Britney Spears is spotted for the first time after her EXPLOSIVE YouTube rant

Britney Spears was spotted out on a drive nearly her recently purchased mansion in Calabasas, California, on Tuesday.

The 40-year-old pop superstar’s sighting marked the first time she had been seen since she posted a dramatic 22-minute YouTube recording in which she delved into her claims about her father Jamie Spears’ abuse and her mother Lynne Spears’ alleged collusion in getting her fortune tied up in a conservatorship.

Britney was cruising in style for her outing in her sleek white two-door Mercedes. 

Britney was hard to see inside the vehicle, but she appeared to block out the piercing sun with a set of large sunglasses.

The hitmaker could be seen with her phone directly in front of her face, and she appeared to be holding it in her hand.

It is illegal in California to hold a phone during a call while driving.

She appeared to be driving alone, after she noted in the final days of her conservatorship how she had been prohibited by the arrangement from driving alone for 13 years.

Back in March, Britney was ticked by the California Highway Patrol for driving at an ‘unsafe speed for conditions,’ according to Today.

Her drive comes in the wake of a 22-minute recording that Britney posted to YouTube detailing some of her allegations about her family and the circumstances under which her conservatorship was established, though the clip has since been set to private. 

After the clip went public, Britney’s mother hit back at her on Sunday night in response to the singer’s claims that she conspired with her father to put her under a legal conservatorship.

The recording features Spears claiming that her parents, 67-year-old Lynne and Jamie, 70, engaged in a ‘premeditated’ plot to get control of her finances after a woman ‘introduced the idea to my dad’ prior to her much-publicized hospitalization in 2008.

In the clip, Spears shockingly claimed her mom ‘helped him follow through’ with the plan, and ‘made it all happen,’ while also detailing oppressive treatment she was forced to undergo during the 13-year arrangement.

The impromptu post, shared briefly to the star’s nearly 10 million subscribers before being made private, gave rise to a flood of support from fans of the Toxic singer, spurring her to share an upbeat ‘thank you’ message to her Twitter, shortly after she deleted her Instagram amid an ongoing war of words with former flame Kevin Federline.

Among those to flock to social media to offer their words of encouragement to the 40-year-old songstress was Spears’ mom Lynne, whose relationship with her daughter has ended following a judge nixing the conservatorship in November.

The brief post saw Lynne insist she has always had the popstar’s best interests at heart — and she is now heartbroken her daughter will no longer speak with her.

Lynne, who in 2010 spent $2 million of her daughter’s money on a Louisiana mansion with full maid service as one of her last moves while in charge of the conservatorship, added she ‘love[s]’ her daughter, but the claims aired in the scathing clip would be better made ‘eye to eye, in private.’

It comes days after the embattled pop star made her first foray back into the music business with Elton John in the duet Hold Me Closer, and nearly a year after a judge freed her from her restrictions.

‘Britney, your whole life I have tried my best to support your dreams and wishes!’ the post from Spears’ mom, which was shared with an old photo of the two of them laughing together toward the start of the Grammy-winning singer’s career, said. ‘And also, I have tried my best to help you out of hardships!’

The jilted mom proceeded to address an assertion made by her daughter in the 20-minute tell-all, that she turned her back on her daughter by going along with what she said was her dad Jamie’s plan, to get free and repeated access to the star’s millions.

‘I have never and will never turn my back on you!’ wrote Lynne – who in November requested more than $650,000 in attorney-related fees from Spears’ estate for her legal team’s involvement in her daughter’s desperate fight for freedom during the conservatorship case.

‘Your rejections to the countless times I have flown out and calls make me feel hopeless!’ she went on. ‘I have tried everything.’

Lynne ended the note by saying that while she loves her daughter very much, ‘this talk is for you and me only, eye to eye, in private.’

The plea for truce from the star’s estranged mother has so far not garnered a response from Spears – who instead took to Twitter around the same time to share a slew of posts thanking her fans for their flood of support.

‘Life goes on!!!’ the mom-of-two wrote, cryptically adding: ‘On rare occasions there can be something sought after, something that makes us wanna go further.’

