Speaker 1: I almost wish it had just been written like her
Speaker 1: chaotic captions on Instagra.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I was thinking that a bit too.
Speaker 2: I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Susie Beannacher and this is
Speaker 2: in Retrospect, where each week we revisit a cultural moment
Speaker 2: from the past that shaped us.
Speaker 3: And that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 2: This week we have a special episode. The long awaited
Speaker 2: memoir from Britney Spears has finally hit stands, and Susie
Speaker 2: and I have stayed up all night reading it and
Speaker 2: we're here to talk about it. It's Britney Bitch. Okay,
Speaker 2: give me your first impressions. I know you were up
Speaker 2: for a while last night reading delving into this memoir.
Speaker 1: Well, my first impressions are a lot of the book
Speaker 1: has been covered in the last week or so, so
Speaker 1: a lot of the sort of big surprises have already
Speaker 1: been revealed.
Speaker 3: It was sort of interesting to read it.
Speaker 1: For yourself, though, because I felt like in some ways
Speaker 1: it answers some questions. Yeah, but there are still so
Speaker 1: many questions unanswered, Like I have so many questions that
Speaker 1: we can talk about as we go through some of
Speaker 1: the topic.
Speaker 3: Areas in a weird way. It feels a little thin.
Speaker 1: I hate to say that, because getting to hear from
Speaker 1: Brittany herself after so long, and after she felt like
Speaker 1: her voice had been essentially extinguished for so.
Speaker 3: Long, is you know, valuable. But in a weird way,
Speaker 3: I feel like.
Speaker 1: I've learned more about her from following her Instagram than
Speaker 1: I did in this book, because in some ways it
Speaker 1: feels very sanitized. It feels very much like it's been
Speaker 1: polished for a mainstream audience. Yeah, and then they just like,
Speaker 1: you know, dropped in some you know, sealacious revelations because
Speaker 1: they knew that's what would sell the book, which isn't
Speaker 1: entirely fair to Brittany because she has a ghostwriter. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on here that goes into a book,
Speaker 1: right that you know isn't just from the author.
Speaker 3: What were your first impressions?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we know so much about Britney Spears,
Speaker 2: like for better or worse. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: us who have followed her case and the conservatorship and
Speaker 2: read the articles about it and were fans back in
Speaker 2: the day, we just know a lot. And so to
Speaker 2: read a book you're kind of expecting to get things
Speaker 2: that you didn't already know, and in fact, she does,
Speaker 2: I think, confirm a lot of things that were suspected.
Speaker 2: But like you said, it feels thin and parts. It's
Speaker 2: pretty vague in some of the areas where I really
Speaker 2: wanted details, And I found myself, like a couple of
Speaker 2: hours in just frantically googling who the ghostwriter was because
Speaker 2: I wanted more information about that person.
Speaker 3: What did you find? I'm actually curious.
Speaker 2: He's a journalist. There's not much there. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know it would be fascinating to hear from him,
Speaker 2: because there were just lines in it where I was like,
Speaker 2: that just doesn't sound like her, and who I'm to
Speaker 2: say what sounds like Britney spears? But as you said,
Speaker 2: we know so much about how she is today from
Speaker 2: her Instagram, or at least we think we know that.
Speaker 2: We kind of have this idea in our minds of
Speaker 2: what her voice sounds like, and it's not quite as
Speaker 2: polished as I think the book is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting she chose a man as the ghostwriter.
Speaker 1: I don't think I realized that because I think the
Speaker 1: name is like Sam something, It's like a generic name
Speaker 1: that could be either way, and I assumed.
Speaker 3: It was a woman just because interesting.
Speaker 1: So much of the book is about this tension in
Speaker 1: her life of is she a child, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of the line from her song not a girl, not
Speaker 1: yet a woman, This kind of tension of was she
Speaker 1: allowed to grow up?
Speaker 3: Did she grow up too fast? Has she not grown
Speaker 3: up at all? So it feels like a woman might
Speaker 3: have handled it better. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are definitely lines where you're like, Brittany
Speaker 1: definitely didn't say this, and then there are lines where
Speaker 1: it clearly is something that Brittany said, like that he's
Speaker 1: trying to infuse her voice in it.
Speaker 2: Well, did you notice that I swear to God. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of I swear to God. I swear to God, Yeah,
Speaker 2: which I thought was cute.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there was like some repetitiveness that you felt
Speaker 1: had to have come from her, right, because why would
Speaker 1: he just be like repeating things if they weren't from
Speaker 1: her perspective. I almost wish, I mean, this is one
Speaker 1: of those wishes that would never come true, but I
Speaker 1: almost wish it had just been written like her chaotic
Speaker 1: captions on Instagram.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I was thinking that a bit too. Well.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because one of the last big celebrity memoirs
Speaker 2: that we read, I think, was Pamela Anderson's, and she
Speaker 2: wrote that book herself, and it was really chaotic at times,
Speaker 2: like there were these huge swaths of her poetry that
Speaker 2: would just come in the middle of chapters. That was
Speaker 2: a little strange, but it really felt like her and
Speaker 2: I was sort of like, oh, I wish we were
Speaker 2: getting some long rambling for any captions. Yeah, in the
Speaker 2: middle of this, Like I.
Speaker 1: Almost feel like they could have just woven that in
Speaker 1: or something, because we do know that's her voice. We
Speaker 1: know her voice now, you know. The one other thing
Speaker 1: I want to say, because you mentioned like for those
Speaker 1: of us who followed her, like we sort of know
Speaker 1: so much about her, and that's true. I mean I
Speaker 1: obviously followed Brittany. I was a huge fan. I am
Speaker 1: a huge fan. I don't know if you know this
Speaker 1: about me, but one of my greatest accomplishments of all
Speaker 1: time is that Britney Spears follows me on Twitter.
Speaker 2: That's actually amazing.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's like less meaningful now that none of us are
Speaker 1: on Twitter. But I think the reason she follows me.
