“I’m just being myself and trying to heal,” Britney Spears writes in her memoir The Woman in Me. While it’s not an overtly feminist manifesto, the men in her life don’t come out well.
There’s Justin Timberlake playing a song as she lies in agony after an abortion. There’s her dad and that whole conservatorship thing.
Fortunately, she states proudly, “I’m free now.” Except… is she? The Free Britney movement, which helped end the conservatorship in November 2021, has splintered into warring factions, and anyone paying attention to her social media accounts is worried.
Britney is her generation’s Elvis – wrong side of the tracks, early sexy outrage, domineering management, trainwreck late-stage career. The Woman in Me is an exposé of the way the music industry treats young women.
But if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if Elvis had been on social media, check Britney’s Instagram and weep.
Britney was the vanguard of the Millennials, shoving Generation X’s short time in the sun aside with her debut single back in 1998. Now Free Britney 2.0 TikTok accounts, using the tag @BritneyIsNotFree, are sharing conspiracy theories.
A video from July of this year titled “Proof Britney Spears Was Replaced by an A.I. on Her Wedding Day” sets out to prove that… well, the clue is in the title. In January, some fans took Britney’s Instagram post of a Porsche 911 as a signal she needed help and called the police to check on her.
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office sent a car then issued a dry statement: “We don’t believe that Britney Spears is in any kind of harm or any kind of danger.”
Both Britney and her ex-husband Kevin Federline denied press reports this summer that her family was worried about a drug habit.
Britney insists she has only ever taken Adderall, although some of her ‘gram posts don’t look like they come from a healthy place. Estranged husband Sam Asghari suggested she dial it back a little for her teenage sons’ sake. “I try to explain to [her kids], ‘Look, maybe that’s just another way she tries to express herself,’” he said in 2022. “But that doesn’t take away from the fact of what it does to them. It’s tough.”
In August, Asghari filed for divorce. On the same day, Britney posted: “Buying a horse soon!!!” under a photo of herself riding a chestnut horse on a sandy beach.
Eventually she addressed her split, alongside a video of her in pants and a top mopping sweat from her face and neck before dancing to a Janet Jackson song. “I will be as strong as I can and do my best !!! And I’m actually doing pretty damn good !!!” Let’s hope so.