Britney Spears Reveals Surprising Way She First Learned About #FreeBritney Movement

Britney Spears first learned about the #FreeBritney movement while at a particularly low point in her life. The “Everytime” singer, 41, reveals in her upcoming memoir The Woman in Me that she learned about the movement advocating for her conservatorship to be terminated back in 2018, when she was forced to go to rehab for mental health evaluations after pushing back against her court-ordered conservatorship. 

“My father said that if I didn’t go, then I’d have to go to court, and I’d be embarrassed,” Spears writes in an excerpt from her memoir, as per PEOPLE, adding that her dad said he’d make her look like an “idiot” if she didn’t fall in line. One in the rehab facility, Spears was prescribed lithium and was allowed just one hour of television before her 9 p.m. bedtime. “They kept me locked up against my will for months,” the pop star writes of her treatment. “I couldn’t go outside. I couldn’t drive a car. I had to give blood weekly. I couldn’t take a bath in private. I couldn’t shut the door to my room.”

It was there, however, that Spears was shown videos of fans rallying behind her by a nurse. “That was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life,” the singer writes. “I don’t think people knew how much the #FreeBritney movement meant to me, especially in the beginning.” With increasing pressure from the #FreeBritney movement throughout the years, Spears was eventually released from her conservatorship after 13 years in November 2021. 

Nearly two years later, Spears is set to release her memoir on Oct. 24. In her book, the “Toxic” singer opens up about her relationship with Justin Timberlake, from whom she split in 2002 after previously getting pregnant and having an abortion. “It was important that no one find out about the pregnancy or the abortion, which meant doing everything at home,” Spears writes of her home abortion, according to an excerpt obtained by The Associated Press.

The pain of the medication abortion was “excruciating,” and Spears said she “kept crying and sobbing until it was all over.” The “Gimme More” singer added, “It took hours, and I don’t remember how it ended, but I do, twenty years later, remember the pain of it, and the fear.” The Woman in Me hits shelves on Oct. 24.