Madonna’s real name is Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. She was born in Bay City, Michigan, on August 16th, 1958. Her father was Silvio Anthony “Tony” Ciccone — an engineer designer for Chrysler and General Motors. Her mother was Madonna Louise. Since Madonna shared her mother’s name, her family called her “Little Nonnie.”

Her mother was of French-Canadian descent, while her paternal grandparents — Gaetano Ciccone and Michelina Dijulio — came from one of Italy’s most beautiful villages, Pacentro. Little Nonnie (pictured, middle) had two older brothers, Anthony and Martin. She also had three younger siblings named Paula, Christopher, and Melanie.

Devastatingly, Madonna’s mother passed away from breast cancer on December 1st, 1963. She was just 30 years old. Poor Tony, Little Nonnie, and her siblings watched as their mom slowly wasted away over the last year of her life. Her mother’s passing had a massive impact on the five-year-old, and Madonna later said she’d be a different person if her mom had lived.

Tony remarried just three years later. Feeling alone, empty, abandoned — and terrified her dad would also be taken from her — Madonna became close with her grandmother, Michelina.

Surprisingly, Madonna described herself as being quiet and nerdy at school. She got straight A’s in high school and supposedly has an IQ of 140. However, the rebellious cheerleader (pictured, middle) performed cartwheels in the school hallways, dangled from the monkey bars during recess, and pulled up her skirt during class to show boys her underwear!

A vegetarian since she was 15, Madonna explained that growing up in Northern Michigan, she studied hard as you had to “if you wanted to get out of the small town and be somebody.”

Madonna attended the University of Michigan on a dance scholarship but flunked out to pursue a career in music. In 1978, while Debbie Harry, Blondie, The Ramones, and Talking Heads were rocking CBGB’s and the New York music scene, Madonna arrived in the Big Apple with just $35 in her pocket. She said, “It was the bravest thing I’d ever done.”

She worked as a waitress in Dunkin’ Donuts, but her low wage meant she posed for adult magazines, getting paid as little as $25 a session.

The young waitress and model found an apartment in the East Village. At night, she studied under choreographer Martha Graham and worked as a backup dancer. But New York was rough, and she was mugged and burglarized three times. Then, late one night, two men assaulted her on her way home from rehearsal.

She later said the incident was “a taste of my weakness; it showed me that I still could not save myself in spite of all the strong-girl show. I could never forget it.” But, Madonna recovered and used the trauma to make her stronger.

Madonna and her then-boyfriend Dan Gilroy formed The Breakfast Club in which she sang and played both the drums and guitar. Check out the 2018 documentary called Madonna and the Breakfast Club. In 1981, the punk rocker formed Emmy with her new boyfriend, Stephen Bray. But then, she went solo, and her career took off!

Her solo music impressed record producer and DJ Mark Kamins, so he arranged a meeting between Madonna and Seymour Stein, founder of Sire Records. And that’s how the ’80s began. By the decade’s end, she was a global icon and millions of fans copied her style.

Madonna’s debut single, “Everybody” came out in October 1982, followed by “Burning Up” in March 1983. Both became big club hits. While dating artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, she recorded an album, but it was a non-starter as she hated producer Reggie Lucas’ production techniques.

Madonna moved in with her next boyfriend, DJ John “Jellybean” Benitez (pictured), who remixed the tracks and created her new upbeat synthetic disco sound. The singer’s debut album, Madonna, was released in July 1983. It featured two top-ten singles — “Borderline” and “Lucky Star”.

In 1984, the newly crowned Princess of Pop released her second album, Like a Virgin. Produced by Nile Rodgers from Chic, it sold 21 million copies. Performing “Like a Virgin” at 1984’s inaugural MTV Video Music Awards, she shocked the world atop a giant wedding cake in a full white wedding dress, gloves, veil, stockings, and suspenders.

The song, video, and MTV appearance provided ammunition for Madonna’s first brush with conservative groups. She won back fans by paying homage to her idol, Marilyn Monroe, in “Material Girl”.

In 1985, Madonna appeared in comedy-drama Desperately Seeking Susan, a film that featured her first UK number-one single, “Into the Groove”. In April, she toured North America on The Virgin Tour with NYC punk-rock rappers, The Beastie Boys. But, her past was about to come back to haunt her.