The message was accompanied by a short video of the singer in her home in Thousand Oaks, dressed to the Ts in a tight yellow dress and sunglasses. The video saw the pop princess glamorously flip her hair and dance to Cardi B’s hit Bodak Yellow, sticking her tongue out in an apparent display of satisfaction.

‘Here’s me in yellow being a f***ing ray of sunshine in YELLOW… life is short … so smile like there’s no tomorrow,’ Spears explained in another post.

Spears’ online tirade, however, did not end there – with the songstress proceeding to publish a flood of further posts to tout the face she is now producing music again, after working with Rocket Man crooner Elton John – who she called ‘beautiful and kind on all levels.’

‘Complacency has always been a boring tactic that feels safe,’ Spears wrote in one of several posts.’Music… creation… producing is where my heart lies and lifts me with inspiration. I’ve had the opportunity to work with someone who is beautiful and kind on all levels.’

She continued: ‘I’m honored and I feel loved by his awareness and acknowledgement, not by only my involvement with a song but by my struggles and what I’ve been through !!! He knows the hardships of the world on a bigger scale.’

‘You can lose your individuality on a fake tale of how other people may percieve [sic] you and some idiots like me fall into the trap cause unfortunately I do care … but at the end of the day … I have to honor myself and realize it’s not about pleasing others or driving yourself crazy on what other [sic] think.  

‘To honor myself … and value myself,’ Spears went on, ‘is the only way to something we all seek’ – that being, according to the star, ‘Self love … value of self… and passing that on to every person I encounter.’

In the much-viewed YouTube clip, Spears alleged her 2008 forced hospitalization was pre-meditated by her father Jamie, and the product of a plot to take control of her millions – that she said her mom wittingly went on with.

Perhaps most surprisingly, though, the post saw Spears, who is currently in the midst of an explosive and highly-public row with her ex-husband Kevin Federline, suggest she did not have drugs or alcohol in her system prior to her hospitalization – as it was previously claimed.

The clip begins with Spears explaining that she’s had ‘tons of opportunities’ to share her story – including a lucrative offer from Oprah Winfrey – But that she thinks it is ‘silly’ to get paid to open up about her hardships – spurring her to post the tell-all.

She added she had hesitated to share her story sooner since being released from her conservatorship earlier in the year, out of fear of being judged or reprimanded, and was now ‘confident’ enough to tell the world.

She described being ‘punished’ by her abusive father, Jamie, 70, with the conservatorship in 2008 when she was 25, nearly a decade after the Louisiana native thrust to superstardom with her music career after what she called an abusive childhood.

Under the oppressive arrangement – which she said was pressed on her after she spoke to one of her psychiatrists in a British accent – Spears recalled how she ‘was not allowed to see anyone’  and a was a prisoner in her own home.

She also recalled on the day before her forced hospitalization being awoken by a SWAT team and three helicopters enlisted by her father.

‘Literally the extent of my madness,’ a tired-sounding Spears says in the recording, ‘ was playing chase with paparazzi – which is still to this day one of the most fun things I did being famous.’

Spears revealed that earlier that day, her mother Lynne, 67, had warned her of her father plans, saying that she had heard ‘that people were coming here today to talk to you’ – with Spears at the time not realizing the meaning of her mom’s words. ‘We should probably go a hotel or something,’ Lynne reportedly told her.

Four hours later, Spears said, ‘there were over 200 hundred paparazzi outside my house, videotaping me through the window of an ambulance’ while being ‘held down on a gurney.’

Spears went on to assert that she now knows that incident was ‘premeditated’ – a plan she said was carefully carried out by her father to get control of her finances.

She went on to assert that an unnamed woman ‘introduced the idea to my dad’ adding that her mom also ‘helped him follow through and made it all happen.’

Spears did not specify when this supposed encounter took place or how she came to learn of it, but remained adamant that there had been a plot in place to get her hospitalized.

‘It was all set up,’ Spears says in the recording, adding that at the time there had not been under the influence of drugs or alcohol, as her father told police and emergency responders who arrived on the scene.

‘There was no drugs or alcohol in my system,’ Spears sniped in the scathing clip. ‘Pure abuse.’

‘And I haven’t haven’t even really shared even half of it,’ the singer went on, just weeks after engaging in an online war of the words with former flame Kevin Federline over the parenting of their own teenage children.

