BUSTLE.COM: Twenty years ago, music executives in midtown Manhattan’s Sony building were excited about a 14-year-old girl from Orlando. She’d just started her freshman year of high school back home in Florida, the number one song in the country was “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” by Aerosmith, and a month later in October 1998, Jive Records would release “…Baby One More Time.” That song would go on to top the charts in the United States and 18 other countries, become one of the best selling singles of all time, and launch Britney Spears into stardom with a propulsion so strong, the Earth would crack and little Britneys would spring from it and fight for their time in the sun.

She apologized for being late, which she wasn’t.

Mandy Moore and I are eating lunch 528 feet from that building where it all started two decades ago. “I was just looking at the Sony building thinking, whoa. If I had told myself 20 years ago that this would be my life, I’d still be doing this in some capacity, it’s insane.”

Mandy recently did an interview with Bustle. You can read the full article here. Click below for images, which were donated by Natalia.