Dear Gossips,

Britney Spears’s memoir, The Woman in Me, releases today and, as mentioned last week in my post when allllll the revelations started coming out, I’d like to read it front to back for context, to really get a sense of how these recollections fit into the complete story that she’s telling about herself for the first time. It’s the way every book should be considered but it’s especially important where Britney is concerned because everyone has been speaking for her and the way this book rollout has been handled, it’s more of the same.

Which is what she posted about on Instagram a few days ago.

So let’s read it and then let’s discuss – we’re trying to put together a live chat at The Squawk in a couple of weeks. Hope you can join us there!

In the meantime, this is what was circulating online re: Britney yesterday – her audition for The Notebook. Casting director Matthew Barry said that Britney was “phenomenal” and that she “beat out several of the top female actresses at the time. Scarlett Johansson, Claire Danes, Kate Bosworth, Amy Adams, Jamie King and Mandy Moore auditioned for this role. Britney beat out all of them. Everybody who was anybody that year wanted this part.”

The part, as we know, ended up going to Rachel McAdams, and nobody is debating whether or not that was the right choice, not even Britney. But imagine the Sliding Doors possibilities here? On the one hand, In The Zone doesn’t happen… which means we might not have ever gotten “Toxic”, one of her best songs, maybe her best song. And “Me Against the Music”, “Everytime”, “Breathe on Me”…

Then again, if she doesn’t release In The Zone, there’s no Onyx Hotel tour. Which means… there’s no Kevin Federline.

As for The Notebook, if Britney had been cast as the lead, that film comes out the gate entirely differently. Remember, The Notebook was a sleeper hit. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams were nowhere near household names. It premiered pretty quietly, critics weren’t hot on it, and it opened behind White Chicks at the box office. But it was word of mouth and women sobbing in the theatre and telling their friends and going back to watch it over and over again that made it the cult classic that it became.

With Britney in the starring role, though, there’s no such thing as sleeper – it would have been big hype from the beginning and people wouldn’t have found it organically, which means it probably wouldn’t have taken hold culturally the way it did…even though, as you can see from the audition, Britney was good! This was a strong audition! But that’s not the door that she went through.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

PS...we're talking about this on The Squawk today as well.

Britney Spears Gossip

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