She proceeded to bring up her childhood in Louisiana, being under her ‘dad’s control’ as she put it. 

‘I was scared and fearful,’ she recalled. ‘I didn’t really do anything. None of it made sense to me.’ She detailed how Jamie ‘loved to control every thing I did’ in the lengthy tell-all recording.

‘I remember the first he said, ‘I’m Britney Spears, and I’m calling the shots’ – and I’m like, ‘Alrighty then,” she told her nearly 10 million YouTube subscribers.

‘All I do remember is I had to do what I was told. I was told I was fat every day I had to go to the gym, I had to just, and I’d never remember feeling so demoralized.

‘And just, they made me feel like nothing. And I went along with it because I was scared. I was scared and fearful.’

Those fears, she said, continued on into her 15-plus-year conservatorship, demoralizing the singer and scaring her from fighting against her father, who she said during this time had control over all of her actions and decisions.

‘Honestly,’ Spears said of the first eight or so years of her conservatorship, ‘I just I didn’t give a f**k anymore – because I couldn’t go where I wanted to go. 

‘I couldn’t have the nannies that I wanted to have; I couldn’t have cash – and it was just demoralizing. So I was kind of like in this conspiracy thing, of people claiming and, like, treating me like a superstar.’

‘But yet,’ Spears added, ‘they treated me like nothing,’ at this point tearing up in the clip. She went on to recall the hardships she was forced to undergo during this time, like being subjected to a lack of privacy and being monitored by her dad’s team and doctors on a constant basis.

‘No privacy, no door. Nothing,’ Spears protested. ‘How did they get away with it? And what the f**k did I do to deserve that? I couldn’t even smoke cigarettes, people on death row can smoke cigarettes.’

She added that she could not even have the keys to her own car.

‘No cash, no cigarettes, no door for privacy – it changed me,’ she said, adding that she was forced to work seven days a week during this stretch by her handlers, who monitored what she ate and what she was doing at all times – all while upholding a strict schedule.

‘I did work seven days a week – no weekends were off,’ Spears recalled of this period, which lasted roughly until 2016, when she began to push back on her oppressors. ‘From eight to six I work some times at nine o’clock I’d be able to watch a movie.’

She described the invasive circumstances she was subjected to at this time, saying she was forced to undress in front of others and undergo ‘militant’ forms of therapy.

‘They put me in an ignorant state of mind to make me feel like I needed them,’ she said, adding that she was allegedly told, ‘If you don’t do what we say, we’re going to show you who’s boss.’ 

Spears went on to assert a previous claim that she was forced into another mental health facility in early 2019 because she objected to a dance move during one of her rehearsals.

During this time, Spears, said, she was forced to tell the public – whom she said slowly became aware of her secret struggles through rumors and her appearances in the media – that she was seeking treatment due to her father’s colon illness.

However, behind closed doors, she told subscribers that she was ‘crying’ to her dad and then-conservator Jamie Spears and her team, asking why she was being subjected to this treatment.

‘I was, like, ‘Why are you guys doing this?” the singer recalled saying to her dad and handlers, recalling that Jamie’s last words to her before they finally cut ties: ‘Now you don’t have to go, but if you don’t go, we’re going to go to trial and you’re going to lose.

He allegedly added: ‘I have way more people on my side than you [do]. You don’t even have a lawyer, so don’t even think about it.’

Britney further described the amount of control that Jamie and his co-conservators had over her even at this point, more than a decade into the arrangement, sharing that she was once in a ‘secret relationship’ with an unnamed man.

‘I was talking to a guy, and he wanted to just leave the country with me. We had it all set up to leave, and it was a secret relationship,’ she revealed.

Spears finished the YouTube video by repeating that she’s had ‘lots of offers’ for lucrative payoffs to share her story – something, she said, does not interest her.  

‘For me, it’s beyond a sit-down interview,’ she said. ‘I’m sharing this because I want people to know, I’m only human. I do feel victimised – and how can I mend this if I don’t talk about it?’

She went on: ‘I have an amazing song right now with one of the most brilliant men of our time, and I’m so grateful. But if you’re a weird, introvert oddball like me, who feels alone a lot of the time, and you needed to hear a story like mine today to know that you’re not alone, know this: My life has been far from easy, and you’re not alone.’

