In 1998, a 16-year-old girl from Louisiana named Britney Spears released her debut music video, “Baby One More Time,” which cracked open the world of pop music and ushered in a futuristic new era.
Those who knew her from her three-year stint on The Mickey Mouse Club — which she starred on alongside future beau Justin Timberlake as well as Ryan Gosling and Christina Aguilera — would be hard-pressed to recognize the soulful girl belting out Chaka Khan’s “I Feel for You” in this sultry teenager strutting down the hallway of her high school and doing backflips in a pink sports bra.
“I was praying every night,” she told Rolling Stone about releasing the song. “‘God, please, help them play it on just my radio station at home.’ And then they did. Then all of a sudden, it’s playing on all the big radio stations in New York. And everything just started happening for me, and I was just like, wow, you know?”