A look back at the 2007 performance that Britney Spears says she can't 'defend'

• Britney Spears reflects on her panned performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards in her memoir.
• Spears was criticized by fans and the media after she stumbled through a rendition of "Gimme More."

Britney Spears is reflecting on her infamous performance of "Gimme More" at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards in her new memoir.

The big night was meant to mark Spears' music comeback after a year of headline-making personal troubles, and help launch her first studio album since 2003.

However, Spears appeared to stumble through the choreography, and the performance was criticized by fans and the media.

In her memoir, "The Woman In Me," Spears herself writes: "I'm not going to defend that performance or say it was good, but I will say that as performers we all have bad nights."

Here is what she says happened on the night.

Britney Spears was going through personal problems at the time of the VMAs performance

During the four years since her last album, a lot had changed for Spears.

The pop star had got married to her now ex-husband Kevin Federline, and had two children with him, Sean Preston and Jayden James.

However, as Spears writes in "The Woman In Me," after she and Federline got married, their relationship started having problems as Federline's music career picked up and he started to spend more time away from home.

Spears filed for divorce from Federline in 2006, and the divorce was finalized in 2007.

Also in 2007, Spears made headlines over her erratic behavior — including shaving her head — lost custody of her children, and released her fifth studio album, "Blackout."

Spears writes in her memoir that she didn't want to perform at the VMAs, which took place in September 2007, but her team was "pressuring me to get out there and show the world I was fine."

She adds: "The only problem with this plan: I was not fine."

Spears says she felt 'dizzy and had a panic attack before the performance

Spears writes that in the moments leading up to her actual performance, there were various issues.

"There was a problem with my costume and with my hair extensions. I hadn't slept the night before. I was dizzy," she writes. "It was less than a year since I've had my second baby in two years but everyone was acting like my not having six-pack abs was offensive. I couldn't believe I was going to have to go out onstage feeling the way I felt."

Spears continues that she doesn't think she and her team had rehearsed enough.

"I hated the way I looked. I knew it was going to be bad," she continues. "I was having a panic attack."

Spears also says that she bumped into her ex-boyfriend, Justin Timberlake, who won four awards and performed at the VMAs that same night.

"He was at the top of his game in every way, and he had a lot of swagger," Spears writes. "You also don't usually have one of the worst days of your life in the exact same place and time that your ex has one of his best."

Spears says that criticism over the disastrous performance affected her

Spears recalls comedian Sarah Silverman, who performed a comedic monologue, roasting her on the night.

"She called my two babies 'the most adorable mistakes you'll ever see,'" Spears writes. "I didn't hear that until later though. At the time, I was backstage sobbing hysterically."

In 2021, Silverman addressed the comments she made after the documentary "Framing Britney Spears" resurfaced the events of that night.

Silverman wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that she was hired to roast Spears after her performance and wasn't aware that the performance hadn't gone well.

In addition, Spears writes, "In the days and weeks that followed, the newspapers made fun of my body and my performance. Dr. Phil called it a train wreck."

In recent years, Spears' fans have reappraised her performance in light of the personal issues she was experiencing at the time, and pointed out that rehearsal footage of the performance shows the singer hitting her choreography with ease.