Speaker 1: I never figured out when she started following me. I
Speaker 1: just noticed one day she was and was like, this
Speaker 1: is it. I can retire now. I think it's because
Speaker 1: when she did her speech to the court about her conservatorship,
Speaker 1: I had a tweet that went viral about how lucid
Speaker 1: she sounded and how much you can just tell that
Speaker 1: she actually was perfectly capable of managing herself. And I
Speaker 1: have to assume that's why she started following me. But anyway,
Speaker 1: what occurred to me when I was reading all this
Speaker 1: last night is that it's easy to forget because she's
Speaker 1: come to represent so many things beyond what she's accomplished,
Speaker 1: just how insanely accomplished.
Speaker 2: She she is. Yeah, I know, it's almost like she
Speaker 2: was going through and then this album came out, and
Speaker 2: then this album came out, like in these really short
Speaker 2: time spans, it almost was if she could have spent
Speaker 2: more time discussing it, Like it's just incredible her her production.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, honestly, she sold one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million records worldwide. She's sold seventy million in the US alone,
Speaker 1: She's got fifteen Guinness World Records. Like I didn't even
Speaker 1: have all it's like, you know, she has Grammys, she
Speaker 1: has MPTV work, She's done all this stuff.
Speaker 2: She could have filled the whole book just.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with just her accomplishments.
Speaker 1: And she is a genius in this arena, like she
Speaker 1: in many ways outside of Madonna, has come to be
Speaker 1: synonymous with pop music.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I feel a little sad
Speaker 1: about in the book is how much of the book
Speaker 1: is about all this other bullshit and how she doesn't
Speaker 1: get to really be like, I am amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: she you definitely see that in her you see her
Speaker 1: grasping for that, but she's been made to feel small
Speaker 1: for so long that it's almost she just mentions it
Speaker 1: the way I mentioned graduating from college, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, She's like and then that Grammy and then yeah,
Speaker 1: everything happened, and I'm like, dude, that's crazy.
Speaker 3: Right right.
Speaker 2: Some things that I didn't know beforehand that I think
Speaker 2: the book really hit on. She really starts from the beginning.
Speaker 2: It's sort of a narrative arc of her life chronologically,
Speaker 2: and she had a lot of trauma in her childhood,
Speaker 2: like real, real trauma, like abuse and violence and alcoholism,
Speaker 2: and you know, the death of a grandmother and starting
Speaker 2: drinking when she was I think at age thirteen with
Speaker 2: her mom and so much of the stuff that it's
Speaker 2: easy to see how there would be lasting effects of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess we should have said at
Speaker 1: the top of this spoiler alert because we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about something in the.
Speaker 3: Books spoiler alert and spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: So one thing I do want to mention in that regard,
Speaker 1: I was really shocked by the story about her dad's mom.
Speaker 1: Like the book starts with this anecdote where her father's
Speaker 1: mother died by suicide and you know, in this very
Speaker 1: dramatic way she had lost a child and she goes
Speaker 1: and she I think she shoots herself on the grave,
Speaker 1: and so it really does set the tone for like
Speaker 1: how traumatic her entire childhood would be, really at the
Speaker 1: hands of her father primarily, but also she has a
Speaker 1: lot of resentment about her mother and the way that
Speaker 1: her mother created an environment that was like very chaotic
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of screaming, and so you know,
Speaker 1: the first bit of the book is really about how
Speaker 1: she escaped into herself, into her music, that that's how
Speaker 1: she sort of found some freedom, and then pretty early on.
Speaker 3: She starts performing.
Speaker 2: Right very early on. The Other thing that was noteworthy
Speaker 2: is that the mother who commits suicide was Gene, which
Speaker 2: is her middle nameleness. She was named after her. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that really does set the tone at the very beginning
Speaker 2: of the book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are like two sort of central tensions in
Speaker 1: the book. One is I mean, obviously, the book is
Speaker 1: titled The Woman in Me, so this idea of being
Speaker 1: a woman is very central to the book. But the
Speaker 1: way it's presented is sort of this tension between not
Speaker 1: a girl, not yet a woman?
Speaker 3: Is she a child? She talks a.
Speaker 1: Lot about regressing, like she talks about Benjamin Button a lot,
Speaker 1: and how when things are hard or difficult for her
Speaker 1: she quotes ages backwards. She has this real sense that
Speaker 1: when she is vulnerable, she starts to feel like a child,
Speaker 1: and that just as she is becoming a woman, just
Speaker 1: as she is finally getting to the point where she
Speaker 1: might have been able to take ownership of her own life,
Speaker 1: this incident occurs this period of time after her children,
Speaker 1: and then her father puts her in this conservatorship and
Speaker 1: then she is essentially infantilized for thirteen years. So then
Speaker 1: she is just literally not allowed to become a woman.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, she has had
Speaker 1: the adult responsibility of supporting her entire family since she
Speaker 1: was fifteen, right, So it is like this sort of
Speaker 1: thing that she keeps returning to, like was I a child?
Speaker 1: Was I a ghost child? At one point she says,
Speaker 1: or I felt like a ghost child? Am I a woman?
Speaker 1: What does it mean to be a woman? It's like
Speaker 1: a very central theme of the book. Did that feel
Speaker 1: like it landed for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, I think that's something that we've talked
Speaker 2: about prior to reading any of this, and just our
Speaker 2: observations is that there is this sort of sense of
Speaker 2: like she didn't get to fully grow up, and there's
Speaker 2: some ways about her that feel really frozen in time,
Speaker 2: like she is still living in the early two thousands,
Speaker 2: and she does still feel much younger than she is,
Speaker 2: but like you said, in so many ways, she was
Speaker 2: adultified when she was so young. Like she talks about
Speaker 2: various interviews in the media, and who is the interview
Speaker 2: with the old guy Ed something?
Speaker 3: Oh you mean the story with Ed McMahon.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, McMahon, Okay, yes, so Ed McMahon on Star Search.
Speaker 2: I can't remember exactly how old she is, but she's
Speaker 2: very young. She's not yet a teenager. And she goes
Speaker 2: on and they have this banter and he's asking her
Speaker 2: if she has a boyfriend. First of all, it's too
Speaker 2: young for her to be having a boyfriend, but then
Speaker 2: he's like, what about me? Yes, And this is like
Speaker 2: a I don't know how old he was. I remember
Speaker 2: him having gray hair, but just little things like that
Speaker 2: that she touches on. It various points where it's like
Speaker 2: she's being treated like an adult but at the same
Speaker 2: time totally infantilized as she actually grows older.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like funny because I mean, honestly, I used
Speaker 1: to watch Star Starge. I guess we're going back to
Speaker 1: the narrative of how much TV I want, you know.
