December 2nd, 2007 - Happy Birthday Britney Spears

Her debut album …Baby One More Time, released in January 1999, propelled her to international stardom.

Britney Spears was born in McComb, Mississippi. She was raised in Kentwood, Louisiana as a Southern Baptist by parents James Parnell Spears, a building contractor, and Lynne Irene Bridges, a former grade school teacher. Spears’s brother Bryan works as a manager for the Spears family interests and her sister Jamie Lynn is an actress and singer. Her maternal grandmother Lillian Woolmore was an English war-bride, born in Tottenham, London who met Spears’s grandfather Barnett O’Field Bridges in England during World War II. Her paternal grandparents were June Austin Spears and Emma Jean Forbes.

Spears was an accomplished gymnast, attending gymnastics classes until age nine and competing in state-level competitions. She performed in local dance revues and her local Baptist church choir. At age eight she auditioned for the Disney Channel series The New Mickey Mouse Club. Although she was considered too young to join the series at the time, a producer on the show introduced her to a New York City agent. Spears subsequently spent three summers at NYC’s Professional Performing Arts School and also appeared in a number of off-Broadway productions, including 1991’s Ruthless!. In 1992, she landed a spot on the popular television show Star Search. Though she won her first round in the competition, she ultimately lost. At age eleven, Spears returned to the Disney Channel for a spot on the New Mickey Mouse Club in Lakeland, Florida. She was featured on the show from 1993 to 1994, until she was 13. Other future celebrities on the show included fellow pop singer Christina Aguilera, ‘N Sync members Justin Timberlake and Joshua Chasez, Felicity actress Keri Russell, and The Notebook star Ryan Gosling. After the show ended, Spears returned to Kentwood and entered high school for a year.

In 1997, Spears briefly joined the all-female pop group Innosense. Later that same year, she decided to go solo. After recording a demo, she was signed by Jive Records. She began touring American venues for a series of concerts sponsored by American teen magazines, and eventually became an opening act for ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys.

Spears recorded her latest album with producers such as Sean Garrett, J. R. Rotem and Nate “Danja” Hills throughout 2006 and 2007. In May 2007, she also produced a mini-tour for the House of Blues under the name “The M+M’s”, including live performances across San Diego, Anaheim, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando, and Miami. Those in attendance reported that Spears did not perform the songs live in the 15-minute show, but danced and lip synced to recorded accompaniment of five previou songs.

Spears’s fifth album entitled Blackout, was scheduled to be released on November 13, 2007. However, due to online leaks, the album was pushed up for release on October 30. Blackout opened at #2 on the US Billboard 200 charts, selling 290,000 copies. The album fell to #7 in its second week. The track “Gimme More”, her first single produced by Danja, debuted worldwide on August 30. It peaked at number three on Billboard’s Hot 100 on October 3, becoming Spears’s most successful single in the United States since her debut, “…Baby One More Time”.

Spears’s performance at 2007 MTV Video Music Awards received much media attention and was lauded as her “comeback”. She performed “Gimme More”, the lead single from her upcoming album. Reviews of the performance were unfavorable; BBC’s David Willis stated that “her performance would go down in the history books as being one of the worst to grace the MTV Awards,” and Times Online noted that “Spears was out of synch as she lip-synched and at times just stopped singing altogether.” Despite the VMA backlash, the single has reached number one at the World Charts. In November 2007, the next single from Blackout was announced to be Piece of Me and the video was shot November 27.

What could I possibly tell you, that you don’t already know?

Gianni Versace-Designer -61
Cathy Lee Crosby-TV Personality -59
Michael McDonald-Singer -55
Lucy Liu-Actress -39
Nelly Furtado-Singer -29

DISCLAIMER: This posting was submitted by a user of the site not from The Insider editorial staff. All users have acknowledged and agreed that the submission of their story and its contents is in compliance with our Terms of Use.