#FreeBritney

Submission 4,462

Overview

#FreeBritney is a hashtag shared after revelations that pop star Britney Spears, who was reported to have checked into a mental health facility on April 3rd, 2019 due to stress from her father Jamie Spears's illness, was allegedly forced by into the facility by her father months earlier after he realized she was not taking her medication. The allegations led to swirls of commentary and campaigning on social media under the hashtag.

Background

Britney Spears is under a conservatorship which her father controls, and has been since 2008.^[3] On January 4th, 2019, Britney Spears posted to Instagram that she would not be performing her Las Vegas show Domination due to her father's failing health (shown below).^[1]

April 3rd, 2019, TMZ^[2] reported that Britney Spears had checked into a mental health facility due to stress about the condition.

Developments

On April 16th, the podcast Britney's Gram, hosted by comedian Babs Gray and writer Tess Barker, opened with a voicemail from an unnamed paralegal associated with the conservatorship case who stated that Jamie Spears pulled support from Britney's Domination show when he caught wind Spears had stopped taking her medication and that she had been photographed driving. He instructed her to blame the cancellation on his illness, hence the January Instagram post. He also allegedly checked her into the facility against her will at the time of the post, contradicting the story that she checked in voluntarily in April.

The allegations led to a social media storm as fans tweeted the hashtag #FreeBritney, believing Spears was being held against her will and that the conservatorship must end. Twitter user @Kikirani19^[4] outlined the reasons why she believed in the hashtag, gaining over 45 retweets and 100 likes (shown below, left). Shane Dawson tweeted about it, gaining over 1,700 retweets and 32,000 likes (shown below, right).

Of note, Spears' mother, sister, and boyfriend have been liking comments on Instagram advocating for Spears' release from the conservatorship.^[4] Some have commented against the hashtag. Because the full details aren't known and remembering Spears' public 2007 meltdown, some argued that if Spears was indeed not taking medication, she may be in danger of having another such episode.^[4]^[5]