Content Warning: This section includes references to mental illness. 

Timberlake launches his solo career and begins acting standoffish with Spears. He breaks up with her via text while she is shooting a music video. Spears is devastated and becomes unable to speak to anyone for lengthy periods of time. She goes back to Kentwood to recover. Timberlake visits her and brings her a framed letter explaining his feelings and the reasons for their breakup, which sends her deeper into a depression.

Despite her heartbreak, Spears returns to work to finish her tour. When she tells the record label that she wants a break once the tour is over, they respond negatively. They do not want her to leave the spotlight and lose career momentum. She does an interview from her home in Kentwood to assure people that she is “doing well and ‘just taking a little break’” (68). 

At home, Spears’s mother divorces Jamie, who is nowhere to be seen during this period. Spears notes Jamie Lynn’s behavior, which she views as entitled and frustrating. Spears feels like a ghost—isolated and alone.