Don't You Know That You're Toxic? The True Story of Britney Spears' 'Toxic'

By early 2004, Britney Spears had FIRMLY established herself at
the pinnacle of pop Music. 


Britney had already claimed the title of being the best selling
teenage artist of all time thanks to the successes of her albums
Baby One More Time and …Oops I Did it
Again, and she had just become the youngest artist to be
inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame at age 21. 


Britney had also already gone a whopping 26x times platinum for
her first three mega hit records released in 1999, 2000, and
2001, and she would quickly add another 2 million records to that
tally for her 2003 Effort In the Zone,
essentially as soon as it was released.


The debut single from In The Zone; a Madonna collab called 'Me
Against The Music' peaked at a very un-Britney-like #35 on the
Billboard Hot 100, but it wouldn’t really matter in the
grand scheme of things, 


because like the album title implied - Britney Spears was In The
Zone, and as 2003 turned to 2004 - we were all about to go on a
ride.


Just in time for it's 20th Anniversary; this is the story of
Britney Spears' 'Toxic' with newly unearthed audio from Britney
Spears herself.


Note: a previous version of this episode identified Joseph Kahn
as Joseph Hahn. We regret the error.