Britney Spears Says She Was Grieving, Suffering Depression When She Shaved Head

Britney Spears had a series of alleged erratic behaviours in the lead-up to her court-ordered 13-year-conservatorship. She shaved her head and attacked a paparazzo with an umbrella but what the media did not know at the time was that her actions were the result of several mental and emotional factors.

The singer revealed in her memoir "The Woman In Me" that during that time, she was suffering from postpartum depression and grieving the death of her aunt. She wrote in excerpts of her book obtained by People: "With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom. 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."

Spears confessed: "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 singer previously admitted that she shaved her head in 2007 as a show of defiance. She acted out against those who criticised her body. She shared: "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."

During this time, Spears was on the brink of divorce from Kevin Federline and afraid of losing her children. She had locked herself and her sons in a room because she refused to hand them over to their father, who was granted temporary custody but was seeking permanent custody.

Her refusal led to a three-hour stand-off with police and she was eventually strapped to a gurney afterwards. She was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center "for her own welfare", according to a police spokesperson.

She was eventually stripped of her right to visit her children, Sean Preston and Jayden who were only two years old and one year old at the time, respectively. The incident eventually led to her conservatorship in 2008, which put her father Jamie Spears and a lawyer in charge of her financial and personal affairs.

Spears has been looking to take over the narrative of her life since the termination of the conservatorship in November 2021. She told the magazine that she had sat back while people told her story for her over the past 15 years. Now she is "finally free" to tell her story "without consequences from the people in charge" of her life.