Chap­ter 40 cap­tures the dra­mat­ic and chaot­ic atmos­phere of the 2018 event that was meant to show­case my return to Vegas. As the crowd gath­ered out­side the new Park MGM hotel in Las Vegas, the ener­gy was elec­tric. Super­fans dressed in match­ing out­fits waved flags with the let­ter “B,” show­ing their unwa­ver­ing sup­port for me. Dancers on stage wore T‑shirts embla­zoned with my name, and announc­ers livestreamed the event, get­ting their fol­low­ers hyped up. The night was filled with flash­ing laser lights, boom­ing dance music, and images from my past music videos pro­ject­ed on a giant screen. A parade passed by, with marchers loud­ly singing my song “…My lone­li­ness is killing me!” The ener­gy was pal­pa­ble, but as the lights dimmed, the unex­pect­ed hap­pened.

Mario Lopez, who was host­ing the event, began his intro­duc­tion. The music from “Tox­ic” played dra­mat­i­cal­ly as lights flashed across the Park MGM, mak­ing the build­ing seem alive with ener­gy. A stun­ning med­ley of pro­jec­tions, includ­ing a rock­et ship, a heli­copter, and a cir­cus tent, played across the screen. Fire shot up from fire pits around the stage, cre­at­ing an atmos­phere of high ten­sion. I rose from the floor on a hydraulic lift, dressed in a tight black dress with star cutouts and tas­sels, my long blonde hair flow­ing. Mario Lopez con­tin­ued his announce­ment, intro­duc­ing me as “the new queen of Vegas.” I walked down the stairs to “Work Bitch,” stop­ping briefly to sign auto­graphs for my fans, as was expect­ed of me. But then, in a move no one antic­i­pat­ed, I did some­thing com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed.

Instead of stay­ing and per­form­ing, I walked right past the cam­eras and kept mov­ing until I reached an SUV. I climbed in and left with­out say­ing a word. The crowd, announc­ers, and view­ers must have been left in com­plete con­fu­sion. What had just hap­pened? They were like­ly won­der­ing why I didn’t per­form, why I didn’t ful­fill the expec­ta­tions set for the night. In that moment, I made a bold state­ment with­out utter­ing a sin­gle word. It was a clear mes­sage that I was no longer going to be con­trolled by oth­ers’ expec­ta­tions, no mat­ter how grand the spec­ta­cle was sup­posed to be.

This event high­light­ed the pro­found inner con­flict I was expe­ri­enc­ing at the time. On one hand, I had a duty to my fans, to the per­sona they had built for me, and to the indus­try that expect­ed me to per­form. On the oth­er hand, I was strug­gling with my own auton­o­my, my need for space, and my desire to reclaim con­trol over my life. The pres­sures of being con­stant­ly in the pub­lic eye, of per­form­ing to the high­est stan­dards every time, had tak­en a toll on me. It was hard to bal­ance the need to stay true to myself while meet­ing the over­whelm­ing expec­ta­tions of the enter­tain­ment world. But that night, I chose to walk away from it all. It wasn’t an act of rebel­lion for rebel­lion’s sake, but a clear indi­ca­tion of how bad­ly I need­ed to break free from the relent­less pres­sure of fame.

What I had learned through this expe­ri­ence was how much pow­er can be tak­en away from a per­son when they are pushed to per­form with­out con­sid­er­a­tion for their well-being. It’s easy to get caught up in the spec­ta­cle of fame and the desire for val­i­da­tion, but the truth is, I had become exhaust­ed by the con­stant need to please oth­ers. That moment at Park MGM, where I walked away with­out per­form­ing, was my way of say­ing, “No more.” It was a sym­bol­ic act of self-preser­va­tion, a turn­ing point in my strug­gle to regain con­trol over my own life and career. This unex­pect­ed deci­sion to not per­form was not just a per­son­al statement—it was my way of reclaim­ing my pow­er.