Britney Spears spoke out about online criticism, her experience with her Las Vegas residency, and her disappointment with those closest to her in two Instagram posts from Saturday. In the first post, Spears directly addressed the people in her life who have only recently spoken out in support of her in her fight against her conservatorship, writing, “There’s nothing worse than when the people closest to you who never showed up for you post things in regard to your situation whatever it may be and speak righteously for support … there’s nothing worse than that!” She went on to explain her frustration with those that didn’t “even put a hand out to even lift me up at the TIME.” Spears continued, “How dare you make it public that NOW you CARE … did you put your hand out when I was drowning?”
She then expressed her disbelief and disappointment that those who failed her “actually have the nerve to say anything about my situation just to save face for yourself publicly.” Fans suspected that Spears was addressing, among others, her younger sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, who spoke publicly about Spears’s conservatorship case for the first time in June. “Maybe I didn’t support her the way the public would like me to with a hashtag on a public platform, but I can assure you that I’ve supported my sister long before there was a hashtag, and I’ll support her long after,” Jamie Lynn said on her Instagram Stories. “Not that I owe the public anything, because my sister knows I love and support her.”
Spears more or less confirmed fans’ suspicions with a second Instagram post on Saturday night, in which she directly calls out Jamie Lynn. “I don’t like that my sister showed up at an awards show and performed MY SONGS to remixes,” Spears wrote, likely referring to Jamie Lynn’s 2017 performance at the Radio Disney Music Awards. “My so-called support system hurt me deeply!” Spears also detailed her feelings on “those of you who choose to criticize my dancing videos,” and addressed her father, Jamie, writing, “Look I’m not gonna be performing on any stages anytime soon with my dad handling what I wear, say, do, or think. I’ve done that for the past 13 years.”
Spears went on to explain that she’d rather share videos “from my living room instead of onstage in Vegas where some people were so far gone they couldn’t even shake my hand and I ended up getting a contact high from weed all the time … which I didn’t mind but it would have been nice to be able to go to the mother fucking spa.” Spears also noted that she didn’t like “the way the documentaries bring up humiliating moments from the past … I’m way past all that and have been for a long time,” likely referring in part to the New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears. She concluded her second post by sharing that she still has hope because “hope is the only thing in this world that is very hard to kill,” and advised those who “say it’s weird the way I still have hope for fairy tales” to “go fuck yourself.”
Update July 18: In classic southern deflection mode, Jamie Lynn Spears posted an Instagram today appealing to God, captioning a selfie with “May the peace of the Lord be with you, and your spirit✌🏻❤️.” That caption has since been edited down to just the emojis. Probably because Britney seemed to respond with a dance video captioned, in part “May the Lord wrap your mean ass up in joy today.”
