Britney: Inside the Dream

Breastfeeding wasn’t the only aspect of British life that she introduced: ‘She brought Lady Di into our lives. When she married Prince Charles, Lil had us all sat around a television watching the wedding. It took a lady to know a lady. Lil’s English accent was better than music,’ she laughed.

Lillian introduced words like ‘bloody’ and ‘blooming’ into Kentwood’s vernacular, and people were fascinated with her intonation of certain words. ‘God’ became ‘Gawd’ and expressions of surprise such as ‘Oh My!’ became ‘Good Lawd!’ Even though she was from London, her accent might as well have been from Windsor.

According to those who knew Lillian, young Britney was fascinated by her grandma’s accent. She was forever taking it off and disappearing into an English accent; it was all part of her repertoire. Lillian’s old friend said: ‘Britney thought there was something proper about being an English lady and, because of Lil, she listened to all those stories about Princess Diana.’

What’s telling about this insight is that when Britney’s troubles were witnessed in 2007, paparazzi and television footage recorded her ‘speaking in a bizarre English accent.’ It was reported as a worrying indication of mental illness; Britney was somehow losing the plot. People in Kentwood smiled at such reportage: ‘Britney’s been doing that since she was a kid, putting on the old English.’

‘She’s an impersonator—it’s what she does,’ said the lifelong friend. Perhaps this also explains why, in later life, Britney would have a terrier dog called London.

Those who remember Lillian suspect that she believed that her children—Sonny, Sandra and Lynne—should do better than she herself had done. In many respects, this is a normal wish for any parent, but Lillian’s belief was flavoured by her sure knowledge that there was more to life than Kentwood, the place that had failed to match her dreams.

Back to the friend, and the opinion is clear: ‘Lynne was born with a silver spoon up her ass because she was English. She’s a great girl but she always wanted better, and that’s got a lot to do with Lillian. That belief must have filtered down.’

Only Lynne and her siblings will truly know the influence of the private encouragements that were given, but when Lillian’s somewhat limited circumstances are taken into consideration, it rings true that their mama might have whispered a bettering belief in their ears.

Naturally, when Britney was born, Lynne instilled in her daughter that she was capable of anything if only she had the passion to follow it through; if she wanted it badly enough. ‘There is nothing you cannot achieve’ was the message being gently drilled into Britney because ‘There is more to life than Kentwood’ was the subtle message Lynne herself had received.

Lynne was exceptionally close to her mother and forever longed for a similar mother-daughter relationship. It is not surprising therefore that she was never far from Britney’s side in a bond that was inextricably fierce. One was lost without the other. Lynne could ‘never be without’ her daughter, and vice-versa. Indeed, Britney always wanted her in close proximity; needing to see her through the window of the gym-hall door, eager to catch her encouraging nods of approval in the wings at talent contests. Britney, it seemed, could only perform under Mama’s enthusiastic wing. When her routine was complete, her eyes darted to catch the only gaze that mattered. In return, Lynne’s face beamed back with pride.

It is in this parish, and from that past, that a snapshot picture of Britney starts to come into focus: a typical Southern belle who carried the Bible’s teachings within her innocence. She was a mother’s pride and joy, with a shyness that belied her need to perform; the bashful, all-American girl, who could not have seemed happier or better behaved. It’s doubtful there was a more talented, picture-perfect, sickeningly content girl in the whole of Louisiana.

At least, that’s the rose-tinted version of Britney’s childhood. But first appearances can be deceptive. Because all that excitable energy, early perfectionism and those regular retreats into a self-created, make-believe world spoke of something much deeper being stirred within the child, especially when viewed alongside the demonstrative talents so eagerly displayed.

The sweetest child, it seems, had learned to indulge in a constant mode of performance: singing loudly in the bathroom, in the backyard or on the trampoline; being Little Miss Perfect at dance recital; the trophy winner in gymnastics; the perpetual first place at talent contests and the voice that amazed people whenever she sang.

