Breakdown to breaking a sweat.. how Britney turned her life around
YET another taut, tanned celebrity body in tight gym gear arches itself into a yoga pose and lifts dumb-bells aloft. Only this time, it’s different.
The sight of this particular toned torso triggers a sense of relief in the heart of even the most weary Instagram critic.
For this is Britney Spears showing off her enviable abs. And it seems that not so long ago, she was in a very different place.
Incredibly, it’s been a decade since Britney, with a worryingly vacant look on her face, shaved off her 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 wild-eyed frenzy, she attacked a photographer’s car with an umbrella.
These became images of their time. We witnessed a superstar unravelling.
Today, she admits she cannot believe what she did. She says: “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.
Britney’s 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 it was alcohol or depression. I was like a bad kid running around.”
But a new Instagram fitness video, a successful Las Vegas show and an estimated £26million in the bank all provide evidence of how well she has recovered since.
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 far more contented person.
A dancer friend has said: “The happy, smiley, fun-loving Britney of yesteryear is back. It’s been a long time coming but it’s like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.”
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 a very early age, Britney was the performing seal others wanted her to be – first as a cutesy child Disney star, then as a seductive schoolgirl in pigtails and finally as an all-out bad girl sex symbol with a python round her neck. Her parents, managers, men she dated, all had their say.
In that moment she shaved her head, it was almost like the Toxic hitmaker was trying to wipe it all away in a desperate attempt to find herself.
Britney grew up in the small town of Kentwood, Louisiana, and was soon working the toddler beauty pageant circuit under the watchful eye of teacher mum Lynne.
By the time she was three, she was enrolled in choir, dance and gymnastics lessons. And over the next few years, she starred in TV adverts
and played a lead role on Broadway.
When the family went bankrupt, 12-year-old Britney kept them afloat with her earnings from Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club.
But her fame spiralled to a different plane when lawyer Larry Rudolph launched her pop career. Baby One More Time made her an instant superstar in 1999 and her first two albums sold more than 39 million copies.
Just two years later though, Britney’s good-girl image was changing. And by 2004, the warning signs were there for all to see.
Britney married school pal Jason lexander in a crazy Las Vegas ceremony. It was annulled within hours but she apparently had a taste for high-speed weddings and enjoyed another with dancer Kevin Federline later that year. She ditched her manager and manically recorded her life with Kevin in a reality show aptly titled Chaotic. Britney quickly had two sons, Sean Preston and Jayden, and her mum believes she had post-natal depression. By 2006, she was asking Kevin for a divorce and partying hard in LA with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. And worse was to come. She was forcibly hospitalised for 72 hours in 2008 under Californian mental health law.
But today, those wild days seem far behind her. Now she is happy to reveal: “I am actually a very boring person away from work. I don’t really go out. I’m a homebody and I love spending time with my boys. That makes me happy.
“I love going to the grocery store. I’m just a normal girl. I love doing yoga, reading, being bored and breakfast in bed.”
Fitness, yoga and healthy eating have been key to Britney’s revival.
She says: “Consistency helps, so I eat a lot of salads with chicken. I try to stay away from fatty foods like hamburgers, which are my favourite.”
You do a get a sense that Britney, one more time, has really found who she is.