It comes after her first husband Jason Alexander is was facing more time behind bars after being hauled off to Napa County on two outstanding theft charges.

The 40-year-old has spent the last two months in jail in Ventura, California, after being collared sneaking into the singer’s Thousand Oaks home on the day of her wedding to Sam Ashgari, 28.

Alexander livestreamed the incident, which showed roaming the grounds of her $7m mansion screaming: ‘I’m Jason Alexander. The first husband. I’m here to crash the wedding’.

He was then seen grappling with security before cops arrived and arrested him on the outstanding warrant from Napa in northern California.

Earlier this month, he pleaded guilty to one count of trespassing and another of battery while crashing Britney’s wedding and was sentenced to time served after spending 64 days in jail.

DailyMail.com revealed he was transported direct from the Ventura County Jail to Napa where he has been booked for allegedly stealing his landlady’s $2,000 diamond tennis bracelet and pawning it for $180 at Best Collateral in Vallejo, California in August 2015.

A mugshot exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com shows the 40-year-old looking shamefaced ahead of a court appearance.   

‘How the f*** did they get away with it?’ Britney Spears tears into dad Jamie for being ‘really abusive’ to her and her brother, says he ‘controlled everything I did’ and left her terrified because ‘I knew they could hurt me’ in explosive YouTube rant

Britney Spears has taken aim at her father Jamie in a shocking new audio clip that was uploaded to YouTube on Sunday night.

Spears, 40, was speaking candidly about the circumstances that led to her being placed in a conservatorship in 2007 and how her life unfolded while her decisions were controlled by her family. 

Speaking about her family’s behavior during the conservatorship, the Stronger singer asked: ‘How the f*** did they they get away it?’ 

The singer says that her father was constantly abusive to her and her brother, Bryan. 

When talking about her brother, Spears said: ‘My brother was a football player. And my dad was really, really hard on him when he was younger, really abusive.’ 

Spears said that her father ‘controlled everything I did’ but that she ‘had to go along because I knew they could hurt me.’ 

In the clip, which has now been set to private, Spears says that when she was 30 years old, she was ‘living under my Dad’s rules.’ 

Spears alleges that in 2019, she was admitted to a mental health facility against her will as retaliation for voicing opinions during dress rehearsals for her canceled Vegas residency Domination. 

She said: ‘I didn’t want to ever go there. I remember calling my dad on the phone crying, and he said ‘You have to listen to the doctors. I can’t help you now.” 

The Toxic singer said: ‘Now you don’t have to go, but if you don’t go, we’re going to go to trial and you’re going to lose. I have way more people on my side than you [do]. You don’t even have a lawyer, so don’t even think about it.’ 

Spears alleges that her father ‘loved to control everything I did.’ 

Despite her anger at her father, Spears said that she is ‘honestly more angry’ with her mother, Lynne. She said her mother did not speak up for her child and would ‘innocently hide’ when questions were raised about the conservatorship. 

Spears reiterated that it was her mother who sought the conservatorship even though it was signed by her father. The singer made a similar allegation in a November 2021 Instagram post.  

The singer, who recently made her return to music with the release of the song Hold Me Closer alongside Elton John, said that her stay in the mental health facility led her to stop believing in God. 

She said: ‘How did they get away with it, and what the f**k did I do to deserve that?’ 

At the time, Spears was convinced to say that the reason for her mental health issues was her father’s colon cancer diagnosis. 

Eventually, Spears says that she grew strength because she ‘didn’t reach out to my Dad anymore.’

Spears said: ‘She’s going to come running back to us, because, you know, we’ve scared her. And we’re the bosses here. But I didn’t. I just stalled. And I stalled and I stalled and I stalled.’

She went on: ‘And finally, I think they just knew I wasn’t going back. And I finally got a lawyer of what a wonderful friend finally got me a lawyer. And he really helped me through it.’ 

Spears goes on: ‘They literally killed me. They threw me away. My family threw me away. I was a machine. It was insane how hard I worked.’ 

At one point during her conservatorship, Spears said that she was involved in a ‘secret relationship with a man. At one point, the pair discussed moving out of the country together.