In July, Playboy and Penthouse magazines published those naughty photos from the early ’80s. The same month, the Los Angeles Times reported Madonna filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the release of a blue movie she made in 1980.

Madonna started dating Sean Penn after meeting the actor on her “Material Girl” music video set. They married in Malibu on her 27th birthday in August 1985. Their relationship was passionate and tumultuous. The celebrity couple earned the nickname “Poison Penns” as they constantly argued and fought.

Sean was hugely jealous and possessive. In 1986, he attacked David Wolinski when he spotted the songwriter speaking to his wife. He was also convinced Madonna was having an affair with model English singer and Levi’s model Nick Kamen.

By 1987, Madonna had had enough, so she filed for divorce. A spokesperson said, “There was no one direct incident leading up to this; it was a series of cumulative pressures. There were many moments in their marriage when it was shaky, and Madonna was finally forced to face the reality of the situation — that they weren’t happy together.”

The couple divorced in 1989 but remained friends. At a 2016 Art Basel charity gala in Miami, she tried to extort $150,000 from Sean Penn by offering to marry him again!

In 1986, Madonna released her third studio album featuring “Papa Don’t Preach”, “Open Your Heart”, and “La Isla Bonita”. True Blue became one of the best-selling albums of all time. However, she also received her first Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress opposite Sean Penn in Shanghai Surprise.

In 1987, she acted in the slightly better Who’s That Girl. 1987’s Who’s That Girl World Tour attracted over 130,000 people to a show in Paris, breaking the world record for the highest-attended female concert of all time.

In 1989, Madonna released her fourth album, Like a Prayer — which she co-wrote with Prince. She also earned five million bucks to appear in a Pepsi-Cola commercial. But when “Like a Prayer” played on MTV, Christians and The Vatican called her a blasphemer.

In the video, Madonna kissed the statue of an African-American saint who came to life and danced in a field of burning crosses. Pepsi pulled the commercial as they feared it would ruin the brand image with Christians across the globe. Madonna kept the five million dollars.

In 1990, Madonna first wore her iconic cone bra and appeared in the brightly colored, cartoonish movie Dick Tracy. She provided the music, including the single “Hanky Panky”. She also got up to some hanky panky with co-star Warren Beatty.

While making the movie, she had a relationship with 53-year-old actor, who was famous as a lothario. The singer and actress described Beatty as an incredible lover but said she was “confident her own skills in the bedroom matched his.”

Also in 1990, Madonna released another of her most famous songs, “Vogue”. The song was about the style and grace of yesteryear. David Fincher’s video contains some great movers and poseurs, and references to Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich, while the lyrics pay homage to “Jean Harlow, Jimmy Dean… on the cover of a magazine.”

Dancers and choreographers Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza and Luis Xtravaganza from the Harlem “House Ball” community introduced Madonna to the art of “Vogueing” at New York’s Sound Factory Club.

In 1990, Madonna began her Blond Ambition World Tour. Many religious groups had a strong negative reaction, especially over an extra raunchy performance of “Like a Virgin”.

Next, Madonna released her first greatest hits album. The Immaculate Collection sold over 31 million copies and included a new song, “Justify My Love”. This became her ninth US number-one, but MTV banned the video. In May 1991, she released her first documentary, Truth or Dare: In Bed With Madonna.

In 1992, Madonna founded her own multi-media entertainment company, Maverick Records. Time Warner paid her a $60 million advance and gave her an unheard-of 20% royalties. This was equaled only by Sony’s deal with her one-time rumored boyfriend, Michael Jackson.

Under the Maverick Records banner, she released her fifth album. Erotica contained the singles “Erotica”, “Deeper and Deeper”, and “Bad Girl” — all of which is appropriate as the maverick bad girl was about to land herself deeper and deeper into hot water yet again!

The Erotica album was a co-release with Madonna’s first book publication. The coffee table book contained explicit photographs of the singer posing au naturel. It sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide but showed a dark underside of the Hollywood Dream.

Later in 1992, she starred in the baseball movie A League of Their Own. A year later, during The Girlie Show World Tour, she dressed provocatively and ultimately offended Puerto Ricans by doing lewd things with their flag on stage.

Within a decade, Madonna had gone from It Girl to risque agent provocateur. Lucy O’Brien, author of Madonna: Like an Icon, wrote about the singer’s fall from grace in the 1990s.

