Britney Spears has finally revealed the motive behind her decision to shave her head back in 2007. The well-known incident involved the singer giving herself a buzzcut right after leaving rehab and doing so in front of more than 70 paparazzi photographers peering through the window. This peculiar moment was just one of a string of breakdowns that ultimately led Spears to be placed under a court-mandated conservatorship by her father, Jamie Spears, in 2008.
Britney Spears for the first time explains why she shaved her head
"I’d been eyeballed so much growing up. I’d been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager. Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back" pic.twitter.com/cFzi8ASDfM
— Promo Spears (@PromoSpears) October 17, 2023
Why did Britney shave her head?
In November 2021, the songstress got back her legal rights. However, the 2007 incident remained to be an infamous moment in history. After 16 years, Britney revealed what led her to take this step in her forthcoming memoir, ‘The Woman in Me’.
“I’d been eyeballed so much growing up. I’d been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body since I was a teenager. Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back,” the pop star penned, according to an excerpt published by People on Tuesday.
“I was made to understand that those days were now over,” she added. “I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take.”
Britney Spears finally reveals why she shaved her head in 2007 pic.twitter.com/nP9lestNow
— Daily Pinpoint (@DailyPinpoint) October 17, 2023
What happened in 2007?
Amidst her series of rehab visits, one night in 2007, Britney walked into Esther’s Haircutting Studio in Tarzana, LA and asked to get her then-brunette hair shaved off. Once declined by the salon’s owner, Esther Tognozzi, Britney willingly gave herself a buzzcut while paparazzi snapped photos through the windows.
“I noticed [Britney’s] hair was gone. I remember asking her, ‘Why did you shave your head?’ And her answer was a bit weird. It was, you know, ‘I just don’t want anybody touching my head. I don’t want anyone touching my hair. I’m sick of people touching my hair’,” recalled tattoo artist Emily Wynne-Hughes of that night.
‘I became a robot’
At that time, the ‘Toxic’ singer was in the midst of a divorce and custody battle with Kevin Federline. Just days after the infamous incident, she was captured on camera venting her frustration by attacking a photographer’s car with an umbrella. In an excerpt from her memoir, Britney reflects on her conservatorship, describing it as a force that “stripped me of my womanhood.”
“I became a robot. But not just a robot – a sort of child robot. I had been so infantilised that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself,” she said. “The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child. I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me.”
Feb. 21/2007 – Britney Spears, after dealing with some personal issues, attacked a paparazzi's car with an umbrella. pic.twitter.com/bxSWk3vXTM
— Today In History (@TodayThatWas) February 21, 2017