Britney Spears is reflecting on the fateful night in 2007 when she shaved her head in her new memoir, The Woman in Me.
Spears, 41, recalled feeling “out of my mind with grief” after the death of her aunt, Sandra Bridges Covington, she writes in the book, according to a source. She was then pushed over the edge following a disagreement with ex-husband Kevin Federline when he wouldn’t allow her to see their sons Sean Preston, now 18, and Jayden, now 17.
At the time, Spears entered Esther’s Haircutting Studio in Tarzana, California, and asked owner Esther Tognozzi to cut off her hair. When he refused, she took matters into her own hands. Photographers captured Spears grabbing the salon’s razor and cutting off her then-brunette hair.
“With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom,” Spears wrote, according to an excerpt published by the New York Times on Thursday, October 19. “Flailing those weeks without my children, I lost it, over and over again. I didn’t even really know how to take care of myself.”
In the book — set to be released on Tuesday, October 24 — the singer addressed her ups and downs in the public eye, which included the head-shaving incident and, days later, going after a paparazzo with an umbrella.
“I am willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my adored aunt Sandra, and the constant drumbeat of pressure from paparazzi, I’d begin to think in some ways like a child,” the NYT excerpt continued.
In some ways, Spears looked at shaving her head as “pushing back” against the constant public scrutiny, she wrote according to a separate excerpt from the memoir published by People.
“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,” Spears wrote.
Previously, Tognozzi reflected on the head-shaving incident when he was interviewed for the 2019 documentary Britney Spears: Breaking Point, which aired via the U.K.’s Channel 5.
“She had two bodyguards, supposedly keeping an eye out to make sure the paparazzi were not getting any pictures and one of them kept opening the blinds,” he claimed in the film.
Tattoo artist Emily Wynne-Hughes also spoke in the documentary about that 2007 night. She crossed paths with Spears after the singer left the hair salon.
“[There was] an insane roaring sound outside,” Wynne-Hughes claimed. “I wasn’t sure what was happening, if there was a riot outside, and then the flashes came. The door opened slowly and a hooded figure walked in the door.”
She added, “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.’”
The Woman in Me hits bookstore shelves on Tuesday, October 24.
