Britney Spears has finally revealed why she shaved her head

Britney says in her upcoming memoir 'The Woman in Me' about the incident 16 years ago, in an extract obtained by People: "I'd been eyeballed so much growing up. I'd been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager.

"Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back."

Britney adds in her tell-all book that once her dad Jamie Spears took control of her personal, medical and financial affairs in 2008 as part of a controversial conservatorship that was only legally ended last year, she no longer had a say in her day-to-day life.

She said: "I was made to understand that those days were now over. I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape.

"I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take."

When Britney wandered into the hair studio where she shaved her head, the salon's owner Esther Tognozzi refused to do the job.

Britney took matters into her own hands by grabbing a clipper and giving herself a buzzcut while paparazzi snapped photos through the windows.

Days later, Britney was photographed attacking a photographer's car with an umbrella.

The incidents happened while she was going through a divorce and custody battle with her ex Kevin Federline, 45, who she divorced in 2007, and with whom she has children Sean, 18, and 17-year-old Jayden.

A year later she was hospitalised on two involuntary psychiatric holds and her dad went to court to make himself his daughter's legal guardian.

Britney hits out in her book, due out 24 October: "The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child.

"I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me."

Britney also states she "didn't deserve" what her family did to her, adding: "The woman in me was pushed down for a long time. They wanted me to be wild onstage... and to be a robot the rest of the time."

Britney testified against her "abusive" conservatorship in court in 2021 before a Los Angeles judge suspended Jamie, 71, from running her life and the arrangement was totally terminated in April 2022.