All these images form a performing montage that brought attention and approval, and it was that attention that soothed the young Britney, allowing her to feel good, to feel extra-loved. Why the constant mode of performing, though? As the psychotherapist queries:

As with most personas presented to the outside world, they tend to be a front to a hidden story of what is actually stirring beneath the surface. From the moment we are born our behaviours are influenced by environments into which we arrive. And if a child’s behaviours are not the result of being taught but are instinctive, then it is most likely a reaction shaped by what the psyche has experienced, both before birth and in early childhood. So where Britney was described as a bundle of energy, I’d query whether observers were actually witnessing a bundle of anxiety in a girl whose energy had its origins in nervousness, not excitement. Where we see a child so young striving for perfection and being so tidy, I’d suggest she was trying to control the outside of her life because she felt so out of sorts on the inside. Where we see a child disappear into a self-created, make-believe world, I’d examine the domestic reality she was trying to escape. And when someone is seemingly engaged in a perpetual performance, I’d wonder what unconscious needs are motivating that need to perform, and for whom the performance was aimed to please—Britney or her parents?

Such questions become valid when we go beyond the surface-deep reality of Britney’s upbringing: the deeper truth and the roots to our understanding lie behind the slammed doors of the family home.

Britney was not born into a stable home. She was born into a dysfunctional disorder created by a father whose heavy drinking turned him into an alcoholic whose rages primed a family to live on its nerves. This created a bundle of nerves within Britney that others, including her own mother, would then mistake for natural excitement or energy. In fact, it was more likely the reaction of an anxiety-ridden child in need of constant activity to block out the unholy din and drama surrounding her. Though too young to realise it, here was a girl whose need to be perform masked such imperfections, allowing her to escape the distress.

But what isn’t known is that Britney almost wasn’t born at all. Lynne had already given up on her husband and marriage, and filed for divorce in 1980. And it is those legal papers that provide the backdrop to the flip side of Britney’s childhood, offering insights into the adult she would become, and the father who would become her legal guardian under the 2008 conservatorship.

3 Sins of the Father (#ubf154d7a-bbbc-52c9-8b9c-8afb7fb6cbcd)

‘Mama, do you want to live like

this for the rest of your life?’

–Britney to Lynne Spears, 2000

Through the Storm was the title of Lynne Spears’ memoir about coping in a world of fame and tabloid headlines. Perhaps it would also be an apt label to sum up the strife and struggle within the household as Britney grew up. Indeed, in the year preceding her conception, it was already evident that Lynne was emotionally and psychologically defeated by her husband’s behaviour.

In her memoir, she admits filing for divorce before Britney’s birth, without detailing why. The clear impression is that her reason was solely because of Jamie’s drinking. Yet this masks the true background; a history that Lynne clearly isn’t keen on forming part of the Britney Spears’ story. Instead, after acknowledging the ‘wrecking balls’ and upset Jamie’s drinking created, she reflected that the first five years of their marriage were ‘an oasis of calm and happiness in our often turbulent life together.’ But that’s not the story contained in the legal papers she served just three years and six months into their union.

Lynne filed for divorce on grounds of adultery. This, perhaps, explains why she had no desire to reveal the finer details, going no further than mentioning gossip about his ‘flirting’ at bars. Intended or otherwise, by not mentioning infidelity as the reason behind her divorce petition, the focus remains on Jamie not her; on his addiction, not her desirability; his irresponsibility and not the humiliation she felt when he chose to have sex with someone else—and in their marital home.

According to the petition, Jamie committed adultery on the evening of Christmas Day, 1979. Heartbroken and livid, Lynne wasted no time in consulting local attorney Lou Sherman. Eight days later, and on the first working day after New Year, she submitted a detailed petition to the courts. It was this stormy prelude that foreshadowed the ‘dysfunctional marriage’ that Britney was born into and, as will become clear, this would prove to be a highly relevant event.

