Britney Spears Reveals Truth Behind Her Paparazzi Umbrella Attack

Britney Spears is opening up about some of the most difficult moments in her life and career. In an exclusive excerpt from her forthcoming memoir The Woman In Me, published by People on Oct. 19, Spears recalls hitting a paparazzo’s car with an umbrella in 2007, on the same night she infamously shaved her head.

“I was out of my mind with grief,” she writes, referring to the death of her late aunt who had passed away from cancer in January 2007. During this time, Spears was also struggling with her split from Kevin Federline, which resulted in a custody battle over their two children, sons Sean Preston and Jayden James.

“With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom,” Spears continues in the excerpt. “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.”

Britney Experienced Postpartum Depression

Spears goes on to explain that along with the pressures of grief and her custody battle, her struggles with postpartum depression also led to her attacking the paparazzo's car.

“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,” Spears adds in the upcoming memoir.

The Incident Led To Her Conservatorship

As detailed in another The Woman In Me excerpt obtained by People, Spears was placed in a court-ordered conservatorship a year after the infamous umbrella incident, giving her father and a lawyer control over her finances and personal life.

“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,” Spears writes of her 13-year conservatorship, which came to an end in Nov. 2021 after she pleaded with a judge to terminate the arrangement.

Ahead of her memoir release on Oct. 24, Spears disclosed to People that once she was out of her conservatorship, she felt “free to tell my story without consequences from the people in charge of my life.”