Britney Spears

Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Referred to as the "Princess of Pop", she is regarded as one of the most culturally significant figures of the 21st century and is credited for helping revive the teen pop genre. Her energetic stage performances have brought both great success and initial controversy. Spears developed an interest in music from an early age and began her professional career in 1992 as a cast member for the Ruthless! musical and the final two seasons of The All-New Mickey Mouse Club television series before signing with Jive Records in 1997. She debuted with the best-selling albums ...Baby One More Time (1999) and Oops!... I Did It Again (2000). The first album's lead-off single, "...Baby One More Time", reached number one in the US and became one of the best-selling singles in history. In 2001, Spears released her third album, Britney, one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century, and made her film debut that October in Longshot before co-starring in Crossroads the following year. Her next two albums, In the Zone and Blackout, were released in 2003 and 2007, respectively. The former included the single "Toxic", which won the Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Recording. Facing lifelong public scrutiny and struggles with mental illness, Spears was placed under a controversial conservatorship in 2008, during which she recorded Circus that year, followed by Femme Fatale (2011) for Jive, and then Britney Jean (2013) and Glory (2016) for RCA Records. By the late 2010s, she had performed on more than two dozen US Top 40 songs, including the number-ones "Womanizer" (2008), "3" (2009), and "Hold It Against Me" (2011). In 2019, Spears withdrew from regular concert touring to focus on her conservatorship case, leading to the #FreeBritney movement and the 2021 documentary Framing Britney Spears. Also in 2021, the conservatorship was dissolved after she publicly testified against her family and management for maltreatment. Her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, debuted atop The New York Times Best Seller list. With over 150 million records sold worldwide, Spears is one of the best-selling music artists in history, with Nielsen SoundScan ranking her the fourth best-selling female album artist of their era. Forbes listed her as the world's highest-paid female musician twice, in 2000 and 2012. Spears has received numerous industry awards, including one Grammy Award, six MTV Video Music Awards, and seven Billboard Music Awards (including the Millennium Award). Outside of music, Spears has launched numerous products over the years, with her 2005 fragrance Fantasy with Elizabeth Arden, Inc. generating over $1.5 billion in sales by 2011.