Even someone with a passing interest in entertainment probably remembers that wild night in 2007 when Britney Spears, sporting a freshly shaved head, attacked a paparazzi’s car with her umbrella while screaming “f*** you!”
There was no question at that time that the world’s biggest pop star had reached a breaking point. That incident and others led to her family members successfully putting Spears under a conservatorship led by her now estranged father, Jamie Spears. Few people questioned if it was necessary at the time because it so clearly was.
Fast forward 16 years and things are a little murkier. Following the momentum of the FreeBritney movement, led by fans who insisted Spears should be “freed” from her conservatorship, the 41-year-old pop singer is finally free to do as she wants again. But at what cost?
Now that they got what they wanted, fans are worried all over again as the “Toxic” singer continues to behave in bizarre and unpredictable ways. She hasn’t brandished any umbrellas recently or shaved her head. Still, there are quite a few fans who wouldn’t be too shocked if she did.
The new documentary “TMZ Investigates: Britney Spears, The Price of Freedom” delves into what’s happened in the year since Spears was freed from the conservatorship. Some of the claims are based on rumors, but plenty can be supported with evidence posted on social media.
According to the TMZ series, Spears has been living in “virtual isolation” since having her conservatorship dissolved. They claim the singer spends her days reading fiction, suntanning, and driving around aimlessly.
“Sometimes she’ll drive to a quiet dirt path, park and just kind of meditate,” TMZ news director Brad Appleton said.
“She hangs out at her pool because she loves to tan. She works out in her gym, and she dances wildly and a lot,” TMZ producer Katie Hayes explained. This claim has plenty of evidence to back it up.
Followers know for certain that the “Gimme More” singer has been posting strange videos of herself on Instagram. Spears has become notorious for sharing clips of herself dancing, often while dressed in skimpy outfits. The pop star follows that up by deleting her social media accounts and reinstating them over and over again.
These provocative posts are one suspected reason that Spears allegedly hasn’t seen her two teenage sons, Jayden and Sean Preston, in over a year. The boys were not present at her wedding to Sam Asghari in June 2022. They are supposedly embarrassed by their mother’s posts and are living full time with Spears’ ex-husband Kevin Federline.
“By the end of last summer, tensions between them had gotten so bad, the boys weren’t even responding to her texts,” one source claimed in the documentary. “And she was furious.”
“I don’t think I would have wanted to worry about all of my friends and schoolmates accessing social media and seeing pictures of my mother half or full unclothed,” a source alleged.
“The Price of Freedom” discusses several other rumors about Spears, including one about how those closest to the pop star were instructed to keep knives away from her. The documentary also alleges that Spears drinks copious amounts of caffeine, which keeps her awake for days at a time.
TMZ founder Harvey Levin said multiple sources discussed how Spears “drinks coffee, Red Bull, Celsius and dandelion tea by the gallons, and that contributes to her manic episodes.”
Spears previously refuted claims that she was addicted to caffeine.
“My mind gets busy and sometimes that can be an easy target to mess with…. Anyways, I’m sticking to watermelon juice, which is the weirdest thing ever but I was told for years I can’t have coffee and now that I can it’s my pride… I can’t even look at it !!! And green tea is my prized possession !!! You clever little turds…” she wrote in a lengthy Instagram post.
“Sorry but I never stay up late with Red Bull !!! It is absolutely the worst drink ever,” she went on. “I don’t like people in media bullying me and saying hateful things.”
Sources in the documentary also put the spotlight on Spears’ marriage to Asghari. They allege that the relationship is in “deep trouble” and that the celebrity has become physical when fighting with him.
“He’s a big guy and we’re told pretty passive, so he just takes it, so he does get angry, and screaming matches are not infrequent,” managing editor Fabian Garcia said.
The documentary also claimed that Asghari doesn’t sleep at the house very often.
Asghari, 29, said these rumors are all lies. “I found it absolutely disgusting that people that were in her life at the time, when she didn’t have a voice, they went and told her story like it was theirs. It was absolutely disgusting,” Asghari said in a video he posted to Instagram stories.
Asghari went on: “How are you gonna take the most influential person of our generation, the princess of pop, America’s sweetheart, and put her in prison where her father tells her what to do, what water to drink, who to see, and use her as a money-making machine?”
“Then, all the sudden, after 15 years when she’s free, after all those gaslighting and after all those things that went down, how are you gonna put her under a microscope and tell her story? No. That’s also disgusting.”
In February, Spears addressed the multitude of unauthorized documentaries being released about her.
“With 4 documentaries released about me last year with people I adore speaking about my past !!” she wrote in an Instagram post which praised Pamela Anderson. “Unfortunately, the way my past was portrayed in those documentaries was extremely embarrassing !!! It felt semi-illegal !!!”
So far Spears hasn’t responded directly to the TMZ documentary or its validity. And though her fans are nervous, they’re still wildly supportive, which becomes immediately evident in the comments of anything she posts on Instagram. They may worry about Spears but they’re still clearly rooting for her.