She said: ‘My biggest fear was what would my dad do? If I did do something wrong? What if I left the country? What and what if they found me and what would they do? And I said, I feel like they would lock me up or something or really hurt me.’

In the conclusion of the video, Spears says that she has received plenty of offers for a formal sit down interview. 

Jamie Spears has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to the conservatorship.

In July, Jamie Spears was ordered by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to take part in a deposition about his actions heading the conservatorship the pop star was under for more than 13 years.

Judge Brenda Penny ruled that Jamie, 70, must schedule a deposition by August 12 after he was previously served with notices to sit for a deposition from Britney’s lawyer Mathew Rosengart and did not appear, Page Six reported.

Rosengart said in legal docs filed in May that Jamie had been ‘running and hiding’ from being deposed, and must account ‘for his misconduct – under oath – as required by law.’

Jamie’s attorney Alex Weingarten last month called for the Grammy-winning singer, 40, to be deposed over the ‘incendiary allegations of various factual matters’ that she had made via social media. 

Rosengart told the court that he felt that the move to push Britney into a deposition was ‘retaliatory’ and ‘abusing the legal process,’ amid an attempted probe of Jamie’s handling of funds and alleged surveillance of the singer. 

The lawyer said the …Baby One More Time singer cannot testify to matters about the conservatorship since she was the one living under it, and that she would be traumatized again in facing questions about it.

Rosengart, who has represented the Toxic artist since last year, suggested that Jamie’s legal team should either depose Jamie or Britney’s ex-business manager Lou Taylor for information on the arrangement.

Another issue heard before the court Wednesday was Jamie’s request Britney’s estate cover his attorney’s fees in the wake of the termination of the conservatorship this past November. After Jamie was dropped by his former legal team, he hired Weingarten at an hourly rate of around $1,200, Variety reported last year.

Rosengart told Page Six Jamie’s petition was ‘not only legally meritless’ but ‘an abomination’ under the circumstances of the case.

‘Mr. Spears reaped many millions of dollars from Britney as a conservator, while paying his lawyers millions more, all from Britney’s work and hard-earned money,’ Rosengart said of the previous arrangement.

Jamie was loaned $40,000 in 2008 – just before the conservatorship started – by Lou Taylor’s organization Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group, the outlet reported, adding that Taylor’s attorney Charles Harder said that Jamie had ‘repaid’ the ‘small loan’ and that it had no impact on ‘Tri Star’s work for the estate in later years.’

Britney Spears claims medics took large amounts of blood from her every WEEK, gave her no privacy in the shower and forced her to sit in a chair for ten hours per day when she was in a psych ward

Britney Spears has spoken about having ‘six galls’ of blood taken from her every week while staying in a psych ward during a 22-minute YouTube rant.

The 40-year-old singer posted the recording on Sunday night in a video that has since been made private, offering new details on the controversial conservatorship arrangement that ended last April after more than 15 years.

During the video, she spoke about her time in confinement – believed to be Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Spears said: ‘He said you have to listen to the doctors. His last words were: you don’t have to go but if you don’t go, we’ll go to court with a big trial and you will lose.’

She adds she ‘wanted to scream’ and her heart felt frozen and was forced to sit in a chair for 10 hours a day. 

Once there, the singer claims she had ‘six galls’ of blood taken from her every week and the experience made her stop believing in God. It is unclear what she means, as there is only one about 1.2 to 1.5 gallons of blood in the human body.

She also alleges she had no privacy and couldn’t even smoke cigarettes, which she said even ‘people on death row’ can do.

The full clip features Spears speaking at length about her experiences during this time, offering a chronological account of the events that led her to being placed into the conservatorship – in which her father Jamie controlled her decisions and finances.

It also sees the Oops! I Did It Again songstress – who recently deleted her Instagram – allege that her 2008 forced hospitalization was pre-meditated, and the product of a plot to take control of her millions.

The de facto public service announcement saw Spears, who is currently in the midst of an explosive and highly-public row with her ex-husband Kevin Federline, maintain that she did not have drugs or alcohol in her system prior to her hospitalization, as it was previously claimed.

It comes days after the embattled pop star made her first foray back into the music business last Friday with Elton John in the duet Hold Me Closer, and almost half a year before a judge freed her from father’s figurative vise.

