Britney Spears reveals the truth about post-rehab photos that shocked the world

These disturbing photos of Britney Spears shocked fans everywhere. Now she’s finally revealed what was really happening.

Britney Spears fans have had many reasons to be concerned in recent years, but the mysterious events of early 2019 were particularly worrisome.

In the space of just a few months, Spears abruptly cancelled her upcoming Las Vegas residency weeks before it was due to start, then quietly entered a psychiatric rehab facility for a prolonged stay.

Photos of Spears in public shortly after her stay in the facility shocked the world: She looked lost and broken, with a vacant stare and a blank expression on her face. “Britney Spears looks like a dazed mess in bizarre first photos after entering rehab,” RadarOnline uncharitably headlined the photos at the time.

Britney with boyfriend Sam Asghari in April 2019, shortly after emerging from rehab. Picture: Backgrid

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Now, more than two years later, Spears herself has given disturbing context for those pictures in her explosive 24-minute speech in court yesterday as part of her ongoing conservatorship case.

As Spears tells it, relations with her conservator father Jamie and her other handlers went south after she confessed she felt overworked and did not want to go through with the Vegas residency, which was due to open in February 2019.

She was surprised when it was agreed to cancel the residency, just five weeks out – but said she immediately feared “punishment” for the cancellation.

These April 2019 photos had fans worried. Picture: Backgrid

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She told the court that three days later, her therapist placed her on the psychiatric drug lithium.

“He took me off my normal meds I’ve been on for five years. And lithium is a very, very strong and completely different medication compared to what I was used to,” she said.

“You can go mentally impaired if you take too much, if you stay on it longer than five months. But he put me on that and I felt drunk. I really couldn’t even take up for myself. I couldn’t even have a conversation with my mum or dad really about anything.”

Spears alleges she was also forced to undergo daily four-hour psychiatric evaluations in her home. She says that after one such test, her father called to tell her she’d failed the evaluation and would be sent to a rehab facility, which would cost her $60,000. She claims he enjoyed her emotional reaction to the news.

“I cried on the phone for an hour and he loved every minute of it. The control he had over someone as powerful as me — he loved the control to hurt his own daughter 100,000 per cent,” she said.

Britney was finally given an opportunity to tell her story in court yesterday. Picture: AFP

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Spears compared her stint in the facility to “sex trafficking”: “Making anyone work against their will, taking all their possessions away – credit card, cash, phone, passport – and placing them in a home where they work with the people who live with them.”

She alleges she was made to work in the rehab facility 10 hours a day, seven days a week, and told she would not be able to see her two children or boyfriend Sam Asghari unless she submitted.

She also alleges she was watched “morning, noon and night”, given no privacy and was even watched when she got changed.

Which brings us to the photos, first published in April 2019 as Britney emerged from rehab. As she now explains it, she was “drunk” on lithium and had just endured a traumatic and exhausting experience.

Britney’s boyfriend Sam Asghari appeared to be helping her walk in the shocking photos. Picture: Backgrid

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But was the stint in rehab necessary? Spears insists it was not.

“I was advised for my image, I need to go ahead [to rehab] and just go and get it over with. They said that to me. I don’t even drink alcohol – I should drink alcohol, considering what they put my heart through,” she told the court.

So what next for Britney? After her searing speech, the judge said she would entertain a formal request to end the conservatorship. But it appears Britney wants to go further than that, saying in court that those responsible for keeping her conservatorship going should be put in jail.

“I would honestly like to sue my family. I also would like to be able to share my story with the world, and what they did to me, instead of it being a hush-hush secret to benefit all of them. I want to be able to be heard on what they did to me by making me keep this in for so long, is not good for my heart. I’ve been so angry and I cry every day. It concerns me; I’m told I’m not allowed to expose the people who did this to me,” she said.