Britney Spears on her 2007 public breakdown: 'Out of my mind with grief'

Los Angeles, Oct 20 (IANS) Singer Britney Spears has shed light on the public breakdown she suffered in 2007.

In the pop superstar's much-anticipated upcoming memoir 'The Woman in Me', she looks back on hitting a photographer's car with an umbrella after shaving her head that year and explains that grief and her custody battle were weighing heavily on her at the time, reports People.

The 'Toxic' singer has written in the book that she was "out of my mind with grief" after her aunt, Sandra Bridges Covington, died of ovarian cancer in January 2007.

The same year, Spears went through a legal dispute with ex-husband Kevin Federline over the custody of their sons Sean Preston and Jayden James, now 18 and 17, respectively.

"With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom," wrote Spears in 'The Woman in Me'.

"Flailing those weeks without my children, I lost it, over and over again. I didn’t even really know how to take care of myself."

As per People, the difficult experiences ultimately led to incidents such as shaving her head and attacking a paparazzi's car.

"I am willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my adored aunt Sandra, and the constant drumbeat of pressure from paparazzi, I’d begin to think in some ways like a child," added Spears in the memoir.

The Grammy winner was put in a court-ordered conservatorship in 2008, granting father Jamie Spears and a lawyer control over her financial and personal affairs.

She writes in the book that those in charge of her life forbid her from keeping the shaved head and instructed her to focus on fitness, "go to bed early" and take various medications.