‘A woman introduced the idea to my dad and my mom helped him follow through and made it all happen. It was all set up. There was no drugs or alcohol in my system. Pure abuse,’ Spears sniped in the scathing clip.

‘Holy s***!’ Britney Spears reacts to her duet with Elton John reaching number one in 40 countries via Twitter video… after deleting her Instagram AGAIN 

Britney Spears exclaimed: ‘HOLY S***!’ on Twitter after her first new single in six years reportedly topped the iTunes charts in 40 countries.

The single – a collaboration with Sir Elton John – is entitled Hold Me Closer, and mixes his 1971 hit Tiny Dancer with his 1992 song The One, as well as parts of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart from 1976.

Less than a day after the new song dropped, Britney, 40, tweeted a video filmed in the bath in which she playfully put on an English accent and said: ‘Hello, Sir Elton John, we are like number one in 40 countries.’

She then lapsed back into her natural American accent to excitedly yell: ‘HOLY S***!’ before reverting to the English accent to say with a wink: ‘I’m in the tub right now, and I’m about to go have the best day ever and I hope you’re well.’

Her video came as the New York Daily News reported Hold Me Closer had rocketed to number one on iTunes in 40 countries within hours of its release.

Britney deleted her Instagram page when the song dropped, but she has been posting celebratory videos on Twitter in the wake of its success.

In one new clip, she could be seen sitting cross legged at the edge of the bath, apparently nude except for a towel draped across her lap.

She also had herself filmed smiling and waving while strutting through a hallway as her and Sir Elton’s new song played.

Britney was decked out in a chic ensemble including a monochrome wrap coat, a matching pair of sunglasses and a summery straw hat.

‘Keep smiling folks … KEEP SMILING!!!’ the Womanizer singer wrote above the video, adding: ‘Psss I LOVE YOU ALL !!!’

As delighted fans rushed to Twitter to praise the tune, Sir Elton, 75, revealed he hoped the single would be a hit in order to restore Britney’s confidence and inspire her to keep making music. 

Ahead of the single being released at midnight on Thursday, the British singer admitted he could relate to Britney, 40, being ‘broken’ and revealed that it had been a struggle to work together as Britney had understandably been ‘fearful’ to return to music following the end of her 13-year conservatorship at the hands of her father Jamie. 

Sir Elton told The Guardian: ‘It’s hard when you’re young. Britney was broken. I was broken when I got sober. I was in a terrible place. Now, I’ve got the experience to be able to advise people and help them because I don’t want to see any artists in a dark place.

He added that Britney had to approve the music, explaining: ‘She’s been away so long – there’s a lot of fear there, because she’s been betrayed so many times and she hasn’t really been in the public eye officially for so long.

‘We’ve been holding her hand through the whole process, reassuring her that everything’s gonna be all right.’

The Crocodile Rock singer went on to blast the conservatorship she was under, noting ‘What happened to her shouldn’t have happened to anybody.’

No doubt the outpouring of love and support from the singer’s fans will aid in restoring her confidence, with Hold Me Closer rocketing to the top of the music charts within hour of its release. 

Taking to Twitter to praise the collaboration, fans penned: ‘I just heard #HoldMeCloser for the first time. Britney you sound so beautiful and I am so proud of you, your fans will be with you and ALWAYS!’; ‘finally can officially say it… NEW BRITNEY SPEARS MUSIC. #HoldMeCloser’;

‘Hold Me Closer represents Britney joining Elton John at a moment when she’s with no confidence, but he took her hand and showed that she is actually ready to take her place back. #HoldMeCloser @britneyspears @eltonofficial’; ‘It’s perfect, @britneyspears #HoldMeCloser’;

‘Happy Britney day!!!! Currently at number 1 on uk iTunes welcome back my queen #HoldMeCloser’; ‘NUMBER 1 ON THE US ITUNES CHARTS SO SO DESERVED #HoldMeCloser’; ‘i’m so excited to support #HoldMeCloser for britney now that she has full creative control. she deserves to see how much we’re there for her and the amount of love we have for her without a doubt

