In her new memoir, Through the Storm, which hit stores on Sept. 16, Britney Spears’s own mother, Lynne Spears, admits that Brit’s teenage years — during which Britney rose to superstardom — were considerably less wholesome than the public was led to believe.

Britney Spears Forced To Live A Lie

Now friends of the Spears family have opened up to Life & Style, revealing just how manipulated and manufactured nearly every aspect of young Britney’s life was.

“From early on, Britney’s team had one agenda: promoting the image of Britney as a good Southern girl,” says a family insider. “But her reality was a completely different story.”

Brit eventually rebelled against her girl-next-door image, becoming a twice-married mother of two by the time she was 25. After suffering a mental collapse in early 2008, she finally seems to be on the road to permanent recovery.

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