Britney Spears is in the headlines again, and it’s not looking good. Reports allege that the 43-year-old’s mansion has dog poop all over it, and that once again, she’s spiraling. This week, she posted a video of herself dancing against the wall of a sushi restaurant bathroom while on a date with an “absolutely horrible” guy. The video shows her lifting up her short dress and acting in a way that would inspire double takes, whether or not it was Spears gyrating. It’s the latest in a rash of strange videos, including ones where she’s speaking in a British accent. Most of them are hard to watch, but the awkward fact is, her fans campaigned for her right to blow up her life in this way.
It’s been nearly four years since Britney was freed. On November 12, 2021, the legal conservatorship that dictated things like which medications she had to take, access to her own finances, and how often she had to attend therapy, was permanently lifted by Judge Brenda Penny, in Los Angeles. The conservatorship began in February 2008, and was presided over by her father Jamie Spears and Andrew Wallet, a family lawyer, who argued that she wasn’t able to take care of herself—she had recently barricaded herself in a bathroom with one of her sons, then been placed on a 5150 psychiatric hold. It ended thanks, in no small part, to a social media campaign by fans, who Spears credited with saving her life by supporting her legal battle for freedom.
“I’m not here to be anyone’s slave,” Spears told the court at a hearing over the arrangement in June 2021. “All I want is to own my money, for this to end, and my boyfriend to drive me in his fucking car.”
For a second it seemed like Spears was going to get exactly what she said she wanted. She became engaged to and married her boyfriend, the trainer-actor-model Sam Asghari. She published a memoir called The Woman in Me, where she wrote about how the legal arrangement turned her into an “entity” and “stripped me of my womanhood.” She was free to spend her money and get pregnant (while she was in the conservatorship, she was forbidden from getting her IUD removed)—which she did. She began posting online, mostly videos of her dancing and sexily staring into the camera, adjusting her clothes, and cocking her head to and fro.
