Pop singer Britney Spears was one of the most successful artists worldwide in the 90s and noughties
By Nelly Kuehn
The end of guardianship, a fairy tale wedding and now the big comeback?
US superstar Britney Spears (40) surprised her 41.8 million Instagram fans with a singing performance. She hasn’t shared her voice in an “extremely long time” — “maybe too long,” Britney Spears wrote on Friday night (local time) for two short video clips in which she intones her previous hit song “Baby One More Time.”
In a dark, powerful voice, the former pop star sings altered versions of her 1998 hit, entirely without instruments, in a darkened room. The singer writes in a longer post that she is in the process of sorting and washing laundry. In it, the 40-year-old reveals that she had wanted to record a new version of the song for many years, but her “team” refused. She was oppressed and ruined by her family, but now she no longer wants to be a “victim,” writes Spears. So far she has only shown dance interludes. The new video now lets fans hope for a big comeback.
Britney Spears has been under guardianship since 2008 after she had a mental breakdown due to personal and professional problems. For years her father and other representatives were responsible for the musician’s affairs. Only last autumn was the guardianship lifted by a court. In June, Spears married longtime boyfriend, model and fitness trainer Sam Asghari (28) in California.
With her debut single “Baby One More Time” (1998), Britney Spears became an overnight teen star at the age of 16. She received a Grammy nomination and stormed the charts. “Baby One More Time” was also the name of Spears’ debut album, which went straight to number 1 in the US Billboard charts in 1999 and has sold more than 28 million copies worldwide to date.