Britney Spears, out of conservatorship, says ‘I am having a baby’

Months after Britney Spears was released from the conservatorship that she said was restricting her from having a third child, the pop star announced Monday in an Instagram post that she is pregnant.

In explosive testimony last year, Spears called the conservatorship that had governed her life for 13 years “abusive,” saying the people who managed it had refused to let her get her IUD removed so she could try to have another child.

“I want to be able to get married and have a baby,” Spears said in June. “I was told right now in the conservatorship I am not able to get married or have a baby.”

The singer’s assertion about her birth control device was among the most stunning in her speech, during which she said she had been drugged and compelled to work against her will. Reproductive rights advocates condemned the situation as a violation of her rights.

Spears’ impassioned testimony, in which she castigated her father and others who managed the legal arrangement overseeing her life and finances, set a process in motion that led to the conservatorship’s termination. In November, a judge in Los Angeles ruled that the arrangement was no longer required, granting Spears newfound control over her life.

Since she went public about her opposition to the conservatorship, Spears, 40, has openly discussed her freedom on her Instagram, announcing her engagement to her longtime boyfriend, Sam Asghari, and continuing to lament the control her family and others exacted over her life for years.

In her Instagram post, Spears joked that Asghari — whom she now refers to as her husband — suggested she was “food pregnant” after a trip to Hawaii.

“So I got a pregnancy test …,” she wrote, “and uhhhhh well … I am having a baby.”

Spears' father, James, who is known as Jamie, first petitioned the court for authority over his daughter’s life and finances in early 2008, citing her very public mental health struggles and possible substance abuse amid a child custody battle. The conservatorship governed Spears’ career and day-to-day life for nearly 14 years, eventually drawing close scrutiny from fans and outside observers who worried about her well-being and wondered why an active global celebrity needed such an arrangement.

Spears has two teenage sons with her ex-husband Kevin Federline.

In her post, Spears mentioned her struggles with perinatal depression in a previous pregnancy and suggested that women couldn’t discuss the condition openly back then.

“Some people considered it dangerous if a woman complained like that with a baby inside her,” she wrote, “but now women talk about it everyday.”

©2022 The New York Times Company