Britney Spears Says She Was “Shamed, Embarrassed, And Forced” Through All 15 Years She Performed, and Never Wants to Be in the Business Again

In a long post to her sons, Britney Spears wrote that her time on stage was never her own choice. She says she wants to apologize for her past mistakes and has no desire to return to performing.

Spears, 44, tied her account of the performing years to her children, opening the post with a paparazzi photo of her two sons as young boys and a plea for forgiveness “for my mistakes in the past.”

She wrote that her mindset on stage was nothing like what people saw. “Not one time in those 15 years was it ever me and the way I use to think,” she said, adding that her image “was to be too good” and she was “never ever allowed to do anything wrong.” She said she was “brainwashed into an ignorant system where every goddamn person took advantage of me,” and asked, “why was me being better a threat to the country and my own family.”

Much of the post circles her family. She said she only learned five years ago that her parents had secretly taken her sons to the beach every weekend one summer while she wasn’t included, calling it “demoralizing” and saying she “went to my knees and cried for two months.”

She described her son telling her last week that he believes it “was all science” and doesn’t believe in God, a moment she said made her feel she’d “failed as a mother.” She wrote that she’s “cried so much” and is “extremely weak,” but “through weakness they say you will find the most strength cuz you surrender and give it to God.”

She also called herself an angel. “I firmly believe I am an angel, and it hurts. Time is in a different realm when you’re an angel.” And on the version of herself the industry wouldn’t allow: “I feel like the saying ‘when I’m bad I’m BETTER’ is pretty fucking rad.”

Now she says she lives “in prayer and yoga every day,” calls herself “simply mamma,” and wants “to have dreams again like I did when I used to go to Mexico.”

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