While the Onyx Tour was in Scotland in early 2004, One of Britney’s dancers was asked by a local reporter if it was true that she had ended one of her German concerts by fleeing the stage in floods of tears. The dancer confirmed it. He said Britney was dissatisfied with her performance and felt she had let the audience down.

A few weeks later, she performed to a crowd of around 100,000 at Dublin’s RDS showgrounds. A friend who was there told me that she did her best to put on a great show, and worked herself to near-exhaustion. But she clearly didn’t enjoy what she was doing, and seemed anxious and depressed. “It was as if the light in her eyes had gone out”, he said.

It was becoming very clear to all around her that the little girl who loved performing so much did NOT love touring, and absolutely loathed being separated from her loved ones. But, being a lifelong showbiz trooper, she put on a brave face and battled on.

Indeed, when I saw her in Belfast at the start of her Irish tour, it seemed that a few days’ rest - or meeting Kevin Federline - had done her good, and she looked lively and energetic. By this stage, the weight she had put on at the start of the Onyx tour had gone and her perfect hourglass figure was astonishing.

However, Skye Sweetnam, who opened her show in Belfast, told the Irish edition of the Daily Mirror that Britney had become withdrawn and reclusive, only arriving at show venues an hour before going on stage, and spending most of her time alone in her room.

If she had not been injured on the “Outrageous” video shoot, there is no doubt that she would have completed her gruelling 36-date tour of North America - but at God knows what cost to her physical and mental wellbeing. But the injury happened, and her engagement to Kevin Federline, and nothing would ever be the same again for Britney or her fans.

Her engagement was met by a chorus of jeers and boos from all quarters. Going to the Wob forums for the first time in years, I found an extraordinary atmosphere of disapproval, criticism and bitterness towards Britney. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Ruben was ranting and raving on the front page about her lack of communication, and eventually Larry Rudolph got in touch and relayed what Ruben was saying back to Britney. And so she began to get the idea that the new happiness in her life was not shared by anyone else - even her fans - and a spirit of anger and defiance was born within her.

Maybe this wasn’t altogether a bad thing. In a debate on another forum about what was Britney’s worst fault, most people said it was her miming or her voice or her bad decisions or her sluttiness, but I had no hesitation in saying it was her low self-esteem.

I had been worried about her for a while. The song “Everytime” had an odd characteristic, which few people have remarked on, but which spoke volumes about her mental state. It did not attempt to excuse or justify her in any way. Most mentally strong and healthy people have an automatic instinct to rationalise and defend their actions, but Britney did not. And this was the song she made herself sing live, every date of her tour. It was as if she was whipping her own back.

The “Everytime” video was genuinely alarming, and each time I saw it I was in tears. I cannot imagine any other artist coming up with a video that conveyed nothing so much as her sense of her own worthlessness. There is no doubt in my mind that, before the media created a frenzy of outrage, she really did intend to commit suicide in the video, and that, before she met Kevin, she had pondered suicide in real life.

Randy Taraborrelli’s Daily Mail article published at this time described the psychological damage done to Britney by the break-up with Justin, and the many self-destructive incidents that resulted from it. Through most of 2003 she was trying to lose herself in her work, and, as the new album “In The Zone” was launched, she looked excited and reinvigorated. Her promotional appearances were stunning. It looked as if the worst of the crisis was over.

And so she went into the Onyx tour full of optimism, but the from the outset the reviews were savage and cruel. Everything about her was called into question: not just her lip-synching, but also her dancing ability and even her appearance. And, quite simply, this little perfectionist, who had driven herself and her family so hard to get where she was, suffered a total loss of confidence in herself and could see no point in going on.

Interviewed in People magazine about her engagement, she said a strange thing. In effect, she admitted to being glad that the rest of the tour had been cancelled. It had been a great tour, she said, “but my head wasn’t in it.” Most people took her to mean “my heart wasn’t in it”, but she did not. She meant exactly what she said, and what she said related to a huge decision she had taken.