For Lynne, the betrayal followed a prolonged period of enduring her husband’s ‘benders’. In her book, she lays bare his alcoholism and told how he’d gone missing on Christmas Day morning as she and two-year-old Bryan waited to open gifts. When he didn’t show, she packed a bag and went to her mother’s. There must have been a furious row because Jamie clearly realised he’d be spending Christmas alone and that Lynne had deserted him. If she didn’t know what her husband would do, she soon found out.

In her petition, she makes allegations of cheating, and told how Jamie was seen entering one of his regular hangouts, a Kentwood bar called Baby Tate’s. But he went in with a local woman who Lynne named. Inside, it was claimed, he was ‘observed hugging, kissing and fondling this woman throughout their stay’. From there, she writes, they went to the Spears’ trailer, ‘where he committed adultery…during the late evening hours of December 25th and the early morning hours of December 26th.’

And therein lies another truth that has never previously emerged: the origins of the Britney Spears’ story can be traced to a trailer park where the family had their first home. Simpson’s Trailer Park, located off Highway 51 in Kentwood, two minutes from the state line with Mississippi, was where matrimonial life began for Jamie and Lynne. Lot No. 13 housed a cramped but cosy trailer that Lynne had helped fill with appliances and furniture; it was their first purchase as a couple along with a 1979 Chevrolet, a 1978 Dr Lincoln Continental and a 4-wheel drive pick-up truck. One trailer and three vehicles represented their humble beginnings. It was here that the family lived with their only son, and it was here that Jamie was alleged to have marked Christmas with his lover.

A friend who has known the Spears since they married said: ‘Y’all must understand. Miss Lynne is mighty proud. Image and reputation matter, especially since she’s become known as Britney’s mama. She don’t want to be seen as “white trailer-park trash” because that ain’t Miss Lynne. She’s always wanted to be viewed as a lady.’

Just like her English mother, Lillian.

Trailer-park homes and little shacks on the roadside are the norm in Kentwood and no one bats an eyelid over such realities, but perhaps its juxtaposition alongside Britney’s stardom felt uncomfortable for Lynne Spears. Britney wasn’t to spend a single day of her life in a trailer, but if anything, these beginnings further enrich the family history. From a trailer park to ‘Serenity’ is far more inspiring than from ranch-style bungalow to ‘Serenity’. It illustrates how far the Spears have travelled in the past 30 years.

According to the legal papers, the trailer belonged to Lynne. In fact, she was greatly worried that Jamie would damage it, and her furniture, when he learned she was filing for a divorce. She clearly feared his temper and she even alluded to what he was capable of when drunk. In that same petition, her attorney said: ‘She fears the defendant will become angry when served with these papers; that he will harass and/or physically harm her, especially if he has been drinking alcoholic beverages, as he has done in the past.’

Those words, ‘as he has done in the past’, form the first-known mention of Lynne going further than saying that her husband was merely an alcoholic. Here she was, telling a court that Jamie had harassed and/or harmed her previously. She was also making it clear that she sought the court’s protection and Lou Sherman sought a temporary restraining order.

The use of restraining orders would become something Jamie would utilise to protect Britney in later life but back in 1980, his own wife sought to exercise those same powers against him. Indeed, if this was the extent of Jamie’s temper, it might go some way to explaining some of Britney’s reported reluctance at him being installed as her conservator in 2008.

Lynne was loath to leave Jamie because she dearly loved him and she’d been vehemently opposed to divorce, living in a less nonchalant era when the very idea was frowned upon within a Baptist community. So the fact she actively sought a decree nisi illustrates how desperate she had become. Her friends have suggested it was an overreaction in the red mist of betrayal but in that January of 1980, it could not have seemed more final. She sought a custody order over Bryan; $200-a-month child support and $400-a-month alimony; and declared to the courts an intention to find her own place. Jamie was ordered to attend a hearing on 1 February to explain himself and state his case.

For Lynne, this sad episode marked the end of the fairytale in which she’d described their union as ‘the Barbie and Ken of Kentwood’.

