‘Distraught’ Britney Spears now in mental health facility

Months after the shock announcement of her career hiatus, Britney Spears is reportedly now in a mental health care facility.

Britney Spears has entered a mental health facility, it’s been reported today.

The singer was admitted as she has been “distraught” over her father’s poor health, and has been living in the facility for about a week, TMZ reports. She is expected to remain there for 30 days.

The news comes exactly three months after Spears’ shock announcement that she would be cancelling a planned Las Vegas residency and putting her career on indefinite hiatus so that she could take care her of her ailing father, Jamie Spears.

Britney Spears has been taking time out from the public eye. Picture: AFP

Spears appeared to acknowledge her situation today in her first Instagram post since announcing her retreat from the public eye.

“We all need to take time for a little “me time.” :)” she captioned the post.

“I don’t even know where to start with this, because this is so tough for me to say,” Spears wrote in an Instagram announcement on January 5, telling fans that her new Las Vegas residency planned to open just weeks later had been abruptly canned.

“I’ve been looking forward to this show and seeing all of you this year, so doing this breaks my heart. However, it’s important to always put your family first … and that’s the decision I had to make. A couple of months ago, my father was hospitalised and almost died. We’re all so grateful that he came out of it alive, but he still has a long road ahead of him. I had to make the difficult decision to put my full focus and energy on my family at this time. I hope you all can understand.”

Spears is dating fitness model Sam Asghari.

Spears and her father have an incredibly close relationship: She remains under his court-appointed conservatorship, an arrangement first set up after her much-publicised mental breakdown in 2008.

Every purchase Britney makes is tracked in court documents to safeguard her fortune. She pays her dad $130,000 a year to manage her affairs, and until this year, her other conservator was lawyer Andrew M. Wallet.

According to Us Weekly, Wallet abruptly resigned his position in March and turned full control of Britney’s finances over to her father.

Her father’s sole control of her fortune comes as his health has faltered dramatically: TMZ reports that Jamie Spears has now had two surgeries to correct major issues with his intestines and colon, which started last year after his colon “spontaneously ruptured.”

“Britney was having a hard time dealing with her dad’s health issues. Britney hasn’t been drinking or doing drugs or anything, she just has some very difficult emotional and mental health issues. She’s gone away to try with her issues before they get worse,” a source close to the Spears family told Page Six.