1. The Short-Lived Restaurant Nyla
Long before her Las Vegas residency, Spears attempted to conquer the culinary world. In 2002, she partnered with a celebrity restaurateur to open a restaurant called Nyla inside the Dylan Hotel in Manhattan. The name was a clever combination of the postal abbreviations for New York and her home state of Louisiana. The restaurant initially served southern Cajun comfort food before abruptly switching to an Italian menu, but severe mismanagement forced it to permanently close its doors after just five months.
2. An Off-Broadway Understudy
Before she was a global pop superstar, a young Spears spent time grinding in the New York theater scene. In 1992, she served as an understudy for the lead role of Tina Denmark in the Off-Broadway comedy Ruthless! The Musical. In an incredible stroke of future Hollywood destiny, another young girl working as an understudy for the exact same role was none other than future Academy Award winner Natalie Portman.
3. The Original Singer of “Umbrella”
Rihanna’s 2007 smash hit “Umbrella” completely defined a generation of pop music, but the song was never originally intended for her. The track’s writers, Tricky Stewart and The-Dream, initially wrote the song specifically for Spears, hoping it would serve as the perfect comeback single for her Blackout album. Her management team ultimately rejected the demo because they felt she had already recorded enough material for the record.
4. A Member of the Girl Group Innosense
While Spears is famous for her massive solo success, she actually started her professional music career in a band. In 1997, manager Lou Pearlman formed an American girl group called Innosense to capitalize on the booming teen pop market. Spears was recruited as an original member but officially left the group before they recorded any material, deciding to take a massive gamble on a solo career instead.
5. Her Secret Hotel Aliases
In order to escape the relentless flashes of the paparazzi and maintain a shred of privacy while traveling the globe, Spears frequently utilizes humorous fake names when checking into luxury hotels. She has publicly admitted to using a variety of incredibly creative aliases over the years, with some of her favorites being “Alotta Warmheart,” “Chastity Montgomery,” and “Anita Dick.”
6. Passing on Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”
The music industry is full of “what if” scenarios, and one of the biggest involves Lady Gaga. Before becoming a household name, Gaga worked as a songwriter and specifically penned the track “Telephone” for Spears to include on her Circus album. Spears recorded a demo of the track but ultimately left it off the final tracklist. Gaga reclaimed her own song, turned it into a duet with Beyoncé, and created one of the biggest pop hits of the decade.
7. She Invented the Schoolgirl Concept
The music video for “…Baby One More Time” is one of the most recognizable pieces of media from the 1990s, but it almost looked completely different. The original director pitched an eccentric, animated video concept where Spears would battle monsters like a Power Ranger. Spears hated the idea and pitched a much simpler concept: a boring school day where the students suddenly break into a massive dance routine in customized Catholic school uniforms.
8. She Co-Authored a Novel
Spears added “published author” to her resume at the height of her teen pop fame. In 2001, she teamed up with her mother, Lynne Spears, to write a young adult fiction novel titled A Mother’s Gift. The story loosely mirrored Britney’s own life, following a young teenage girl from a small, rural southern town who earns a scholarship to a prestigious performing arts school.
9. Creating Fine Art for Charity
Beyond singing and dancing, Spears is an avid painter who frequently shares videos of herself creating artwork on her patio while listening to classical music. In 2017, she put her hobby to a noble use by donating an original painting of vibrant flowers to a charity auction. The piece was purchased by television personality Robin Leach for $10,000, with all the proceeds going directly to a fund supporting the victims of the tragic Las Vegas music festival shooting.
10. A Billion-Dollar Fragrance Empire
While her music sales are astronomical, her ventures in the beauty industry are equally staggering. In 2004, she released her debut fragrance, “Curious,” which shattered sales records and became the fastest-selling perfume of the year. This initial success spawned a massive, sprawling fragrance empire that has released over 30 different scents and generated well over a billion dollars in global revenue.
11. Beamed Directly to Mars
In 2012, NASA successfully landed the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars. To keep the team on Earth motivated and celebrate their daily milestones, the engineers played specific “wake-up” songs in the control room. One of the tracks selected to motivate the team monitoring the distant planet was Spears’ hit “Oops!… I Did It Again,” cementing her music’s reach on a truly interplanetary scale.
12. Teaching Local Aerobics Classes
Right before signing the record deal that would change her life forever, Spears needed a way to make money and stay active in her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana. Utilizing her natural rhythm and athleticism, she found work leading daily aerobics classes at a local gym, teaching complex cardio routines to the residents of her small town long before she took those skills to stadium stages.
13. The Missing Role in The Notebook
The romantic drama The Notebook is heavily defined by the chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. However, the casting process for the female lead came down to the wire. Spears delivered a phenomenal emotional audition for the role of Allie Hamilton and was considered the absolute frontrunner by the producers, but she ultimately lost out to McAdams at the very last moment.
14. Her First Acting Role Was a BBQ Commercial
Years before her highly anticipated feature film debut in Crossroads, Spears had to start at the very bottom of the acting ladder. Her first officially credited on-screen role was a local 1993 television commercial for Maull’s Barbecue Sauce. In the brief advertisement, a young Spears can be seen happily eating barbecue while surrounded by her on-screen family.
15. She Has Her Own Official Holiday
Las Vegas completely revitalized Spears’ career when she launched her highly successful Piece of Me residency. In recognition of the massive economic boost she brought to the city’s tourism industry, Clark County officially declared November 5th as “Britney Spears Day.” She was presented with an honorary key to the Las Vegas Strip during a massive public ceremony to celebrate the occasion.
