Britney Spears: 'I Think My Life Has Done A Complete 360'

In her most telling interview of the year, Britney Spears sat down with FLAUNT magazine ahead of the release of Glory, one of her most critically-acclaimed albums to date, for their Oh La La Land issue.

It's a peak into the mind of one of the most sought after stars of the Millennial era, where the iHeartRadio Music Festival performer opened up about her work, struggle with anxiety and let writer Gregg Lagambina know what's really going on in that head of hers without saying very much at all.  

"Oh, I'm so weird," she told him for Issue 148. "I get nervous in a lot of situations. Parties, clubs. When there are a lot of people around, I’m a weird, anxiety-ridden person."

Asked about her continuous journey in putting herself out there, Spears cited her security team as a true ally in making sure everything is in place with promotional ventures. "I think with a lot of things in the past, I didn’t have security. I didn’t have the guidelines that I have now, which are brilliant. I’m very close to my security team," she explained. "I have kids now too, so everything is on a way lower scale. I’m actually a very boring person. I don’t go out. I don’t really do anything. I should be Mother Mary, seriously. I think my life has done a complete 360. Things are just different now. It’s a different time. It’s a different era."

And even though the practices behind Britney Inc. have changed, Lagambina noted that a lot of the recent assumptions made about the pop princess are likely incorrect. Exactly 18 minutes into their time together, Spears pulled his audio recorder close to her and slyly overruled her publicized, who had initially offered 30 minutes of the singer's time.

"She reaches toward the clear, glass coffee table and slides the digital voice recorder closer, looks at the time elapsed, and asks, 'Is that how long we’ve been talking?' 'Yes,' I say. 'Eighteen minutes.' 'Oh, then we have two more minutes.' In this otherwise insignificant moment of simple logistics, Spears lets down her guard.The ace in her deck might not be showing, but there’s a queen hiding in there somewhere. This is not the fragile, micromanaged figurehead of a brand called 'Britney Spears.'" he wrote. 

"This is a 34-year-old woman ready to re-set the world on fire on her own terms. Glory indeed. How naïve to thinkI’ve had to tiptoe around this idea of her, while the woman herself has been maneuvering this brief encounter to meet her own specific needs. How arrogant, too, that for a single moment,I thought any of this was in my control. The puppet strings have been clenched firmly in her fist this entire time. I’ve been played."

Click here to read Britney's full feature with FLAUNT magazine. 

Catch Spears and other chart-toppers at our iHeartRadio Music Festival, which goes down September 23rd and 24th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Click here for more information!

Photo: FLAUNT / Ioulex