Britney Spears may have seemed completely in her element onstage at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, but it turns out, that wasn’t entirely the case.

In her new memoir, “The Woman In Me,” published on Tuesday, Spears says that what viewers didn’t see was that the snake she had around her shoulders hissed at her during her performance of “I’m a Slave 4 U.”

Britney Spears says the 7-foot snake from her iconic VMAs performance hissed at her: ‘I felt if I looked up and caught its eye, it would kill me’

“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 at me,” writes the singer. “You didn’t see that shot on the TV, but in real life? I was thinking, ‘Are you fucking serious right now? The fucking goddamn snake’s tongue is flicking out at me. Right. Now.’ Finally, I got to the part where I handed it back, thank God.”

Spears was already apprehensive about performing with the 7-foot albino Burmese python going into the performance.

The “Toxic” singer recalls rehearsing with the python in Manhattan, New York, in the days before the VMAs, and worrying about its size.

Britney Spears’ performance was iconic.Kevin Kane/WireImage/Getty
“The girl who handed it over was even smaller than me — she looked so young, and she was very tiny, with blond hair,” writes Spears. “I couldn’t believe they didn’t have some big guy in charge — I remember thinking, ‘You’re letting us two little munchkins handle this huge snake…?'”

“To be honest, I was a little scared — that snake was a huge animal, yellow and white, crinkly, gross-looking,” she continues.

Although Spears managed to get through the rehearsals just fine, when it came to the event itself, she says her nerves kicked in.

“Once again the little munchkin came to me and handed me that huge snake, and all I knew was to look down, because I felt if I looked up and caught its eye, it would kill me. In my head, I was saying, ‘Just perform, just use your legs and perform,'” the singer writes in her memoir.

In “The Woman In Me,” Spears also talks about an abortion she had during her relationship with Justin Timberlake, and the time she was grounded after taking her mask off at the beach during the COVID-19 pandemic.