O’Brien wrote, “The perfect iconic goddess of True Blue had all gone. In the same way that sixties beauties like Nico, Marianne Faithfull, and Brigitte Bardot set about destroying their beauty after they were famous, the very thing they felt limited them, Madonna annihilated hers.” Her career was on the rocks.

In addition to her new persona and skimpy costumes, Madonna dated a big bunch of bad boys. In the 1990s, Madonna had relationships with bad-boy basketball player Dennis Rodman and rappers Tupac Shakur and Vanilla Ice. Tupac dumped her by letter when he was in jail!

She also dated rockstar Lenny Kravitz and magician David Blaine. More recently, she dated New York Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez, choreographer Brahim Zaibat, personal trainer Timor Steffens, Ahlamalik Williams, and model Andrew Darnell —who’s 41 years her junior!

In 1994, when dating Denis Rodman, she released her sixth album, Bedtime Stories. During an appearance on Late Night With David Letterman, Madonna launched into a 20-minute expletive-filled rant about her bedroom antics.

The Federal Complaints Commission (FCC) received a record number of complaints. Madonna was spiraling out of control and out to shock for shock’s sake. Everyone was seemingly out to get her. Something needed to change. In short, Madonna needed a miracle!

In 1996, when Madonna was in danger of going off the rails, she and fitness instructor Carlos Leon had a daughter together. They named her Lourdes “Lola” Maria Ciccone Leon after the site of the 1858 Marian Apparitions. The baby was the miracle Madonna needed.

Then, another minor miracle occurred. After winning a Golden Raspberry for Shanghai Surprise, Madge won the Best Actress Golden Globe for playing Argentine heroine Eva Perón in the movie Evita (1996).

Next, denim-clad Madonna hooked up with English producer William Orbit for her seventh album. The electronic dance album Ray of Light (1998) was a massive departure from her previous work, featuring ambient, trip-hop, Middle Eastern music, and mystical themes. Her new lease of life came from studying Eastern mysticism and practicing daily Ashtanga yoga.

By combining Orbit’s beats and Madonna’s mysticism with a stunning, globetrotting time-lapse video for the album’s title track, this 1980s pop diva had reinvented herself as an electronic disco diva for a new millennium.

In 1999, Sting and his wife Trudie Styler introduced Madonna to English film director Guy Ritchie. On August 11th, 2000, she gave birth to their son, Rocco Ritchie. They tied the knot at an idyllic castle in Scotland in December 2000.

They cosplayed as Lord and Lady English manorhouse Ashcombe House in Wiltshire for the next decade, riding horses and dressing in tweed. In 2002, she starred in his movie Swept Away, which some say is the worst movie ever made. It won five Razzies.

They might have had a fairy tale wedding, but Madonna said the marriage was like being in prison. She told The Irish Sun, “There were many times when I wanted to express myself as an artist in ways that I don’t think he felt comfortable with […] There were times when I felt incarcerated. I wasn’t really allowed to be myself.”

According to J. Randy Taraborrelli’s book Madonna, An Intimate Biography of an Icon at Sixty, Guy couldn’t talk with friends and family for fear it would end up in the tabloids.

Desperately unhappy, Madge filed for divorce from Guy in the fall of 2008. The ensuing divorce turned ugly since they didn’t have a prenup agreement, and Madonna lost custody of Rocco. Madonna paid Ritchie $75 million in their divorce settlement, which saw Guy taking it all.

Ritchie was awarded their Wiltshire country estate and 18th Century Mayfair pub, The Punchbowl. The traumatic divorce took a financial and emotional toll, but now Madonna was free to express herself again.

For her eighth studio album, Madonna reinvented herself yet again. A collaboration with William Orbit and French music producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï, Music (2001) blended Ray of Light‘s dance-pop and electronica with good ‘ole fashioned rock, country, and folk.

The title track saw the Queen of Pop wearing a white fur coat and riding like a gangsta in a white limousine with Ali G. The single “Don’t Tell Me” featured her wearing a plaid shirt, walking desert highways, and line-dancing with cowboys. The album sold over 11 million copies worldwide.

After taking a few years out of the limelight to raise Rocco, Madonna came back with a bang in 2005 when she released Confessions on a Dance Floor. The album’s biggest single, “Hung Up” brilliantly incorporated a sample from ABBA’s 1979 hit “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”.