‘I know my favorite adlib is gone from the final version but the production is so much better it really makes up for it. Plus there are several others that stayed and continue to bless our ears. This song is honestly so good, I’m OBSESSED. #HoldMeCloser’;

‘#HoldMeCloser is so beautiful! I got emotional listening to @britneyspears vocals. She is so resilient and strong, you can feel it through her voice! Thinking about the things she went through and yet she still POWERFUL as ever! ❤️ I LOVE U’;

‘6 years ago to the day Britney dropped her last body of work ‘Glory’, and shortly after embarked on one of the most difficult chapters of her life: gaining her freedom. Now shes returned to music with a stellar bop alongside another legend, Elton John, we MUST stan. #HoldMeCloser [sic]’. 

While fans were delighted by the new music, critics were polarised, with The Telegraph’s  Neil McCormick awarding the single just one star, penning: ‘Cobbled together from two far better songs, it’s a dreamy little wisp of a thing that plays to neither of their strengths and coasts along on novelty value alone.’

The Guardian’s Michael Cragg gave the tune four stars, however, writing: ‘For diehard Spears fans, or indeed anyone with a passing knowledge of one of the most distinctive pop vocalists of all time, hearing her sing again feels like a real moment.’ 

Shortly after the song hit streaming platforms, Britney’s husband Sam Asghari took to Instagram to show support and to express just how ‘proud’ he is of Spears.

‘Words can’t describe how f****ing proud I am!’ he wrote atop a screenshot of Hold Me Closer actively playing on his iPhone. Another shot showed the 28-year-old actor playing the track through his car’s sound system.

Britney and Sam wed in June after five years of dating. Coincidentally, the duo met on set of the music video she filmed for her song Slumber Party – which would be her last until her latest release.

Along with the support of those closest to her, Britney took it upon herself to promote Hold Me Closer to her fans ahead of its premiere. 

She published three tweets to her Twitter account on Wednesday, which marked her first use of the account since June 15.

She wrote: ‘Okie dokie … my first song in 6 years !!!! It’s pretty damn cool that I’m singing with one of the most classic men of our time … @eltonofficial!!!! I’m kinda overwhelmed… it’s a big deal to me!!!’

Britney added that she is ‘meditating more and learning [her] space is valuable and precious!!!’ adding she is ‘learning everyday is a clean slate to try and be a better person and do what makes me happy,’ adding, ‘yes I choose happiness today.’

She went on to say she’s looking to gain more confidence, penning, ‘I want to be fearless like when I was younger and not be so scared and fearful.’

She added: ‘I pray there actually is truth to the Holy Spirit and I hope that spirit is with my children as well!!! Yes … I choose happiness and joy today!!!’

Page Six reported last month that Britney had joined up with the English singer and composer in Beverly Hills to record the track, which first appeared on his 1971 album Madman Across The Water.

Elton appears to be the one who came up with the idea of the collaboration, but it seems to be an ideal soft launch for Britney to reinvigorate her musical career after staying silent in the final years of her now-defunct conservatorship.

‘This was Elton’s idea, and Britney is a huge fan. They have recorded a remix of Tiny Dancer as a full duet — and it is incredible,’ a music industry insider told the outlet.

The source added that Britney traveled to a studio located in Beverly Hills with Elton to record the song out of the public eye which was ‘overseen by uber-producer Andrew Watt.’

Watt has worked with several high-profile pop and rock acts — including Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Camilla Cabello and Pearl Jam — and he has collaborated multiple times with Elton, which suggests he would be an ideal pick for the two artists.

According to the source, Britney and Elton’s new single is already a hit with record company executives.

‘They’ve already played it for people at their record label, and everybody is freaking out. It is so good,’ they gushed. ‘They are saying this is going to be the song of the summer.

‘Britney is officially back,’ they added. ‘She’s back to work, and she’s super excited.’

‘She truly is an icon, one of the all-time great pop stars and she sounds amazing on this record. I love her dearly and am delighted with what we’ve created together,’ Elton said in a statement.

Britney, in her statement, told Elton it was an honor to be asked, saying: ‘I am so grateful that I got the opportunity to work with you and your legendary mind.’

Elton and Britney first met in 2014 at an Oscars party and she later tweeted her love of Tiny Dancer, sowing the seeds for the latest collaboration.