Spears discharged herself Jan. 5, but couldn't get out the door without bumping into psychologist and television talk show host “‘Dr. Phil” McGraw. He had been asked to meet with Spears by her parents. After they chatted, Dr. Phil reportedly escorted Spears to her car.
And then, Dr. Phil started telling everybody about his encounter with Britney, including the media. Britney’s parents, not happy about it at all, said through a spokeswoman that “‘he (Dr. Phil) was not invited to make this part of a public display or part of the media” and called it “‘an example of a trust being betrayed.”
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