It was the only time Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus allowed another artist to sample their work. The 47-year-old whirled around the dance floor clad in a pink leotard like a lithe 18-year-old.

Between 2006 and 2017, Madonna adopted four children from Malawi. Their names are David, Mercy, and twins Stelle and Estere. But – since this is Madonna – controversy was close behind! By 2006, Madonna had founded a charitable organization Raising Malawi, and funded an orphanage in Malawi.

While touring the south-East African country in October of that year, she decided to adopt David Banda. But, there was a public outcry as Madonna circumvented Malawian law stating that adopters must reside in the country for a year.

Madonna donates a lot of her money to Raising Malawi, and she’s raised tons to help orphans in the African country. The singer also funded The Mercy James Institute for Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care in Blantyre, Malawi.

She was one of the first artists to raise money and awareness for serious immune diseases and founded The Ray of Light Foundation, which supports girls’ education in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In 2010, Madonna released her Material Girl clothing label, which she designed with her beloved daughter, Lourdes. The 1980s-inspired designs were borrowed from her punk-girl style during the decade she rose to fame.

Madonna’s net worth is estimated to be $850 million. About one-fifth of her fortune is invested in property. At one point, she owned six houses in London. Between 2017 and 2019, she lived in a historic, Moorish-style palace called Quinta do Relógio near Lisbon, Portugal. Now, she lives in a $33 million New York mansion.

In the last decade or so, Madonna performed at 2012’s Super Bowl XLVI halftime show. Her last three albums — MDNA (2012), Rebel Heart (2015), and Madame X (2019) — haven’t reached her own high standards, but she still rocks.

In late 2020, the singer underwent hip replacement surgery after sustaining an injury on her Madame X tour. She said, “I was in more pain than I’ve ever been in in my life. I’m a bionic woman – I had hip replacement surgery. And that’s not the only surgery she had…

Madonna hit the headlines when she appeared at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2023. Almost unrecognizable, the 64-year-old singer looked strange, with puffed cheeks. Madonna said her unusual look was due to long-lens photographs that distorted her face, saying she was “caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny that permeates the world.”

A few weeks later, though, she admitted to her 2.8 million Twitter followers that she had had surgery but looked much cuter now that the swelling had subsided.

In her 40th year as a pop sensation, Madonna planned to bring her music to millions of fans across the world with her Celebration Tour. The 35-city tour was scheduled to kick off in July, but on June 24th, 2023, tragedy struck when Madonna developed a serious bacterial infection that landed her in the ICU. According to reports, we nearly lost her.

She’s expected to make a full recovery. She said she’s concentrating on her health and described her children’s love as “the best medicine.” The Celebration Tour is expected to kick off in London in October.

While Madonna has slowed down, she will always be the Queen of Pop. She has sold over 300 million records, changed music forever, and spread music, joy, inspiration, and dance to men and women around the world for five decades. As Her Madgesty said herself, “Music makes the people come together.”

What does the future hold for Madonna? Well, there are rumors that the lady herself will direct Ozark’s Julia Garner portraying the iconic singer in a biopic.

You’ve probably heard about the legal battle Britney Spears is facing. The pop princess has been unable to make her own decisions for the past 12 years after a series of events that put her mental stability in question. Below, we explain everything about this case that has turned the world upside down.

Britney was a little girl from Kentwood, a small town in Louisiana, United States. From singing in the church choir, and going every Sunday to mass with her family, she was encouraged by her parents to take singing and dancing lessons in New York.

This happened under the suggestion of Nancy Carson, a children’s talent agent, who in The New York Times documentary talks about how Britney’s father, Jamie Spears, was always worried about the financial aspect of supporting his daughter.

While the promising youngster was preparing and performing and auditioning she was with her mother, Lynne Spears, while Jamie visited them from time to time with the concern that the family and financial sacrifice would pay off.

One day, Britney was selected as a Mousquetera, among the 15 thousand children who auditioned to be part of the Mickey Mouse Club. Among them were also selected Ryan Gosslin, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake.

Almost overnight, Britney went from promoting her songs in malls to being known by everyone. The adorable teenager was the dichotomy between the good girl and the sexy girl, and her fans loved her for it.

Of course, being a sensation for her fans also made her an object of hate for the parents of her fans, as the teen sensation dressed very provocatively according to the most conservative criteria.

