Copyright independent
Britney Spears has deactivated her Instagram account following a public dispute over her ex-husband Kevin Federline’s memoir. In the book, You Thought You Knew, released October 21, Federline accused Spears of troubling behavior as a parent, such as watching their then-teenage sons sleep with a knife in her hand. In response, the “Toxic” singer’s representative called Federline’s narrative “sensationalism” in a statement to The Independent. Now, as of Sunday, Spears’s Instagram account is no longer visible on the platform. “Profile isn’t available,” a message now reads over her account, which had 42 million followers. The Independent has contacted Spears’s representatives for comment. It comes after a series of posts that drew concern for the pop star, whose conservatorship was terminated in 2021 amid a fan-driven “Free Britney” movement. According to People magazine, a video Spears shared on October 7 showed her with bruises on her arms and bandages wrapped around her hands and wrists. In the caption, Spears said she’d taken a fall down the stairs and mentioned that her two sons were returning to Hawaii, where they live with their father, Federline, 47. In a more recent post, she wrote that she felt like her “wings were taken away and brain damage happened to me” while under her 13-year conservatorship. Since the conservatorship ended, Spears has regularly displayed erratic behavior on social media and has been known to delete her account before reactivating it weeks later in the past. On October 15, she shared a statement on X calling out the “white lies” in Federline’s book. “The constant gaslighting from ex-husband [sic] is extremely hurtful and exhausting,” she wrote, before also criticizing her sons Sean Preston, 20, and Jayden James, 19. “I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys. Relationships with teenage boys is complex. I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life. Sadly, they have always witnessed the lack of respect shown by own father for me. “They need to take responsibility for themselves. With one son only seeing me for 45 min in the past 5 years and the other with only 4 visits in the past 5 years. I have pride too. From now on I will let them know when I am available,” she wrote. Federline and Spears were married from 2004 to 2007. Federline was granted primary custody of their children in 2008 after Spears was placed under a conservatorship following her public mental health breakdown. In the years that followed, Spears worked to regain more time with her children and, in 2019, was granted 30 percent custodial rights while Federline retained 70 percent. Spears has never confirmed nor denied that she lives with mental illness, and has denied ever being addicted to drugs or alcohol. She has, though, written repeatedly of experiencing long-term trauma as a result of her family and the conservatorship she was placed under for 13 years.
