Why does pop icon Britney Spears have a beef with this Rochester native?
More than a few people are painted as villains in Britney Spears’ memoir, “The Woman in Me.”
Her parents — particularly her father, Jamie Spears; her ex-boyfriend and fellow celebrity Justin Timberlake; Kevin Federline, her second ex-husband and father of her two sons; and TV journalist Diane Sawyer.
But there’s someone else Spears has a beef with, and because there’s always a Rochester connection, that person grew up in Henrietta: Louise “Lou” M. Taylor, Spears’ former business manager, whom the pop star claims played a pivotal role in her controversial 13-year conservatorship.
Spears’ first reference to Taylor appears on page 166 of the book, released Oct. 24, 2023: “My father had struck up a very close friendship with Louise ‘Lou’ Taylor, who he worshipped. She was front and center during the implementation of the conservatorship that would later allow them to control and take over my career.”
It turns out that Taylor spent her formative years here as Louise M. Sawyer and in 1984 graduated from Charles H. Roth High School, Rush-Henrietta Central School District records show. (From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, to deal with overcrowding, the district had two senior high schools.)
She was a standout volleyball player and co-captain of the girls’ varsity team.
Democrat and Chronicle game coverage from the early 1980s highlighted her skill as a server, as well as her versatility, which often led the squad to victory. In 1984, she was one of just seven female high school volleyball players in Monroe County recognized by the newspaper for outstanding athletic achievement.
She enrolled at Monroe Community College but didn’t complete a degree, according to an MCC spokesperson.
By 1988, she was working as a payroll bookkeeper for Preferred Care, a former local health insurer.
Her office was at Monroe Square (the old Sears building), 259 Monroe Ave. Also on the premises was an engineering firm, where Robert Taylor worked as a draftsman.
On Aug. 29 of that year, they started chatting at a blood drive in the building, leading to love and marriage.
Their meet-cute was the subject of a Democrat and Chronicle feature that also described the couple’s unusual wedding, held June 17, 1989, on their 21-foot boat, Perfect, on Long Pond in Greece.
The groom was dressed in a white bathing suit, tank top and bow tie. The bride wore a white two-piece, a sarong and a veil.
After the ceremony, “We went around Long Pond, hootin’ and hollerin’ to everybody,” she told the newspaper, which stated the couple lived in Greece.
The event reflected their shared love of the water and desire to be different, but Lou Taylor was still years from making a big splash.
