Britney Spears Tearful The Notebook Audition Released After 21 Years

Britney Spears‘ never-before-seen audition for the 2004 tear-jerker The Notebook has been released (embedded below).

The singer sobs as she reads lines for nearly three minutes with Ryan Gosling for co-lead of the romantic drama, a role she lost to Rachel McAdams.

The 2002 tape was released online by The Daily Mail, which wrote that the video was hidden for decades by casting director Matthew Barry and noted there was an eBay listing in 2021 offering the tape for $1 million.

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Barry told Daily Mail that Spears impressed the producers (“Britney blew us all away, our jaws were on the floor”) and was the lead contender for the role until McAdams read for the part.

Spears has been in the news recently with the release of her long-awaited memoir The Woman in Me. In the book, she discussed losing the Notebook role.

“Even though it would have been fun to reconnect with Ryan Gosling after our time on the Mickey Mouse Club, I’m glad I didn’t do it,” she said according to People. “I imagine there are people in the acting field who have dealt with something like that, where they had trouble separating themselves from a character. I hope I never get close to that occupational hazard again. Living that way, being half yourself and half a fictional character, is messed up. After a while you don’t know what’s real anymore.”

The Notebook was based on Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 novel about a young couple who fall in love in the 1940s, while their romance is framed by the couple in their twilight years while one of them suffers from Alzheimer’s. The film was directed by Nick Cassavetes and grossed $115 million worldwide.

Spears had previously starred in 2002’s coming-of-age dramedy Crossroads, a film that was lambasted by critics.

Spears’ new memoir, which comes out Oct. 24, will tell her story of a decades-long career, growing up in entertainment, her various personal relationships and her 13-year conservatorship, which ended in November 2021. Among other revelations in Spears’ book is that she had an abortion while she was in a relationship with fellow singer Justin Timberlake, calling it “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.”

The Notebook’s studio New Line had no immediate comment on the tape.

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