Obviously, we can’t talk about Britney’s career without mentioning two other former Mousqueteros: Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake. The rivalry that the two pop divas supposedly maintained was pleasantly fueled by the advertising machine that benefited from them.

Britney was usually portrayed as the “good guy” against a Christina who was much more irreverent and did not seek to please but her expectations and, for that reason, was taken as a “rebel”.

The conflict between the Beatles and the Stones is an ideal benchmark to be able to see the industry play, tastes for artists try to establish them in terms of good and evil, only in the case of Britney and Christina, both were like two versions of the same mold.

The differences? In fairness to each, it’s no sin to say that Christina has an impressive voice that made her the generational successor to Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. For her part, Britney gave the best shows on stage.

Two of those who were with Britney Spears in the take-off of her career, Kim Kaiman (former Marketing Director) and Felicia Culotta (Britney’s chaperone and later assistant), remark in The New York Times documentary that Britney herself was a phenomenon.

It was a time when the industry was betting on boy bands, like Backstreet Boys and Nsync, not girls. Still, Britney did perfect, produced great music videos, connected with fans, her albums led in sales, had advertisers like Pepsi, among others.

But the eyes of the press were on Britney in everything and for everything, and little by little she was seen as a contradiction and a bad example for the girls, to which the singer once replied “I am not the nanny of your children.”

It’s hard to find another artist or celebrity of the era who has been under media scrutiny like Britney Spears was. In fact, those who were her paparazzi revealed that a controversial photo of the singer could be worth up to $1 million.

Britney overnight began to be part of celebrity royalty around the world. In this sense, tabloids and other media kept the focus on the relationship between Justin Timberlake and Britney.

For fans, they were the perfect couple and wanted to know all the details of their relationship, including the most intimate details. Everything was relatively fine, but even beautiful stories have their end.

By the time the young singing couple ended their relationship, Justin publicly insinuated that he had been unfaithful to Britney. Immediately, like hungry hyenas the press pounced on the pop princess.

Britney dating other artists encouraged the tabloids to portray her as a girl who hung out with a lot of men. And while she was never proven to have been unfaithful to Justin, she also never had a chance to tell her side of the story.

Timberlake recently publicly apologized to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson after acknowledging in a message that he did not behave with them as he should have.

In Janet’s case, for not supporting her after the locker room incident they had during their 2004 Super Bowl duet. Jackson received all the negative finger-pointing and was blacklisted by radio and MTV. With Britney, for leaving to the imagination of fans (and the media) an alleged hoax by hiring an actress who looked like her for the video of her single Cry Me A River.

Soon after, Kevin Federline conquered the heart of the singer, without giving many detours they got engaged and married. By this time the paparazzi were after Britney’s every move, as magazine sales increased with less posed photos.

By the time they announced on TV that they were expecting their first child, the news attracted even more paparazzi. Everyone wanted to get a piece of Britney Spears’ life, not career.

Her first son, Sean, was born on September 14, 2005, her second, Jayden, was born two days shy of Sean’s first birthday, September 12, 2006. And to add to the scenario, tabloids were already publishing about Britney and Federline’s alleged marital problems.

Just a couple of weeks after Jayden’s birth, the singer files for divorce. Both ask for full custody of the children, and while Kevin is spared the paparazzi, Spears is constantly caught disheveled or partying.

The photo of Britney shaved, dressed in tucked-in clothes and carrying a green umbrella, hitting the car of the paparazzi who was stalking her, is one of the most iconic images of the first ten years of the 21st century.

Of course, no one at the time thought that a person’s mental boundaries could be broken, or that Spears was in the fourth month of a legal battle for custody of her babies. The way to address it was by stating “she’s crazy” or asking “how could she react like that?”.

A few months after the paparazzi incident, Britney loses physical custody of her children, but is allowed to visit them. At the same time, a small-time movie producer emerges as Britney’s friend and new manager, Sam Lutfi.

Britney confided in Lutfi in 2007 when she went through one of her strongest depressions and her family was convinced that the manager was not a good influence for the singer. Interestingly this same character wanted to “help” Lindsay Lohan in her comeback in 2012.

On January 3, 2008, after they spent the night at her house, Britney refused to give Federline back his children and ended up committed to a neuropsychiatric facility from which she was released the next day.

