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Britney Spears is once again speaking out about her strained, painful relationship with her family. In fact, in an Instagram post on Wednesday (Feb. 3), Spears, 44, claimed that she is “lucky to be alive” given how her have treated her over the years.
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And while Spears did not name names or get into specifics, the lengthy post accompanied by an image of a baby holding a woman’s hand appeared to be a form of catharsis for the pop star who has effectively retired from public life. “As people, all we really want is to feel connected to each other and never feel alone … for those of you in your family that have said to help you is to isolate you and make you feel unbelievably left out … they were wrong,” Spears wrote.
“We can forgive as people but u don’t ever forget. Yearning and longing for contact is always crucial !!! I’m incredibly lucky to even be alive with how my family treated me once in my life and now I’m scared of them. It’s weird how God works in mysterious ways,” she continued. “My friends, what do you think he is saying today ??? Because to be totally honest with you, no matter what he says, they will never take responsibility for what they did.”
Since the end of her restrictive 13-year conservatorship in 2021 — during which her estranged father, Jaime, and a lawyer were appointed by a court to control her personal and professional affairs — Spears has frequently posted about her strained relationship with her dad, mom Lynne and sister Jamie Lynn.
In fact, over the holidays, Spears posted a pic of a Christmas tree with a snarky caption wishing a “merry late Christmas to my beautiful family who have never disrespected me, harmed me, ever done anything completely unacceptable or caused unbelievable trauma, the kind you can’t fix. To my dear sweet innocent family… so so sorry I was busy this Christmas but I will definitely show up and surprise you soon.”
She also alluded to the difficult conservatorship period and how it strained her relationship with her family in her best-selling 2024 memoir, The Woman in Me, in which she wrote, “I became a robot. But not just a robot — a sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself. The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child. I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me.”
That post appeared to be a response to a festive shot shared earlier in the week by younger sister Jamie Lynn that showed her celebrating the holiday with her husband, two daughters, as well as Lynne Spears and Britney’s son Sean Preston Federline.
While the mood was heavy in Wednesday’s post, Spears ended it on a lighter note, writing about how she made a cheesecake on Wednesday that was, if she’s being honest, “pretty damn good,” and she shared it with a neighbor over a glass of milk. She also noted that she hasn’t filmed one of her famous dancing videos in a month because she broke her toe, twice.
