One of the most disturbing parts of Britney Spears’s story has long been the way people talk about her. As soon as the pop star was released from the legal guardianship of her father in November 2021, ending a 13-year ordeal that she has described as torture, some onlookers asked whether one of the most successful women on Earth could handle living as an adult. In barroom chitchat, meandering podcasts, and online comment sections, you can now find people claiming that freeing Britney—allowing her to, for example, choose how she spends her money or what she eats for dinner—was a mistake. They cite alleged evidence of erratic behavior such as the recent video that the 41-year-old Spears posted of herself dancing sexily with prop knives. Usually such skeptics speak in a conspiratorial tone, indicating that they think of themselves as radical truth-tellers defying the pink-uniformed groupthink of the #FreeBritney movement. But Spears’s new memoir makes clear that this shaming and second-guessing, using the language of care and concern, is deeply conventional. She portrays herself—including with …