On January 14 of that same year, a family court suspended Britney’s right to see her children, which is supposed to be the reason why she must be hospitalized again, now for 2 weeks, for a psychiatric evaluation.

It was at that moment that Britney Spears, at the age of 26 and against her will, became a ward of her father thanks to the legal figure of “conservatorship”.

The judge legally handed Jamie Spears, Britney’s father, control of her career, medical care and finances, including small personal expenses. The legal settlement is in response to the artist’s mental breakdown, whereby the judge deemed her unfit to make her own decisions.

Conservatorship is a process where a judge grants a responsible adult guardianship of another adult who is deemed incapable of handling certain aspects of his or her life such as his or her bank accounts, mental health treatment, child custody, etcetera.

The remedy of legal supervision is very unusual. Conservatorship is designed to protect people who are unable to care for themselves, but Spears, now 37, has worked nonstop on her own, producing four albums and doing other world tours.

Jamie Spears was appointed to look after his daughter’s estate and physical well-being, while a Los Angeles attorney, Andrew Wallet, was hired as a co-guardian to help manage the singer’s financial assets.

Court documents show Jamie can trade business opportunities, sell Britney’s properties, restrict her visitation and seek restraining orders. He also oversees every purchase, no matter how small, that the entertainer makes.

For many, the conservatorship is about a legal figure understandable for the time when the artist was going through the mental and emotional crisis in 2008, but not so that this figure has not been reviewed over time.

Especially considering Britney’s age and the fact that she is healthy enough to make money. It raises more suspicions, whether the conservatorship is in the singer’s best interest or not, that her net worth is lower than other artists of her generation.

Once Britney starts to be under her father’s care, the family court restores her right to see her children a few weeks later. There are sources who speculate that the reason Britney accepted the conservatorship was because of her children.

In her social networks, the singer has shared several family moments with her children: games, pool, Disney and more. She managed to recover the 50% that she was entitled to custody, until the summer of last 2019, when she had to be re-admitted to a psychiatric center.

In terms of earnings, Spears was ahead of her contemporaries – Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Lopez. Even today we know that she has sold more concert and album tickets than both of them.

But her net worth barely reaches $60 million, when that of the other two artists exceeds a hundred. And it’s not for lack of effort; in 2008, Britney had five hit albums and embarked on six tours. She went on to deliver four more albums and four world tours.

She also held a Las Vegas residency that ran from 2013 to 2017, grossing $137.7 billion, according to Caesars Entertainment. Spears topped Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid celebrities in 2002, and again in 2012.

The same magazine then assured that the total earnings during these years reached 600 million. The conclusion is striking, for the Californian justice, the singer was not able to manage her money, but she was able to generate it.

Usually, these types of guardianships usually start out as a temporary situation. But in this case, just two months after the second placement in 2008, the Californian courts decided to make it permanent, leaving Britney in the care of her father, Jamie Spears.

One more name that appears involved in the decision to bring Britney into this legal process is that of Lou Taylor. She was Jammie Lynn Spears’ manager, and would later be for most of the conservatorship Britney’s business manager, she was the one who pushed the idea of the conservatorship.

Although without full authority over her life, Spears has scored lucrative hits, for example her stint as a judge on the television show The X Factor.

He also staged 248 shows for his Piece of Me residency in Las Vegas between 2013 and 2017, each performance bringing him $500,000. There were no more public meltdowns, no more extravagant behavior.

Then, in January 2019, the artist announced that she would cancel her new Las Vegas residency, Domination. She remarked the decision on the health of her father, who was on the verge of death after a colon fissure, in November 2018.

In the eyes of some fans, it was a sign that all was not well in the star’s universe. Another warning came in March, when Wallet (co-guardian who helped manage Britney’s financial assets) relinquished custody.

Framing Britney Spears, in English Framing Britney Spears, shows images that for those of us who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s, are not new, but the perspective and context around them, are.

Among them is the access Britney’s team granted MTV to film the Britney: For the Record documentary. Filming began just eight months after the guardianship action was handed down, and she talks openly about how she feels about it.

In late April 2019, three weeks after the pop star had checked into a mental health facility, and three months after the cancellation of her second Las Vegas residency, something unprecedented happened.

A group of her fans didn’t believe Britney went into the hospital by choice, nor that her father was sick and she needed space and time to be with her family.