Speaker 1: I think he was trying to be like charming. It's
Speaker 1: like a banter like do you have any boyfriends? And
Speaker 1: she's like boys are gross or boys are mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm not mean, you know, and he thinks
Speaker 1: it's sweet. But another tension in this book, which is
Speaker 1: I think the second central attention, is this idea that
Speaker 1: she craves attention. She wants to perform she wants to
Speaker 1: be on stage, she wants attention, but also when it happens,
Speaker 1: it terrifies her, Like she literally goes backstage after that
Speaker 1: moment with Ed McMahon and she weeps, and she constantly
Speaker 1: talks about wanting the spotlight but then needing to get
Speaker 1: away from it. And then it gets worse. The spotlight
Speaker 1: keeps getting harsher and harsher, like as time goes on,
Speaker 1: it's like the attention gets crueler, it gets more aggressive,
Speaker 1: it becomes physically violent with the paparazzi, and so she
Speaker 1: is constantly dipping her toe out and then running away,
Speaker 1: dipping her toe out and running away. And now she
Speaker 1: is again in this situation where she has to kind
Speaker 1: of decide like how much is she going to return
Speaker 1: to public life, right Like she sort of said after
Speaker 1: the conservatorship that she wasn't going to do that, She's
Speaker 1: just going to like chill for a bit, But this
Speaker 1: book is a return to public life, right, So there
Speaker 1: is this feeling that you get that she can't quite
Speaker 1: decide what she wants her relationship to be to attention.
Speaker 2: Well, and it was interesting too, I didn't know that
Speaker 2: she had social anxiety and So she talks about that
Speaker 2: in the book and she names it as such, and
Speaker 2: she describes how, you know, yeah, of course she could
Speaker 2: go on stage and she could perform for thousands of
Speaker 2: people and do it well, but then in small groups
Speaker 2: she would have a lot of anxiety and get really
Speaker 2: self conscious and be really embarrassed about what she would say.
Speaker 2: And that too, is sort of an interesting tension. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of these tensions and sort of juxtapositions
Speaker 2: in the way that she is or has come to be,
Speaker 2: and I feel like that was another one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing that's interesting is she mentions that when
Speaker 1: she became a judge on Fear Factor many years later, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she hated it, like she hated the.
Speaker 3: Pressure of it. She didn't like judging other people.
Speaker 2: She which was so surprising. So because do you think
Speaker 2: of her as such an amazing performer.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Another way in which this comes out is the way
Speaker 1: she describes as Diane Sawyer interview as so horrible for her. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's back up for a second, yeah and explain what
Speaker 1: that is. So there's the whole Justin section. We'll get
Speaker 1: into Justin and all of that. But after her breakup
Speaker 1: with justin Timberlake. Her father essentially forces her, her father
Speaker 1: and her team force her to do this interview with
Speaker 1: Diane Sawyer, who you know was his former boss, my
Speaker 1: former boss, and who was literally one of the most
Speaker 1: famous women in the world, another one of these sort
Speaker 1: of like big name interviewers. And she describes this interview
Speaker 1: as really a breaking point for her. She had a
Speaker 1: horrible time. She felt like it was so harsh. And
Speaker 1: what's so interesting is when you watch it, because of
Speaker 1: course I rewatched the whole thing over the weekend, is
Speaker 1: she's actually handling herself with enormous poison.
Speaker 2: Yes, like she is.
Speaker 1: Actually totally on it. She seems incredibly smart. She comes
Speaker 1: across as in control of the situation she's in, and
Speaker 1: yet what she is feeling is all this anxiety, all
Speaker 1: this pressure. And so it's interesting that she does have
Speaker 1: this ability to mask, right, which I think is very
Speaker 1: common of people who come from traumatic childhoods, Right, that
Speaker 1: like you kind of have to have a public persona
Speaker 1: because otherwise everyone knows all the crazy things in your house.
Speaker 1: So you just like put on this mask and you
Speaker 1: go out there and you pretend like everything's fine, and
Speaker 1: then the minute you're alone again, you can kind of
Speaker 1: fall apart. And that's kind of what she describes that inners.
Speaker 2: Right, And I mean, I imagine that's such a big
Speaker 2: part of being a performer too. You have to put
Speaker 2: on a brave face and you have to look good
Speaker 2: while doing it, and so you go out there and
Speaker 2: you do it, and whatever is festering underneath the surface
Speaker 2: stays there until you get backstage, and she does at
Speaker 2: many different points throughout the book describe weeping backstage. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually, did you see that Katie Perry clip that went viral? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, it actually went viral recently, but it's
Speaker 1: from an old documentary about her where Russell Brand breaks
Speaker 1: up with or like he's telling her he's divorcing her,
Speaker 1: either over text or he calls her. It's like it's horrible,
Speaker 1: and she's literally about to go on stage and she's weeping,
Speaker 1: and then she like shakes herself off and she literally
Speaker 1: like gets on one of those lifts that's gonna pull
Speaker 1: her up on stage and the next thing you know,
Speaker 1: she's just like snapped into it and she's like performing.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of what I kept picturing when Brittany
Speaker 1: was describing that. So the interesting thing about the Dane
Speaker 1: Swear interview is like, honestly, I did not I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, if you've watched it recently, I don't think
Speaker 1: the questions are so cruel, Like there are definitely some
Speaker 1: questions you just wouldn't ask now, you would just acknowledge
Speaker 1: that she was, like I think she was twenty or
Speaker 1: twenty one at the time, So there are just some
Speaker 1: questions like an adult woman wouldn't ask what is essentially
Speaker 1: still like a child about her love life or her virginity,
Speaker 1: which is you know, crazy. So there are definitely some
Speaker 1: things that feel dated. But she is trying to be empathic.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just know when Diane is being harsh
Speaker 1: and when she is trying to connect to me. It
Speaker 1: was very clear that she was trying to connect. So
Speaker 1: it's also interesting what a divide there is from what
Speaker 1: I think Diane was trying to do and how Brittany
Speaker 1: received it. And I think a lot of that has
Speaker 1: to do with the fact that she sort of says
Speaker 1: I was so raw, I was so vulnerable.
