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Britney Spears memoir reaches bestseller status a week before it hits shelves

Pop star Britney Spears' new tell-all book, The Woman In Me, doesn't come out until next week — but it's already at the top of Amazon's Best Seller's list.

New excerpts released by People magazine are drawing fans interested in her side of the story. And her Instagram, where she's usually showing off her dance moves, is now seeing Spears in book-selling mode. In an ad she posted, she says: "I'll have a good book one day. A good mysterious book."

/ Gallery Books
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Gallery Books

The publicity press includes slowly teasing out excerpts to People about growing up:

"For fun, starting when I was in eighth grade, my mom and I would make the two-hour drive from Kentwood to Biloxi, Mississippi, and while we were there, we would drink daiquiris. We called our cocktails "toddies."

The infamous Video Music Award performance where she's dancing with a snake:

"All I knew was to look down, because I felt if I looked up and caught its eye, it would kill me."

And the abortion she says she had after she allegedly became pregnant with Justin Timberlake's baby:

"It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn't a tragedy," the excerpt quotes Spears as writing. "I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one day. This would just be much earlier than I'd anticipated."

NPR has reached out to Timberlake's team for a comment.

Juicy memoirs like this can do really well — according to NPD bookscan, the top selling book so far this year is still Spare by Prince Harry.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Corrected: October 19, 2023 at 11:00 PM CDT
An earlier version of this story reference Spears' growing up in Mississippi. She was born there but grew up in Louisiana. The reference has been removed.
Andrew Limbong is a reporter for NPR's Arts Desk, where he does pieces on anything remotely related to arts or culture, from streamers looking for mental health on Twitch to Britney Spears' fight over her conservatorship. He's also covered the near collapse of the live music industry during the coronavirus pandemic. He's the host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast and a frequent host on Life Kit.
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