Michelle Williams is the narrator for the audiobook version of Britney Spears’s memoir “The Woman in Me,” and it’s the best way to experience this new book.
On its surface, it seems absurd that five-time Academy Award-nominee Michelle Williams is the narrator for the audiobook version of Britney Spears’s new memoir The Woman in Me. Already the internet is giddy over audio excerpts in which Williams, in a cool and collected tone, imitates Justin Timberlake’s try-hard ’00s patter of “Oh yeah, fo’ shizz fo’ shizz.” And rightly so. It’s magic.
More than that, it’s the kind of cultural collision that seems so inexplicable that you might expect it to be a joke, like when AI was used to make the long-dead Johnny Cash do a rendition of “Barbie Girl.” But there’s something slyly sophisticated about selecting Williams to be the voice of Britney’s story. She brings a protective layer to a tale that could feel too tabloid-y in the wrong hands, as well as the natural versatility of a stage and screen actor called to switch between characters as needed. Williams takes her role as narrator as seriously as anything she’s done in her career, from Spielberg’s beloved mother in The Fablemans to the heartbreak of Brokeback Mountain or Blue Valentine. By paying respect to Spears with her performance, she urges her audience to do the same.
What is The Woman in Me about?
In a nutshell, Spears’s memoir begins with her childhood in Louisiana and takes the reader through her mega-stardom in the 2000s, her 13 years under the tyrannical conservatorship of her father’s making, and into her post- #FreeBritney era. Despite the sprawl, you don’t need to be a Spears fanatic to appreciate The Woman in Me.
Admittedly, it helps if you’ve got an embattled nostalgia for the early ’00s, when she was the unquestioned Princess of Pop with NSYNC’s Justin Timberlake as her double-denim prince. That makes passages where she recalls styles as being “so pimp” hit with a mix of cringe and whimsy. But whether you’re interested in the gossip, the Timberlake takedown, or the hype, you need to snag the audiobook rather than a physical copy. Michelle Williams demands it, with a silky smooth delivery that softens the rough edges of this managed memoir.
How come Michelle Williams is reading the book, not Britney herself?
Michelle Williams attends the “Blue Valentine” photo-call during the 63rd Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2010 in Cannes, France
Credit: Andrea Raffin / Shutterstock
In the Audible introduction for The Woman in Me, Spears offers an author’s note, which she does read herself. The pop icon’s breathy baby voice says:
“This book has been a labor of love and all the emotions that come with it. Reliving everything you’re about to hear has been exciting, heart-wrenching, and emotional to say the least. For those reasons, I will only be reading a small part of my audiobook. I’m so grateful to the amazing Michelle Williams, for reading the rest of it — and to you for listening.”
Spears also reads the opening dedication and the prologue, which introduces her love of singing and her fear of her father, wrapped in a memory of her childhood. She speaks quickly and sincerely, her voice a breathy tremble. Then, Williams’s voice takes over, strong and calm: “Chapter One.”
Though the memoir is sprinkled with name-drops (Ryan Gosling! Steven Tyler! Robin Williams!), Michelle Williams will not get another mention in The Woman in Me. Perhaps the two are friends. Maybe Williams can relate to Britney’s journey, as she too was a teen star in the same heady window of Total Request Live, boy-band dominance, and the rampant and misogynistic fat-shaming that afflicted young female celebrities. These are just a few of the explosive topics the memoir touches on, though one of the few things it doesn’t reveal is exactly how Williams came to be its voice. Regardless, whoever made the call to cast the acclaimed indie darling deserves a raise and a major award, because the book wouldn’t read the same without her.
The Woman in Me is a clear yet captivating compromise.
Credit: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Image
When it comes to family, Spears’s memoir is raw. She opens up about her father’s allegedly abusive behavior, her ruined relationship with younger sister Jamie Lynn Spears (“a total bitch”), and the callous reprimands from her mother. As both her mother and sister have written tell-all books about her, there’s a righteous sense of reclamation in these sections.
Williams easily handles lines like “We laughed our fannies off” or “The timing was un-fucking-believable,” allowing us to hear Spears’s natural writing style and sense of humor through the actress’s measured performance. By contrast, when showering praise over past collaborators, be they photographers or music video directors, the language used feels polished by publicists — much more aware of its audience.
While the book marks Spears officially stepping back into the spotlight, presumably on her own terms, it’s certainly a group endeavor (as opposed to her Instagram, where anything can happen). Many celebrity books have input from editors, fact-checkers, legal teams, and ghostwriters. Yet The Woman in Me feels over-managed to the extent that it’s meant to reframe her story without burning too many bridges; gratitude is expressed clearly, uncluttered by curse words or slang, but without the pop star’s singular voice behind it.
There will be no knife-dances here today, folks — just enough bite to draw a little bit of blood from sacrificial lamb Justin Timberlake. These shifts in tone can be jarring, but that’s where Williams is most effective; she’s soothing and soft while confident, lending a sort of coherence to the most PR-speak declaratives. In her hands, Britney the media-trained celebrity and Britney the giddy country momma come together into one complicated (if compromised) portrait.
Michelle Williams demands the public take Britney seriously.
Credit: Featureflash Photo Agency
Sometimes memoirs read by the author can provide a sense of solace in their reflection; the calm tone of someone who survived the tragedy they are unfurling suggests there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. As Spears says herself in the prologue, she’s not there quite yet. So, the coolness of Williams’s reading of The Woman in Me gives consolation to the listener, completing the journey of radical acceptance that Spears is actively pursuing in the book’s final chapters.
This is not to say that Williams is monotone or NPR-mellow throughout. Her meditative pacing speeds up as she gently imitates Timberlake or Mariah Carey or an excitable exec eager to sell Britney on his company. She hits every name-drop with a slight smile, each punchline with the hint of a smirk. But notably, Williams’s poised approach makes moments where Spears vents her (justified) anger all the more hard-hitting. “They watched Criminal Fucking Minds on the couch every night. Who does that?” Spears sneers of her parents, and Williams’s lips seem to curl in a sneer, inviting us into the outrage and hurt — as if we were more than fans or listeners but within Britney’s inner circle.
Where Williams’s voice proves the most powerful is in the moments that tabloids will likely relish most. Spears does not shy away from spilling the tea of her exes. While Colin Farrell comes off lovely and lusty, and others go by warmly remembered but unnamed, she has plenty to say about ex-husband Kevin Federline (“bless his heart”) and her first love, Justin Timberlake.
The internet has already gawped at the revelation that Spears had his abortion, but listening to Williams explain how he played guitar at Spears while she experienced horrendous cramping on a bathroom floor is astounding. The details alone are shocking, but Williams — with that concentrated calm — lays it all out so matter-of-factly that it’s not treated like a sordid spectacle. It’s a vivid moment that shaped and shamed a young woman, especially when the only person who shared it with her turned on her to promote his solo album.
William brings the gravitas of an Oscar-nominated actress to every moment of this memoir. It’s not that she’s playing the rattling emotion that Spears must have felt then. The book isn’t written with that kind of splashy emotional explosion. Instead, Williams reads the memoir like the diary of a loved one, giving space for the reflection and respect to the undercurrent of psychological trauma that surged beneath Spears’s practiced smile, which often was her first line of defense.
At 288 pages (or five hours and 31 minutes), The Woman in Me is a short book for such a storied life, but it offers plenty of food for thought. Spears and Williams see to that.
The Woman in Me is available on Audible.