Speaker 3: I had just gone through this breakup with Justin and.
Speaker 1: I wasn't ready to have it mined and she there's
Speaker 1: a part where she cries and you can see she's
Speaker 1: so upset that she's crying. She literally says ooh oh, like.
Speaker 2: Oh I remember watching this, Yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, hello ew strong leaning oh And in
Speaker 1: that moment you see that she's like, doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be mined in this way, and she's trying to protect herself.
Speaker 1: But that just by virtue of being here, that's impossible.
Speaker 1: And I think that's also something that's changed in culture,
Speaker 1: Like now you would just release something on Instagram, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't need to do that. Diane Sawyer interview.
Speaker 2: I mean, the other thing that is so horrowing to
Speaker 2: read about is just how much control her father had
Speaker 2: over her life. I Mean, obviously we knew that that's
Speaker 2: what the whole conservatorship was about, but even with this interview,
Speaker 2: which was before the conservatorship, he shows up with the
Speaker 2: whole team and basically demands that she's gonna go on
Speaker 2: the show. She has no prep time. You know, she
Speaker 2: doesn't want to do it, but he says what.
Speaker 1: Well, and she's also she says a lot about how
Speaker 1: she's a people pleaser, so she also has a hard
Speaker 1: time saying no, even when she doesn't want to do something.
Speaker 1: A different sort of star might have said, like no,
Speaker 1: get out of my apartment, I'm not doing it, but
Speaker 1: that she sort of does have this. I think she
Speaker 1: kind of describes this all like a Southern desire to
Speaker 1: be a good girl to please. Not to say too much,
Speaker 1: but I think it's probably worth actually backing up and
Speaker 1: explaining why she's doing this interview, because it's essentially because
Speaker 1: Justin Timberlake has broken her heart and is waging a
Speaker 1: sort of publicity battle against her. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: the Justin parts of the book, because they are a.
Speaker 2: Lot so most of us know that Justin Timberlake and
Speaker 2: Britney Spears dated. They had met yours earlier on the
Speaker 2: Mickey Mouse Club, and then they began seeing each other
Speaker 2: and at a certain point they were living together while
Speaker 2: I believe, on their respective tours, And she talks in
Speaker 2: the book about how he cheats on her multiple times,
Speaker 2: and she pretty much knows this at the time but
Speaker 2: doesn't say anything. She then cheats on him anyhow. It's
Speaker 2: you know, it's volatile in some ways, but she still
Speaker 2: very much loves him, and then ultimately he breaks up
Speaker 2: with her. In a text message while she is filming
Speaker 2: one of her videos. So I imagine that was another one
Speaker 2: of those moments where she's having to put on a
Speaker 2: face and go out and perform while inside she's just reeling.
Speaker 2: And so what happens next is she's completely broken, and I,
Speaker 2: you know, I remember that feeling of being that age
Speaker 2: and being in love and having your heartbroken. And she
Speaker 2: just is devastated. So she goes back to her hometown.
Speaker 2: She's like sort of comatose. She's in Louisiana. He at
Speaker 2: one point comes to visit her, I believe. But then
Speaker 2: what happens is he goes on his solo tour. He
Speaker 2: puts out the song crimea River, which has the video
Speaker 2: that I remember and I'm sure you do too from
Speaker 2: that time where there is an actress who looks like
Speaker 2: her in the video, who like her, just like her,
Speaker 2: and is cheating on him in the video, and so
Speaker 2: suddenly it was like, oh, poor Justin Britney cheated on him.
Speaker 2: Britney's such a villain, and essentially he pushed that nerrative
Speaker 2: forward and she became the villain in this breakup.
Speaker 1: So I think what's so interesting is a lot of
Speaker 1: this was known right like before the book, we knew
Speaker 1: that they had had this relationship and that he had
Speaker 1: framed it as her having cheated on him, and you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, when there was a bit
Speaker 1: of a reckoning around her, he did put out this apology.
Speaker 1: But the one thing in the book that we did
Speaker 1: not know is that she had had an abortion and
Speaker 1: that you know, just had really pushed her into that abortion,
Speaker 1: and in fairness to him, he sort of said, I'm
Speaker 1: not ready to be a father, and you know, she
Speaker 1: didn't want to have a kid with someone who didn't want.
Speaker 3: To be a father.
Speaker 1: But she describes it as one of the most agonizing
Speaker 1: things she ever had to experience. And there's this really
Speaker 1: sad scene where they decide, because they don't want it
Speaker 1: to leak, that she has to do a self administered abortion.
Speaker 1: She takes pills so she's not under a doctor's care,
Speaker 1: and she says it's just like excruciating, and she's just
Speaker 1: lying on the floor in the bathroom.
Speaker 3: And then this detail.
Speaker 2: I just astriving past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for knowing exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, because I was like, literally, this is
Speaker 1: my worst nightmare. She says at one point, Demerlake thought
Speaker 1: music would help, so he went and got his guitar
Speaker 1: and he laid there with me strumming it.
Speaker 2: See I I don't know. I was like, they must
Speaker 2: have been so they were so young. She's in so
Speaker 2: much pain, she's lying on the floor. He must have
Speaker 2: just been desperate to try to comfort her in some way.
Speaker 1: That was my interpretation, such a sweet interpretation, because my
Speaker 1: interpretation was when I was in my twenties and a
Speaker 1: guy pulled out a guitar.
Speaker 3: To stroke It was always horrible.
Speaker 1: So the idea that while I'm like lying on the
Speaker 1: floor bleeding.
Speaker 3: He's like, hey, baby, I have a song for you.
Speaker 1: Just the image in my mind is the I mean,
Speaker 1: what you're describing actually is probably more accurate and probably
Speaker 1: more sweet, But I just picture this douchebag with his guitar,
Speaker 1: and like, it's hard, it's hard not to picture him
Speaker 1: as a douchebag. Because there's this whole other scene she
Speaker 1: describes of him when they're like walking around in New
Speaker 1: York and they run into genuine.
