After nearly 14 years living under a strict conservatorship she deemed abusive and exploitative, Britney Spears is free.
And now that a California court has lifted the controversial legal arrangement barring one of the world’s best-selling pop stars from managing her own life and finances, many fans are asking what’s next.
Speculation abounds — Kids? Travel? Suing her family? — but the answer is elusive, particularly given the guarded lifestyle Spears was legally bound to during more than a decade that saw her largely governed by her father, Jamie.
The magnetic superstar, who turns 40 on Dec. 2, has not given an interview in years, rarely makes public appearances, and last performed in October 2018.
Today most of what the public knows about Spears — who soared to global fame as a teenager on a burst of hits including her breakout “…Baby One More Time,” before a highly publicized mental breakdown saw her become a paparazzi punching bag -—comes from her eccentric Instagram account.
For years the bubbly star has posted regularly, sometimes uploading videos of herself twirling or doing dance routines, other times waxing poetic on hopes and dreams.
The line of communication from Spears’s lavish Los Angeles mansion to the outside world — she has more than 90 million followers across Instagram and Twitter — has offered the singer a modicum of control over her image and is perhaps where the most accurate reading of her plans lies.