Britney Spears

Britney Spears is an American singer, songwriter, and dancer whose three-decade music career has produced multiple defining late-1990s and 2000s American teen-and-pop-music albums — particularly her 1999 first commercial album ...Baby One More Time. She was born Britney Jean Spears on December 2, 1981, in McComb, Mississippi, into a working-class American Southern Baptist family. Her father James Parnell Spears was a Louisiana-area construction-business worker, and her mother Lynne Bridges was an elementary-school teacher. The 1981 family relocation to Kentwood, Louisiana (her birthplace's neighboring small town) launched her early-career path.

Her 1992 first national TV appearance — at age 11 — on Star Search and her subsequent 1993–1994 two-season tenure as a Mickey Mouse Club cast member on the Disney Channel (1993–1994, alongside fellow future-pop-stars Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, and Ryan Gosling) launched her early-1990s American TV-and-music public profile.

Her 1997 Jive Records signing at age 15 — under the management of Larry Rudolph — launched her 1998 commercial breakthrough. Her January 12, 1999 first commercial album ...Baby One More Time — released by Jive Records — sold over 25 million copies worldwide and produced her late-1990s American teen-pop public profile through her single "...Baby One More Time" (which became her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single).

Her 2000 second commercial album Oops!... I Did It Again — released May 16, 2000 by Jive Records — sold over 20 million copies worldwide and produced her early-2000s American teen-pop commercial peak. The 2000 album sold a then-record 1.3 million American copies in its first week of release. Her subsequent 2000s commercial career produced multiple American Billboard Hot 100 top-10 singles — particularly her 2001 third commercial album Britney, her 2003 fourth commercial album In the Zone (which produced her single "Toxic"), and her 2007 fifth commercial album Blackout.

Her 2008 Los Angeles Probate Court conservatorship under her father James Parnell Spears — across the November 13, 2007 first conservatorship-petition filing — shaped her later biographical narrative. The November 12, 2021 conservatorship-termination ruling (after 13 years of conservatorship) produced her late-career biographical recovery. She married Jason Allen Alexander in 2004 (annulled 55 hours later); she married Kevin Federline in 2004 (divorced 2007), and the couple has two sons. She married Sam Asghari in 2022 (divorced 2024).

Her name Britney derives from the medieval English place-name meaning "of Britain" or "from Brittany." Britney was a popular American girls' name across the late 20th century.