Speaker 2: Oh God that I screened. That's actually the one thing
Speaker 2: in the whole book that I screenshot in because it
Speaker 2: was so Crench.
Speaker 1: It's like homie, yeah, yes, yeah, and she's just like
Speaker 1: mortified for him. So he does seem so dochey in
Speaker 1: this whole thing, Like he does not come off well
Speaker 1: but you know, yeah, in fairness, he's pretty young too.
Speaker 1: But really, where I think he is the villain is
Speaker 1: the crime of the River thing, which you've talked about.
Speaker 1: It's like he really leans into this idea that she
Speaker 1: has betrayed him. He uses it to promote the album. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in large part it's why it sells so much. He
Speaker 1: goes on a radio tour, he talks about her sex life.
Speaker 1: He reveals that she's not a virgin, which, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: her virginity had become her team has sort of pushed
Speaker 1: this idea of her being a virgin, which she wasn't
Speaker 1: even when she met justin Timberlake. That's another revelation in
Speaker 1: the book. He essentially uses her. She says he's the
Speaker 1: first love of her life, he's her first kiss, and
Speaker 1: then he completely betrays her, setting the tone for.
Speaker 3: Like all the betrayals that are yet to come.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that too, I think is another theme of
Speaker 2: the book is all these betrayals by men, largely Yeah.
Speaker 2: So significant romantic relationship she has is with Kevin Fetterline,
Speaker 2: the father of her children. And the thing that really
Speaker 2: stuck out to me and that I just felt for
Speaker 2: her so much in her descriptions of that relationship is
Speaker 2: when I believe they have one of the kids and
Speaker 2: she may be pregnant with another, and he is on
Speaker 2: tour because Kevin Fetterline is now kafed and he's like
Speaker 2: trying to, you know, establish his rap career and is
Speaker 2: getting some small success and is really feeling himself, and
Speaker 2: he goes on tour and won't speak to her. So
Speaker 2: she flies to New York to talk to her husband
Speaker 2: and the security guards turn her away. He literally will
Speaker 2: not see his wife who's pregnant with their child. And
Speaker 2: then she flies to Vegas to try to talk to
Speaker 2: him there, and the same thing happens. And I was
Speaker 2: just thinking to myself, can you imagine you're trying to
Speaker 2: talk to your partner, the father of your children, and
Speaker 2: he just won't even speak to you.
Speaker 1: Well, And also, by the way, a man you are
Speaker 1: supporting completely like she's paying all his bills. This music career,
Speaker 1: in quotes right, is entirely funded by her, and yet
Speaker 1: he's suddenly treating her like garbage.
Speaker 3: And I will say she.
Speaker 1: Did get a shot off on this, Like at one
Speaker 1: point when she was talking about him being a rapper,
Speaker 1: she was like, bless his heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved that part.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: I love that was like the one part where it
Speaker 2: was like she was clearly doing a sarcasm line. Whether
Speaker 2: that was her or the ghost writer, it worked, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it really worked.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he just is such a scumbag, like he comes
Speaker 1: off so poorly. And actually she doesn't go in on
Speaker 1: him as much as I expected, and I think in
Speaker 1: large part that has to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: they are always in this ongoing custody issue with their kids,
Speaker 1: even though now the kids are older. But you know,
Speaker 1: my takeaway from that is that Kevin essentially used those
Speaker 1: kids as a weapon. And you know, from what we
Speaker 1: know now, he essentially has never worked since he has
Speaker 1: used those kids to support him in his entire family.
Speaker 1: He has another family, you know, like a kids and
Speaker 1: a wife, and he has never worked since then and
Speaker 1: has just completely lived off of her. And he used
Speaker 1: those kids like a cudgel to make sure that he
Speaker 1: could have access to her money. And that is so
Speaker 1: depressing too, because the passages are so touching, how much
Speaker 1: she wanted to be a mom, how much those children
Speaker 1: meant to her, how much she just like loved to
Speaker 1: be around them. And then you know they're so young
Speaker 1: when they get taken away from her, they're like five
Speaker 1: months and seventeen months, I think, And that's what leads
Speaker 1: to the very famous head shaving incident, which she does
Speaker 1: address in the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the parts where I felt
Speaker 2: like she did give a little bit more description and
Speaker 2: context than had been out there, and so I really
Speaker 2: appreciated reading about that. But she was grieving, like she
Speaker 2: was grieving the loss of her children, and she was
Speaker 2: out of her mind, yeah, in pain and sadness, in panic,
Speaker 2: in fear that she would have them taken away permanently.
Speaker 2: And so now you can really understand somebody in that state,
Speaker 2: like she is absolutely out of her mind with grief
Speaker 2: about losing her children.
Speaker 1: And also her aunt, one of her closest relatives, has
Speaker 1: just died of cancer. She has postpartum like it's this
Speaker 1: perfect storm. Everything is falling apart around her, and now
Speaker 1: she's being told she can't see her children and it's
Speaker 1: in the midst of that that she goes to try
Speaker 1: and see them, and she's turned away, and that's sort
Speaker 1: of what leads up to the moment where she goes
Speaker 1: into the hair salon and takes the shaver and shaves
Speaker 1: her head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, of course, you know, became the cover of
Speaker 2: every tabloid in the world, and we've all seen pictures
Speaker 2: of It's like, you don't even need to describe it
Speaker 2: because we all know it. Yeah, But she describes a
Speaker 2: bit about what that was and how in some ways
Speaker 2: that was just a fuck you to everyone who had
Speaker 2: tried to infantilize her, who'd tried to adultify her, who'd
Speaker 2: tried to sexualize her, who tried to make her pretty,
Speaker 2: who tried to make her into a good girl, who
Speaker 2: had to make her into someone who followed the rules,
Speaker 2: Like that was the ultimate thing that she could do
Speaker 2: to be like, screw you, I am going to now
Speaker 2: be ugly.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think I have a quote from the
Speaker 1: book which is I'd been eyeballed so much growing up.
