Britney Spears Recalls Iconic, "Terrifying" Snake VMAs Performance

In a snippet shared from her memoir 'The Woman in Me,' Britney Spears has opened up about one her most memorable live performances, the 2001 VMAs where she performed 'I'm a Slave 4 U' with an albino Burmese python named Banana. 

“The plan was for me to sing ‘I’m a Slave 4 U,’ and we decided I would use a snake as a prop. It’s become an iconic moment in VMAs history, but it was even more terrifying than it appeared. All I knew was to look down, because I felt if I looked up and caught its eye, it would kill me.”

She survived the performance and is now revealing what she was thinking at the time.

"In my head I was saying, Just perform, just use your legs and perform. But what nobody knows is that as I was singing, the snake brought its head right around to my face, right up to me, and started hissing. I was thinking, Are you f---ing serious right now? The f---ing goddamn snake’s tongue is flicking out at me. Right. Now. Finally, I got to the part where I handed it back, thank God."

She also opened up about the scare on Instagram in September, sharing a clip of the performance and revealing just “how scared” she was singing with a live python.

In the clip, she famously had the snake draped around her neck as she held up its body with her hands.

"One of my favorite performances was with an albino python 😳🐍💃🏼 … I still remember how scared I felt when I was handed this snake and took the stage !!!"

“I talked more about this performance and other favorites in my book #TheWomanInMe. I can’t wait for you to read it on October 24th 😉🌹 @gallerybooks @simonschusteruk."

'The Woman in Me' is now available, and the audiobook will be narrated by Michelle Williams. For the audio version, Britney will record an introduction, and Michelle will lend her voice to the remainder.

"This book has been a labor of love and all the emotions that come with it. Reliving everything has been exciting, heart-wrenching, and emotional, to say the least. For those reasons, I will only be reading a small part of my audiobook. I am so grateful to the amazing Michelle Williams for reading the rest of it."