Britney Jean Spears was born on December 2nd 1981 in Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana by her parents James and Lynne. Britney has one sister Jamie who was born in 1991 and is an actress and singer. Britney’s mother used to be a school teacher, but is now one of Britney’s managers.

Britney loved to sing and dance from a very early age, apparently being an eager performer and jumping at every opportunity to show of her natural talent for entertaining. She performed everywhere from local dance halls and church choirs.

By the time she was eight years old she had set her heart on working on the Disney channel, and although she was too young to actually take part in the show, she was given the number of an agent. Britney then spent three summers at New York’s professional performing art’s school.

In 1992 she appeared on the show ‘Star Search’ but lost out in the second round. She then decided to re apply for the Mickey Mouse club and was this time accepted. She stayed on the show from the age 11 to 13. Other stars of the Mickey Mouse club included Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake (Who would later go on to date Britney)

Spears big break came when she sent a demo of her singing to Jive Records, she was signed to their label and toured around the US, eventually becoming the opening act for N-Sync and began dating friend and lead singer Justin Timberlake. She released her own debut single in 1998 called ‘Baby one more time’ which grabbed the attention of press and fans due to her wearing a sexy schoolgirl outfit. It became a top hit in various different countries and was the best selling single of 1999 in the UK. In April of 1999 Britney also posed for the magazine ‘Rolling Stone’ which caused controversy for her provocative pose.

In February 2000 Spears received two Grammy nominations which included Best New Artist. In the summer of 2000 she kicked off her first world tour ‘Oops I did it again’ and co wrote the book ‘Britney spears, heart to heart’ with her mother. In late 2000 she won two billboard music awards.

In early 2001 Britney struck a major promotional deal with the drinks company ‘Pepsi’ which earned her a whopping $8 Million dollars. She also went on to co write another book with her mother titled ‘A mothers gift’
There were several cruel jokes played during 2001 and 2002 in which rumours were created stating that Britney had died in a car crash, this was of course completely untrue but caused major panic to her friends and family.

It was in February 2002 that Britney decided to turn her hand at an acting career, and starred in a movie called ‘Crossroads’ which shot to number 2 in the box office on its release but dropped out of the top ten fairly quickly after that, due to its less than average reviews.

It was in March 2002 that Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake ended their relationship. It was an event that was highly publicised in the media due to reports that Britney had cheated. This was later even more widely speculated when Justin’s new video ‘Cry me a river’ featured a storyline which seemed to suggest this. June 2002 saw Britney try to move on with her life and open a restaurant serving a mix of traditional food and Louisiana cuisine. However it closed after just a year through lack of interest.

’In the Zone’ Britney’s new album was released in November 2003 selling over 609,000 copies. This made her the only female in music history to have her first four albums debut at number one.

On January 3rd 2004 Britney hit the tabloids again with the news that she had got married! Whilst drunk and having fun with childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander they decided it would be ‘fun’ to get married. No sooner had the marriage taken place; Britney’s people had applied to have it annulled, which was successfully accepted after approx 55 hours.

In July 2004 Britney got engaged for real to dancer Kevin Federline who already had children of his own, and had left a pregnant girlfriend carrying his baby to be with Britney. The couple married on the night of September 18th 2004 and by 2005 Britney had announced that she was pregnant. After a few complications during the early months of pregnancy Britney gave birth to a son Sean Preston Federline and in May 2006 she announced on the David Letterman show that she was in fact pregnant again with their second child due in September. Britney has stated that she will not release another album now until after her second child is born, as she would like to concentrate on being a mother. She has hinted that in the future she would definitely like to take on more acting roles and pursue her music further.