Speaker 1: I'd been looked up and down and had people telling
Speaker 1: me what they thought of my body since I was
Speaker 1: a teenager. Shaving my head and acting out were my
Speaker 1: ways of pushing back, and she says later on, I'd
Speaker 1: been the good girl for years. I'd smiled politely while
Speaker 1: TV show hosts leered at my breasts, while American parents
Speaker 1: said I was destroying their children by wearing a crop top,
Speaker 1: while executives patted my hand condescendingly and second guessed my
Speaker 1: career choices, even though I'd sold millions of records while
Speaker 1: my family acted like I was evil and.
Speaker 3: I was tired of it.
Speaker 1: It does feel like this moment of rebellion, there's almost
Speaker 1: a little bit of Catharsis in it, and then of
Speaker 1: course it's immediately turned against her.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: And the other thing that I found, I don't know,
Speaker 2: just sort of harrowing, is that she talks about how
Speaker 2: her mom couldn't even look at her with her shaved
Speaker 2: heaps yes on, her long beautiful hair was gone, which
Speaker 2: was so much a part of her identity, and which
Speaker 2: is so much a part of I think pop star
Speaker 2: identity in general. Her mother actually couldn't look at her,
Speaker 2: and that was so sad to me. So it's like,
Speaker 2: at the same time you're reading this and you're thinking, like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's so great to hear it in her words. I'm
Speaker 2: hearing you read that quote, and I'm like, this doesn't
Speaker 2: sound like her, you know, like it's a little heavy handed.
Speaker 2: It's like parroting the talking points of like this empowerment,
Speaker 2: reclaiming of your identity moment back to the reader. So
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's hard. It's like I'm a little
Speaker 2: bit torn on how to interpret some of this stuff
Speaker 2: because while I think it's so important to hear from
Speaker 2: her perspective, I think that there are parts that feel
Speaker 2: pretty heavy handed.
Speaker 1: I will say the thing about this section that really
Speaker 1: stayed with me. This is the time where you really
Speaker 1: begin to understand how terrifying the paparazzi was to her.
Speaker 1: If there's one thing in the book that becomes very clear,
Speaker 1: it's really how afraid of them she was, how aggressive
Speaker 1: they were with her, how much of her life was
Speaker 1: controlled by their presence, and how much she had to
Speaker 1: evade them or try and get away from them. She
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to stay places for very long because
Speaker 1: the longer she stayed more would arrive. And I thought
Speaker 1: that was interesting because it's kind of changed so much,
Speaker 1: like now there are more safeguards in place, especially with children.
Speaker 3: But she was before any of that occurred.
Speaker 2: So people were saying, why won't you let us have
Speaker 2: access to photograph your children? And she and Kevin were
Speaker 2: having to figure out how to put blankets over their
Speaker 2: heads so they could still breathe while carrying them out
Speaker 2: of the house because they didn't want them photographed, which
Speaker 2: actually it seems like a very sane decision, but that's
Speaker 2: crazy when you're doing it right exactly. And back then
Speaker 2: the thinking was, well, why is she hiding her kids?
Speaker 1: She just genuinely does not know how to get away
Speaker 1: from it. And for all that her father is trying
Speaker 1: to control her, he's not doing anything to protect.
Speaker 2: Her right, right, right right. For all these supposed safeguards
Speaker 2: in place, there are none, as it pertains to this,
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 1: That obviously leads to the head shaving, leads to her
Speaker 1: being institutional. Institution was very briefly, you just put on
Speaker 1: like a weekend hold, and then sent on early and
Speaker 1: then again, and then that leads to the infamous conservatorship,
Speaker 1: which you know, it's been talked about a lot. I
Speaker 1: don't know that we have to get into all the details,
Speaker 1: but I do think the thing that was most interesting
Speaker 1: to me about this is I really have so many
Speaker 1: questions about how she got out of it.
Speaker 2: Like I don't I know, Well, that was one of
Speaker 2: the parts where, you know, my editor brain was like,
Speaker 2: h details, details, details, Where are the details? Like how
Speaker 2: did you literally change lawyers? How did you argue this?
Speaker 2: What exactly was the argument made when you made that
Speaker 2: nine to one one call to report your father for
Speaker 2: conservatorship abuse? What was the response on the other line?
Speaker 2: What then happened? Did the police come to your house?
Speaker 2: Like anyway, I have I have so.
Speaker 3: Many questions, any questions about this section, and I.
Speaker 2: Have to wonder if some of the sanitizing it's for
Speaker 2: legal reasons, but even you know, it's like I wanted names.
Speaker 2: Like there's a whole section where she describes again being
Speaker 2: institutionalized against her will, this time much later, toward the
Speaker 2: end of the conservatorship, for a number of months. And
Speaker 2: this is the point at which the fans, the Free
Speaker 2: Britney fans, start to notice that she has gone away
Speaker 2: and they start to get suspicious, and this is when
Speaker 2: they start kind of galvanizing to push the questions forward
Speaker 2: about what is really happening with its conservatorship. But I'm like,
Speaker 2: what is this institution. What is the name of the institution?
Speaker 2: How do they she couldn't check herself out? I guess
Speaker 2: not because the dad is a conservator, But like, what
Speaker 2: was really going on there? And was this a facility
Speaker 2: for mental health? Was it a facility for drug abuse?
Speaker 1: Like what she calls it a rehab, which is weird
Speaker 1: because they're not actually accusing her of taking drugs. She
Speaker 1: says she was taking natural supplements and that's what caused
Speaker 1: them to send her. But I feel like, also the
Speaker 1: thing that was really confusing about this section for me,
Speaker 1: is it up until this you really have a clear
Speaker 1: sense of how controlled her life is.
Speaker 3: Like at one point, she.
Speaker 1: Describes her father bugging her house so that he can
Speaker 1: overhear her conversations. Right, he decides what she eats, he
Speaker 1: decides when she sleeps, he decides every It's like the
Speaker 1: most infantilizing thing.
Speaker 2: She can't have caffeine, She's not allowed to have a
Speaker 2: sip of alcohol. If she wants to have a boyfriend,
Speaker 2: they have to submit to a blood blood test.
Speaker 1: Right, So you get the sense that she's under this
Speaker 1: enormous control, but then all of a sudden she's able
Speaker 1: to escape from it.
Speaker 3: And we don't actually hear how that happens.
