Britney Spears revealed that she was very nervous to perform with a snake during her classic “I’m A Slave 4 U” performance at the 2001 MTV VMAs. While teasing her upcoming memoir The Woman In Me, the popstar, 41, revealed that while the performance was a “favorite,” she was afraid about performing with a live reptile. She said she was excited to share her thoughts with her fans in the tweet on Wednesday, Sep. 6.
Posting it with a clip from the iconic performance, Britney admitted that she can still recall the moment before the show vividly. “One of my favorite performances was with an albino python,” she wrote. “I still remember how scared I felt when I was handed this snake and took the stage!”
Clearly, the fear didn’t get the best of Britney! The performance is still widely considered one of her best, and people still discuss the star singing and dancing with the python around her neck. She promised to talk about that performance and others in her upcoming book, which will come out on October 24.
It’s only fitting that Britney reflected on one of her most famous VMA performances of all-time with the annual award show coming up soon. The singer has performed at the award show five times, with her first performance being in 1999 and her last in 2016. Throughout those performances, she’s also gotten to share the stage with other huge stars, like Madonna. In 2011, she was honored with the Video Vanguard Award, which commemorates a lifetime of achievement in music and videos. The 2023 MTV VMAs will air on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
While the memoir will hopefully shed some light on the classic performance, it’s not the first time that Britney has looked back on the 2001 VMAs. In 2021, she marked the 20th anniversary of the performance by dressing up as the snake itself. “I held a snake at the @VMAs one time but decided to go ahead 20 years later and become the motherf***ing snake myself,” she wrote in an Instagram caption.