In Britney Spears’s explosive 2021 testimony against her conservatorship, she recounted being “forced” to tour by her team in 2018, saying she went ahead with the shows “out of fear.” Since her conservatorship was terminated in 2021, Spears has been able to record and perform on her own schedule — and she’s taking her time, she revealed in her new memoir, The Woman in Me. “Pushing forward in my music career is not my focus at the moment,” she writes. “Right now it’s time for me to try to get my spiritual life in order, to pay attention to the little things, to slow down. It’s time for me to not be someone who other people want; it’s time to actually find myself.”
Spears writes that she used to go to a studio “regularly” near her old home in Malibu and “loved” it — once even recording six songs in a day. But, she adds, “I thought I might get a studio again someday and just play around, but for some time I hadn’t been thinking about recording.”
That changed when Elton John, one of Spears’s “all-time favorite performers” since childhood, sent her a video message inviting her to record a new version of his song “Tiny Dancer,” called “Hold Me Closer.” “I was so honored,” she writes. After the song was released in August 2022, it hit No. 6 on the Hot 100 and No. 3 on the U.K. Singles chart. Spears writes that it was validating to experience success “on my own terms” and “fully in control” after the conservatorship. “Sharing your work with the world is terrifying,” she writes. “But in my experience, it is always worthwhile. Recording ‘Hold Me Closer’ and putting it out into the world was a fantastic experience. It didn’t feel good — it felt great.”
Since then, Spears has released one other song, “Mind Your Business,” with frequent collaborator Will.i.am. Even if she’s not eyeing an album anytime soon, she writes that she won’t stop singing. “When I walk around my house singing, I feel completely free, completely at ease, completely happy,” she writes. “Whether I sound perfect or not, I don’t even care. Singing makes me feel confident and strong the same way exercise does, or prayer.”