It was a fairytale that began in the spring of 1976. Lynne’s maiden name was Bridges and she was a 20-year-old student at a community college renamed Southeastern Louisiana University in nearby Hammond. She was an education major who met Jamie Spears, 23, at a local swimming pool in July 1976, after skipping summer school. He was relaxing from his ‘tough-ass job’ as a boiler-maker—a trained craftsman who fits, welds and constructs steel plates and sections on projects as diverse as bridges to blast furnaces. By then, he was used to going where the contracts were: from Louisiana to New York, Missouri to Memphis.

Spears was considered as quite a catch by the ladies: it wasn’t just that he was regarded as ‘high, wide and handsome’, he was renowned for being one of the region’s finest athletes, basketball and football players; the all-round sportsman whose abilities are still remembered to this day.

‘He could shoot the basket with one step over the centre-line, let alone the shooting zone. Let me tell you, when you’ve got black basketball players complimenting the skills of a white basketball player, then you’re somebody special—and Jamie was that man. He was also a mean quarterback. That big son-of-a-bitch would have had some career if someone had punched him between the eyes and made him focus,’ said one ex-peer, who believes, ‘the reason for Jamie’s ultimate downfall was Jamie himself’.

Another friend who has known Jamie since schooldays said: ‘He should have made the big-time. He was one of Kentwood’s finest but could have been much more.’

Lynne was smitten, swept off her feet by either the man or her romantic ideals. However, the same could not be said for her parents, Barney and Lillian Bridges, because they knew what everyone else knew: Jamie had been married before. In Baptist Kentwood, getting together with a once-married man could bring a shame that was community-sent. But local archives prove it was much more complicated than a blotted copybook, and ‘Mr Barney and Miss Lillian’ could be justified for harbouring real concerns for their daughter’s welfare.

Lynne has since described her husband’s first marriage as ‘a brief union that was over almost before it began’ but Jamie married a ‘real beautiful’ woman called Debra Sanders in December 1972 and it lasted a good three years. Jamie was said to be head-over-heels in love, but he inexplicably upped and left on 10 May 1975, according to legal papers served by Debra. She claimed he ‘abandoned’ her despite the fact she’d been ‘a faithful wife, given her husband no cause for mistreating her and always tried to make him happy’ He denied abandoning her. Friends say he felt ‘suffocated’.

One year later, with reconciliation unlikely, Debra sought to terminate their marriage. It is interesting to note that Jamie denied all her allegations and said that he ‘pray[ed] that the demand of the plaintiff be rejected.’ He submitted his denials to the courts on 14 July 1976 but the following day, the divorce was granted.

Fifteen days later, on 29 July, Jamie Spears married Lynne Bridges.

On the evidence of these concrete dates, they met, dated and married within the space of two weeks. The only other possibility is that they met while Jamie was still technically married but that was surely never the case in their Baptist community. Whichever way it is viewed, this headlong rush into a union will have been frowned on regardless.

No wonder the Bridges were alarmed. They always felt their daughter could do better, not to mention the fact that she was in the middle of her studies, with one year left at college. The family were ‘good stock’ and ‘Miss Lillian’ felt her daughters Sandra and Lynne deserved quintessential gentlemen who knew how to treat a lady.

Sandra’s husband Reggie, a financial wizard who went into banking, won their approval. Jamie, the once-married boilermaker, did not. He was known in the community for his ‘crazy’ ways; the work hard, play hard type, and it is highly unlikely the Spears’ and Bridges’ clans would ever have sat down to dinner together. It was the combination of chalk and fine cheese as far as Kentwood was concerned.

That might explain why Lynne chose to elope to New York and marry in Oswego, where Jamie was working a short-term contract. She sacrificed her fantasy of a fairytale wedding for a quick registration formality, without parental consent. In an action that Britney would copy in later life, she was defiant and rebellious. Nothing would come between her and her man.

In her mind, she was being responsible, choosing to be a mother and set up home with the local hero who, in her eyes, was capable and solid.