Britney Spears Recalls Being Self-Conscious in LA Until She Met Shakira: “I Finally Felt Normal”

Britney Spears has recalled meeting Shakira early in their careers, saying the encounter helped her feel less self-conscious about her height after arriving in Los Angeles.

“I remember when I first came to LA, I always felt like the youngest and shortest person in the room,” Spears wrote in an Instagram post on Thursday. “Then I met Shakira and she was exactly my size. We were honestly twins. It was insane.”

Spears said the meeting took place around the filming of Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever” video in 2001, as the Colombian singer was making her crossover into the English-language market with Laundry Service .

She remembered Shakira wearing the braids and colorful hair associated with that era and noted that both singers had just woken up from naps before meeting. Spears even brought Christina Aguilera into the comparison, saying Shakira was more similar to her in stature, “even more so than Christina, who is actually shorter than me.” Looking back on the encounter, Spears concluded: “I finally felt normal.”

Spears and Shakira would cross paths again publicly the following year, when they appeared alongside Mary J. Blige on a 2002 Rolling Stone cover .

Elsewhere in the post, Spears reflected on her early career and the effects of her conservatorship, saying people still “don’t realize the real damage that was done to my heart and soul.”