Speaker 1: Like suddenly she's just like and then I'm meeting with lawyers,
Speaker 1: and then I'm calling the police, and you're like, but
Speaker 1: how how are you meeting with lawyers?
Speaker 3: You're in this like prison.
Speaker 1: Essentially, it feels like a missing like a big missing piece,
Speaker 1: and I really just Britney, please, I.
Speaker 2: Know the details. And I mean the whole scene in
Speaker 2: the when she's institutionalized toward the end of the Conservatorship,
Speaker 2: it really, I mean it sounds like Girl Interrupted the
Speaker 2: modern version, Like she describes a woman who hears voices,
Speaker 2: and there's all these kind of people who are really
Speaker 2: really unwell, and then they're force speeding her lithium, which
Speaker 2: makes her totally lethargic and confused about time and unable
Speaker 2: to speak clearly, like all of these things that sound
Speaker 2: like some Sylvia Plath nineteen fifties shit.
Speaker 1: Yes, And then the next thing that happens, it's like
Speaker 1: so quick that section, it's almost like we speed through
Speaker 1: the section of how she suddenly breaks free from these
Speaker 1: chains that like seem really hard to break free from it.
Speaker 1: But then suddenly we're in the section where she is
Speaker 1: giving her statement to the judge in the you know,
Speaker 1: famous sort of statement she gives that helps free her
Speaker 1: from the conservatorship.
Speaker 2: Right. I was like, how did she get there? Like,
Speaker 2: how did they to get that? Yeah? And then she
Speaker 2: had to ask for it to be open to the public,
Speaker 2: Like how did that work? Anyhow? Yes, we have.
Speaker 1: Questions, yes, and so the testimony, though, is really compelling.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend going to listen to it. You can
Speaker 1: find it on YouTube. We can play a little bit
Speaker 1: of it for you, just so you can hear her voice.
Speaker 4: I also would like to be able to share my
Speaker 4: story with the world and what they did to me
Speaker 4: instead of it being a hash has secret to benefit
Speaker 4: all of them. I want to be able to be
Speaker 4: heard on what they did to me. By making me
Speaker 4: keep this in for so long is not good for
Speaker 4: my heart.
Speaker 2: I mean I remember hearing that when she testified and
Speaker 2: thinking it was so powerful, and then reading about it
Speaker 2: in the book. I mean again, it's like, how did
Speaker 2: she write it? What was the thinking did she rehear?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I just she did so.
Speaker 1: Many questions that she did a lot of drafts of it,
Speaker 1: but but you don't really get a sense of like
Speaker 1: where I mean really, I will say. The thing about
Speaker 1: the statement that I love is that it is very
Speaker 1: much in Brittany's voice. It is obvious she has written
Speaker 1: it for herself. You know a lot of times that's
Speaker 1: something like this, The lawyers would have just written it
Speaker 1: and she would have read it this few like it
Speaker 1: is Brittany start to finish. It is in her own words.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a little circular, sometimes it's a low chaotic,
Speaker 1: but it's super strong. You get the sense that she's
Speaker 1: completely capable of managing her own life. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: just sort of shocking, and she brings.
Speaker 3: Us up a lot in the book.
Speaker 1: But I feel like the need to repeat it, which
Speaker 1: is it is crazy that she is literally doing world tours,
Speaker 1: she is supporting everyone in her family, plus like a
Speaker 1: cottage industry of other people, and she is literally being
Speaker 1: described as incapacitated, unable to make a single decision for herself,
Speaker 1: Like she is clearly more than capable of running her
Speaker 1: own life.
Speaker 3: Like is she quirky? Is she weird?
Speaker 1: Is she sometimes dealing with mental health issues? Sure, but
Speaker 1: no more so than a million other celebrities who go
Speaker 1: through these things and then just come out the other
Speaker 1: side and don't have their family essentially steal their entire
Speaker 1: adulthoods so that they can just turn them into like
Speaker 1: a cash machine, which is very clearly what happened here.
Speaker 1: So she says, you know, in the book, after the conservatorship,
Speaker 1: she says, I'd been taught through the conservatorship to feel
Speaker 1: almost too fragile, too scared. That's the price I paid
Speaker 1: under the conservatorship. They took a lot of my womanhood,
Speaker 1: my sword, my core, my voice, the ability to say
Speaker 1: fuck you. And I know that sounds bad, but there's
Speaker 1: something crucial about this. Don't underestimate your power.
Speaker 3: And while this sounds nice, I.
Speaker 1: Do feel like the sort of ending of the book
Speaker 1: is a lot about her trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: that means, Like, how does that work now that she's free?
Speaker 2: I mean, notably, a lot has changed since the book
Speaker 2: was edited. She and her husband have split. He's referenced
Speaker 2: in the book as her husband. They didn't have to
Speaker 2: ye to edit it. I mean, things have shifted, and yeah,
Speaker 2: what does that look like for her? And it's interesting
Speaker 2: too what you were saying at the beginning. I mean,
Speaker 2: she's dipping her toe and then she's not sure but
Speaker 2: now she's put this book out, which has put her
Speaker 2: very much in the public liye again, And is that
Speaker 2: where she wants to be and will she go back
Speaker 2: to performing don't? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well. Also, there's the interesting thing that did you read
Speaker 1: the Instagram post she just posted being like I don't
Speaker 1: like what I'm reading.
Speaker 3: About the book?
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you and I.
Speaker 1: Both know how a book works, right, I mean, book
Speaker 1: publishing works. The publisher or her press people have clearly
Speaker 1: been releasing excerpts of the book on people, and they
Speaker 1: have been doing that in a very strategic way, like actually,
Speaker 1: I think I said to you at some point last week,
Speaker 1: they're doing a great job with the release, because every.
Speaker 3: Day it was a new set of headlines. Every day
Speaker 3: was like.
Speaker 2: Another site, a little bit of information, a little bit
Speaker 2: of information out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you know, but it does make you
Speaker 1: wonder how much she's like aware of what her team
Speaker 1: is doing as per usual, because then she put out
Speaker 1: this statement on October twentieth, and she said, before the
Speaker 1: book was out, my book's purpose was not to offend
Speaker 1: anyone by any means. That was me then that is
Speaker 1: in the past. I don't like the headlines I'm reading.