The theories of what was going on in Spears’ private life were becoming increasingly frantic, but they shared one notion, that the singer was being silenced and manipulated, and had been for years.

Spears is a great artist, who earns millions of dollars a year but has no control over her life or business affairs. Fans who believe the deal is intended to exploit rather than help her have adopted a hashtag and rallying cry: LFree Britney or Free Britney.

As long as Britney, her father and the lawyers for both (who, by the way, are all paid by the pop princess’ accounts) keep appealing to the court and in the middle of the court process, it’s likely that neither will be able to testify to the media.

However, something that has further motivated Free Britney fans is that in fact her court-appointed lawyer told a judge, “My client has informed me that she is afraid of her father.”

Jamie Spears stepped back in 2019 from his custody of Britney, a role that gave him power over even her medical and mental health decisions, after suffering a ruptured colon.

Britney’s defenders, who many consider simply paranoid, claim the star is asking for help with coded messages, emoticons and even the color of her clothes on her eccentric Instagram account.

Thanks to a document filed in court by attorney San Ingham, it was indicated that she is totally opposed to her father continuing to be in charge of her conservatorship, and that she prefers a bank to handle her financial affairs.

In fact, she also mentions that she has, at the moment, no intention to pursue the termination of her conservatorship status, but to have it only in the hands of professionals.

But to her fans! Despite the fact that her fans have been making calls of attention in her defense for a few years now, it was only in 2020 that we were able to learn (thanks to a court document) that Britney acknowledges the efforts of her fans.

“Britney welcomes and appreciates the informed support of her fans. Although the motion is supposedly for her protection, Britney herself is vehemently opposed to her father keeping it hidden as a family secret.”

Her current boyfriend, Sam Asghari, told a magazine that he feels totally grateful with the support that the singer’s fans are giving her. The young model assures that his intention is to support Spears so that she can pursue her dreams without intermediaries.

And what dreams might she be referring to? Well, it’s that the conservatorship figure also prevents Britney, despite being 38, from getting married, voting, expanding her family or driving a car.

In 2020 the artist sued her progenitor to regain her freedom but did not get the expected response. The Los Angeles County Superior Court judge upheld Jamie Spears’ role.

That said, she has agreed to appoint Bessemer Trust Co. as corporate trustee to manage her estate. That’s why Britney made the decision not to return to performing while her father is still in charge of her career.

The most mentioned, for being in charge of Britney’s conservatorship, is her father, Jamie Spears. He is paid by Briyney for more than 120 thousand dollars a year, for being her legal guardian. In addition, he receives interest on his daughter’s performances.

Her sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, who we remember from the Zoey 101 series, seems to be among the singer’s best friends, as the two have shared a lot over the years.

Britney Spears’ mother, Lynne, seems to be a little late to everything as far as her daughter’s defense is concerned. The 65-year-old filed a petition to be included in the pop princess’ conservatorship.

Lynne spoke in court in 2020 that she hopes her daughter “can see better and brighter days,” but she does so nearly 12 years after a conservatorship was imposed on her daughter.

The singer’s brother, Bryan, let it be known that the conservatorship is a very important issue for his family, who wish that this could be resolved in the best possible way, but that his sister has always wanted to get out of that figure.

Bryan admitted that he’s well aware that Spears’ fans feel, or believe, that her family may have her confined or locked up, but he revealed that he’s confident that, at the time, they made the right decision.

Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney Spears’ younger sister, defended her sister via her Instagram account following the premiere of The New York Times documentary.

The former Zoey 101 star sent a message to the press media which she called to be careful with what they publish and invited to be more empathetic with people, following the kind of coverage they did to the singer during the 2000s, which eventually led her to a mental breakdown.

The image of Britney that was sold to fans when she was launched as an artist was that of the perfect all-American girl, tender, trying hard, that you could look up to. Today her fans know she’s not perfect, and they can relate to her even more.

In fact, the whole issue of the control coming over the singer has many reacting to society’s lies regarding things that matter more, like people’s mental health, rather than the image someone projects.

One way or another, all of us who sang and danced to Britney Spears’ songs at one time or another hope that she herself can tell her own story, enough of third parties talking in her place.

And if it’s any good to relive all the dark moments Britney went through, it’s to also remember the thousands of reasons why we initially fell in love with her charisma, talent and personality.