Britney Spears: Here’s What Triggered Mental Health Facility Stay

Britney Spears’ stay at a mental health facility was reportedly prompted due to an adjustment in her medication.

According to TMZ, just before the singer sought treatment in late March, doctors had been attempting to wean her off the medication she was taking and place her on different medication after the cocktail of medications she had been taking for years began to lose their efficiency.

However, the process of weaning a patient off one cocktail of medication and finding another is trial and error, and Spears allegedly grew unstable and became unwilling to cooperate with doctors

The adjustment, combined with her father’s ongoing health crisis, is reportedly what prompted Spears to voluntarily check herself into a 30-day stay at a mental health facility sometime in late March.

“We all need to take time for a little ‘me time’ [smiley face emoticon],” Spears wrote on Instagram just before she entered treatment, sharing a photo of a quote that read, “Fall in love with taking care of yourself. Mind. Body. Spirit.”

However, after news broke that Spears was seeking treatment, many believed that the choice was not voluntary, but rather that she had been committed against her will, prompting the widespread usage of the “Free Britney” hashtag.

The rumors were first sparked by the hosts of the Britney’s Gram podcast, who claimed that there may be evidence to suggest that the singer’s recent stay is related to the ongoing conservatorship she is legally under. A recent episode of the podcast featured a voicemail from an anonymous person who claimed to be a former member of Spears’ team, saying that the rumors she was being held against her will were true.

“Britney refused so he kept his word and pulled his support and he verbatim said ‘blame it on my illness,’” the paralegal alleged on the voicemail. “And that’s when we get the January Instagram.”

“She did not want to go… I, of course am just a paralegal I never spoke with her, but from what I understood, this was not a decision she made at all,” he added.

TMZ reports that those allegations are false, as the specific conservatorship that Spears is under, through the probate court, does not allow a conservator to force someone into a mental health facility. The outlet also claims that her father, Jamie Spears, was “adamant” that he did not wish for Spears to check into the facility out of fear that it would leak to the media and only cause more problems.

The singer is reportedly doing much better now and doctors believe they have no found the correct combination of medications.