Speaker 1: That's exactly why.
Speaker 3: I the business four years ago. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's like, you don't like the headlines you're reading,
Speaker 1: like that's what's selling your book, Like you're booking through
Speaker 1: the presales, right, and this is why. So it's like
Speaker 1: an interesting thing, right again, she has this relationship with
Speaker 1: the process. She doesn't like the way fame works, and
Speaker 1: yet it is the way it works. Like it's like
Speaker 1: she's gonna have to either decide that she wants to
Speaker 1: really run away from it or she wants to be
Speaker 1: part of it. And if she's going to be part
Speaker 1: of it, I do think she hasn't yet figured out
Speaker 1: what that looks like, what she's okay with, how much
Speaker 1: she's willing to give away for it. And I think
Speaker 1: her Instagram is such a great example of this, right,
Speaker 1: Like she is constantly shutting down her Instagram and then
Speaker 1: coming back, like she she wants the attention of the Instagram,
Speaker 1: but then something happens it makes her mad and she leaves.
Speaker 1: And in fact, right after she posted this Instagram about
Speaker 1: not liking the book headlines, she shut down her Instagram
Speaker 1: and then she was back within a day. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like this sort of perfect microcosm of her larger
Speaker 1: relationship with attention. And there was that incident recently where
Speaker 1: she was dancing with knives. Do you remember this, Yes?
Speaker 1: I do. She's like dancing with the knives, and so
Speaker 1: then her fans call the police and have them do
Speaker 1: a welfare check on her, and so it's like she
Speaker 1: can't even in.
Speaker 3: The they were real knives, right like she says they
Speaker 3: were prop knives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even if they were real knives, they
Speaker 1: weren't dangerous, Like there was nothing dangerous about her dance routine.
Speaker 1: But you know, she does address that in the book.
Speaker 1: She addresses the way people react to her Instagram, because
Speaker 1: there's also a lot of nudity in her Instagram and
Speaker 1: her children have complained about that or I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's her children or Kevin Federline or whatever, but
Speaker 1: it has been said that her children don't like that,
Speaker 1: and it's very provocative at times.
Speaker 3: At some point she got a.
Speaker 1: Stripper pole, and I think people don't really know how
Speaker 1: to respond to it, and she says something about it.
Speaker 1: She says, I know that a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: understand why I love taking pictures of myself naked or
Speaker 1: new dresses. But I think if they'd been photographed by
Speaker 1: other people thousands of times, prodded and posed for people's approval,
Speaker 1: they'd understand that I get a lot of joy from
Speaker 1: posing the way I feel sexy in taking my own picture,
Speaker 1: which I don't. Does that totally make sense? I don't
Speaker 1: know why it didn't totally make sense to me?
Speaker 3: Is an?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think because there are hints of a
Speaker 2: ghostwriter or an editor saying the thing that they know
Speaker 2: needs to be said to justify the behavior in a
Speaker 2: way that's palatable to the reader.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I was confused by that.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, it doesn't I guess it
Speaker 2: doesn't have to make sense, but I don't. I mean,
Speaker 2: the thing that makes me so uncomfortable about Brittany in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways is that everyone thinks they know, yeah,
Speaker 2: and nobody really fucking knows. The fans don't know. The
Speaker 2: free Brittany people don't know. I mean, maybe the ghostwriter knows.
Speaker 2: But the ghost writer has an agenda to make the
Speaker 2: book palatable and make it so that there's not legal
Speaker 2: issues and make it so that she's not getting criticized
Speaker 2: for X y and Z and you know, being the
Speaker 2: right amount of me. And when she calls Jamie Lynn
Speaker 2: her little sister, a real bitch. Yeah, but also like
Speaker 2: kind of making up word in the end. So it
Speaker 2: still is like everyone has an agenda, I mean everyone.
Speaker 2: It's like the critics have an agenda, the publicists have
Speaker 2: an agenda, the ghost writer has an agenda, the book
Speaker 2: editor has an agenda. So it is hard to tell.
Speaker 1: I mean even some of the fans, right, Like even
Speaker 1: some of the fans, like some of the Free Brittany
Speaker 1: movement was attention for fans and gave them sort of
Speaker 1: purpose and meaning, and so some of them haven't been
Speaker 1: able to let it go.
Speaker 3: Like there's also think they know best for her for
Speaker 3: her Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's tough too, because the Free Brittany movement was right,
Speaker 2: like they did actually draw attention. She writes about it
Speaker 2: in the book, to the fact that she was trapped
Speaker 2: in this thing, and she actually thanks them in the
Speaker 2: book for that. But by the same token, there seems
Speaker 2: to be this sense that everyone knows what's best for
Speaker 2: Britney Spears. And I don't know that any of us
Speaker 2: know what's best for Britney Spears.
Speaker 1: I think that's right, and actually this is a good
Speaker 1: place to end it because there was a quote from
Speaker 1: the book I pulled which I felt like to me
Speaker 1: was the essence of the book.
Speaker 3: So I will read it and we can end on that.
Speaker 1: Note great, which is on page two forty eight, she says,
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is that the mystery of
Speaker 1: who the real me is is to my advantage because
Speaker 1: nobody knows.
Speaker 2: That's sort of that's funny, that's weird. I read it.
Speaker 3: You've read this whole book and you still don't know
Speaker 3: about me.
Speaker 2: That is a good place to end it. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: the reality is we don't know, but we will all
Speaker 2: still keep talking about it.
Speaker 3: This is in retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Is there a cultural moment you can't stop thinking about
Speaker 1: and want us to explore in a future episode. Email
Speaker 1: us at inretropod at gmail dot com, or find us
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Speaker 1: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
Speaker 1: and at susib NYC. Also check out Jessica's books Feminist
Speaker 1: Fight Club and This Is Eighteen.
Speaker 2: In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Media.
Speaker 2: Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
Speaker 2: engineer and sound designer. Sharon Attia is our researcher and
Speaker 2: associate producer.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 3: Our artwork is from Pentagram.
Speaker 1: Additional editing help from Mary Doo and Mike Cosparelli. Sound
Speaker 1: correction and mastering by Amanda Rose Smith. We are your
Speaker 1: hosts Susie Bannecarum.
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