As children, Michael and Britney had adult sounding voices. At age twelve, Britney sounded like a 30 year old woman. When she was first launched by Jive Records, Britney's voice was coached to give it her now distinctive breathy feeling. In order to avoid mistakes and sounding out of tune while dancing on stage, her managers made her lip synch, which is why a lot of people are convinced she can't sing at all. At this point she has spent more than half her life smoking, which may probably have damaged her voice.
Michael's natural voice developed into a tenor as he grew up, but he chose to speak in a very feminine way. He has also been criticized for lip synching.

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The King and Princess of Pop: shared traits of two performers
RandomA series of vignettes describing the traits these two gifted performers share.