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Britney Spears - Biography and Profile
Submitted by xpertchick
Born: 2 December 1981
Birthplace: Kentwood, Louisiana
Best known for: Helping to revive bubblegum pop music from 1999 - present
Profile and biography
Britney Jean Spears was born December 2, 1981, in the small town of Kentwood, LA, and began performing as a singer and dancer at a young age. Spears first appeared on national television in 1992 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel's television series The New Mickey Mouse Club at age 11 from 1993 to 1994.
In 1997 at age 15, Spears signed a recording contract with Jive Records, releasing her debut album ...Baby One More Time in 1999. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. She saw even greater success with the release of her sophomore album, Oops!... I Did It Again in 2000. This cemented her spot as a pop icon and was greatly credited for the revival of bubblegum teen pop in the late 1990s.
In 2001, she released Britney and played the starring role in the film Crossroads, which did not have great box office success. She assumed creative control of her fourth studio album, In the Zone released in 2003, which made her the only female artist of the Nielsen Soundscan era to have her first four albums debut at number one. Her fifth studio album, Blackout was released in 2007. Her sixth studio album, Circus released in 2008, also debuted at number one in the Billboard 200 albums chart.
As it currently stands, Spears has sold over 85 million records worldwide according to Zomba Label Group and Sony Music. She is ranked as the eighth best-selling female recording artist in the U.S. with 32 million copies of her albums certified by the RIAA, and is currently the fifth best-selling artist act of the decade in the country, as well as the top-selling female artist. Spears is also ranked by Forbes 2009 issue as the 13th most powerful celebrity, earning over $35 million dollars in 2009, making her the 2nd-highest earning young musician of the year.
From the start of her late 1990's arrival on the music scene, Britney Spears was constantly in the media spotlight. Her celebrity star power was rivaled only by Jennifer Lopez during that time. As a packaged teen idol, Spears' sex appeal was an important part of her image. The video for her debut single, "...Baby One More Time," outfitted her in full Catholic-school regalia and sent her well on the way to becoming an international sex symbol. This caused a tension between the wholesome innocence Spears initially projected at her female audience, and the titillating sexuality that enticed so many male fans.
Those marketing tactics add controversy to Spears' image, making her the subject of endless debates concerning appropriate role models for teenage girls. Spears tried to defuse the controversy by preaching abstinence until marriage, even appearing on Barbara Walters 20/20 with then boyfriend Justin Timberlake to reinforce that belief while denying that she was knowingly building a sexualized image. But the more provocative and revealing her on-stage wardrobe became, the less believable that claim seemed.
But by 2004 there were no longer any illusions of Britney's personal life being all wholesome. First there was the star's bizarre two-day marriage to childhood friend Jason Alexander, followed by the controversial, highly sexualized Onyx Hotel tour, which was eventually canceled despite positive financial numbers. Starbucks and cigarettes were Britney's constant accessories in the endless paparazzi photos, and the revelation of her relationship with former backup dancer Kevin Federline made the tabloids even more ravenous. Spears and Federline married in September and were tabloid regulars in the months after the ceremony. (A photo of a barefoot Britney leaving a dingy gas station bathroom made the Internet rounds.) The couple also starred in Chaotic, a UPN reality show consisting mostly of their own home videos that was panned by the critics.
Spears released Greatest Hits in 2005, but it was the announcement of her pregnancy that captured the media spotlight. Her first son Sean Preston Federline was born in September after which Spears released a remix album for the holiday season. In 2006, Spears discovered she was pregnant again and shortly after the birth of her second son, Jayden James Federline, she divorced Federline resulting in long string of custody battles that were eventually settled in Federline's favor. Spears shocked the masses in early 2007 when she spontaneously shaved her head at a salon in Tarzana, California, much to the delight of nearby paparazzi.
With the stress of her divorce and child custody battles, Spears sought help at Malibu's Promises Treatment Center. After leaving the center, she began working on her comeback album and performed a few small shows at House of Blues locations in Los Angeles, San Diego, Anaheim, and Las Vegas in May 2007. Despite a downward spiral in her personal life that year, including a disastrous performance at MTV's Video Music Awards, her album "Blackout" arrived in October 2007. It would become her least successful album to date, charting only three Top 40 hits and failing to achieve platinum certification within its first year of release.
Spears hit rock bottom in early 2008, when she lost custody of her children, made several court appearances, and was placed on involuntary psychiatric hold two times in one month. Blackout nevertheless won several MTV-sponsored awards, including "Album of the Year" from the Europe Music Awards in November 2008. That same fall, the leadoff single from Spears' next record, "Womanizer," became her first number one single in nearly 10 years. The full-length Circus arrived in December, featuring a mix of sweet ballads and uptempo dance numbers that were designed to fuel Spears' comeback.
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