The minute the Onyx tour was cancelled, it appears that she breathed a sigh of relief and told herself “This ends right here and right now.” The one thing she was clear about was that “Britney Spears”, the almost fictional pop princess she no longer believed in herself, but whose construction and development had been her life’s work, would not set foot on stage again for the foreseeable future.

Britney seems to think ahead in three-monthly units, and for the next three months her fertile mind and rapidly recovering vitality were entirely focussed on her personal relationship with Kevin, and on her forthcoming marriage. Early in the year, she had told OK magazine of her belief that a lot of work has to be put in to build a lasting relationship, and this was the time to put in that work.

But the relentless criticism of her actions, her reputation, her clothes, her acne, and, especially, her fiance, was beginning to get to her. Speaking for myself as one who loves passionately, I can totally understand how she felt. I could kill anyone who dissed my lover. And everyone without exception seemed to be dissing Kevin.

Britney’s contract required a promotional single to launch the then-forthcoming Greatest Hits album, and she settled on “My Prerogative”. In her mind this was no more than a big “F*** you” to everyone who had judged her, and so long as it was out there, and the media were aware of it, she didn’t care how many it sold.

She knew the only two firm commitments still on the slate were the launch of her perfume line and the Greatest Hits project. Her contract with Pepsi was on an ad-hoc basis and she decided not to appear in the next campaign alongside Beyonce and Pink. Her contract with Larry Rudolph was about to expire, and if Larry’s influence and business links were out of the picture, she would have the choice not to renew her contract with Jive either.

In her mind, everything was coming together. Her marriage would raise the curtain on a new start to her career as well as her life. “It’s great that this has happened”, she told Todd Gold of People magazine, “I feel like it’s a beginning.” But there were still many things about her former life that bothered her, and she needed some sense of closure.

While in New York with Kevin to do some business with her lawyer, shortly before the wedding, Britney saw “Wicked” and in a moment of blinding realisation, it flashed into her mind that, in the eyes of everyone except her most loyal fans, SHE had become the Wicked Witch of the West, whom nobody really knew or understood, but everyone wanted to destroy.

She dedided to do two things. One, she would write her notorious “Letter of Truth” to the world in which she would draw a firm line under the life and career of the “old” Britney, show everyone that she was neither wicked nor a witch, and achieve the closure she desired. Two, she would stop being that much-despised person and completely reinvent herself.

The wedding would provide the opportunity. She could quite reasonably take a year or two off to start a family, which was part of her fairytale vision of her life anyway. In any case, if she wanted to return as an alternative Gwen Stefani or Pink or Dido or even Avril Lavigne, it would take a fairly long interval for everyone to forget what they hated about the old Britney. There was even the option of coming back with a new name.

In the event, her "Letter of Truth" was a huge disappointment, since it was extremely short and said very little other than that she was taking a break and letting her competitors carry on without her. However, it attracted extensive textual and psychological analysis, from which the consensus verdict was that she had, in effect, retired at the grand old age of 22. She went on record to say that this conclusion was "harsh", but didn't actually deny it or offer any statement of intent to resume her career.

Moreover, by mid-October 2004, the radiantly smiling, excited Britney seemed to have gone again, and she looked somewhat troubled. She had not, after all, metamorphosed into a mature young woman but regressed into a cap-wearing, soda-throwing punky teenager. Her spots had returned.

According to the UK’s Daily Star, she was about to devote her energies to a week-long let-it-all-hang-out post-wedding party in Hawaii. After that, there was the thrill of moving into her new home in Malibu (another part of her fairytale dream come true), redecorating and buying furnishings.

But that was her last piece of escapism before she had to face the future. Having babies may have seemed a wonderful, life-affirming miracle, an act of creation unlike anything she had ever done before, and a major step on her seemingly endless spiritual journey. But, while the glow of pregnancy made her look beautiful and healthy again, childbirth was a big part of her descent into darkness from which she may still have to truly emerge.

Comments (0)