SPEARS IN TOP
Yet another taut, tanned celebrity body in tight gym gear arches itself into a yoga pose and then lifts dumb-bells aloft. Only this time, it’s different. This particular toned torso triggers a sense of relief within even the most weary Instagram critic.
This is Britney Spears showing off her enviable abs. Yet it seems not so long ago, she was in a very different place.
Incredibly, this year marks a decade since the singer, with a worryingly vacant look, shaved off her blonde hair in front of stunned photographers.
That moment of meltdown in 2007, as she stormed a LA salon, demanded a razor and held it to her head, is painfully ingrained in our minds. Later, in a wildeyed frenzy, she attacked a photographer’s car with an umbrella.
These became images of the era. We witnessed her unravelling.
Today, she admits she cannot believe what she did, saying : “I sit there and I look back and I’m like, ‘I’m a smart person, what the hell was I thinking?’”
The truth was, she was not thinking. She was out of control.
The breakdown came after years of alleged drug and medicine misuse, a failed marriage and ugly wrangles over her kids’ custody. She was in selfdestruct mode, partying hard and resisting attempts to get her into rehab.
Now, at 35, she candidly confesses she had simply spun off the rails. “I truly hit rock bottom,” she says. “I don’t think that it was alcohol or depression. I was like a bad kid running around.”
But a new Instagram fitness video, with a successful Las Vegas show under her slim belt and an estimated £26million in the bank, provides the evidence of how she has recovered.
She says: “I think my life has done a complete 360. Things are just different now. It’s a different time. It’s a different era. Things are really good now. I try to stay away from places where I get nervous; parties, clubs. When there are a lot of people around, I get anxiety.”
But Britney’s recovery has not happened overnight.
In the past few years, she has been stoically rebuilding. And her latest pictures reveal a more content person.
A dancer friend has said: “The happy, smiley, fun-loving Britney of yesteryear is back. It has been a long time coming but it’s like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.”
And Britney, who had five UK No 1 singles, admits: “I like my 30s way more than my 20s. My 20s were horrible.
“My 30s are great – you know who you really are.”
From such an early age, she was the performing seal others wanted her to be – first as a cutesy child Disney star, then as a seductive schoolgirl brand in pigtails and finally as an all-out bad girl sex symbol with a python around her neck. Her parents, managers, the men she dated, all had their say.
In that moment she shaved her head, it was almost like the Toxic hitmaker was trying to obliterate all of it in a desperate attempt to find herself.
Growing up in the small town of Kentwood in Louisiana, teacher mum Lynne had her entering the pageant circuit.
By age three, Britney was enrolled in choir, dance and gymnastic lessons. The next few years saw her do adverts plus play a Broadway lead.
When the family went bankrupt, Britney, aged just 12, was the saviour by landing that role in Mickey Mouse.
But her fame spiralled to a different plane when lawyer Larry Rudolph launched her pop career. And in 1999, she appeared in the iconic video Baby One More Time. Her first two albums