Britney Spears' family say they fear she is on METH and will die like Amy ... trends now
For those hoping the end of Britney Spears' conservatorship would mark the beginning of a new chapter of happiness and stability for the singer, the past 18 months have proved challenging.
Since November 2021, when the 13-year arrangement to control her financial and personal affairs was lifted, she has documented her freedom in a torrent of highly emotional social media messages, many of them semi-naked.
The often-bizarre posts led to fears the 41-year-old is fragile, damaged by the years in which others controlled her life, and perhaps still plagued by the mental health issues which first led to the conservatorship.
Today, Britney is in an extremely dangerous place.
They tell me her drug-taking has resumed – with some in her family claiming she is now hooked on crystal meth, the highly addictive cocaine derivative made notorious in hit series Breaking Bad.
Britney Spears' family are worried her drug taking has resumed. Britney is pictured with her father Jamie, brother Bryan and mother Lynne
Since the end of her conservatorship in 2021, Britney has posted a series of highly-emotional and bizarre messages on social media, many of them semi-naked
But after spending nine months working with the wider Spears family – Britney's parents, her brother, her former husband and her children – for a new documentary, I'm sorry to say the situation is more deeply troubling than even we had guessed.
'I fear she's on meth – I've been praying someone would make it public and that she wakes up,' Kevin Federline, her ex- husband and father of their two sons, told me. 'It's terrifying. She is the mother of my boys.'
Her sons, Preston, 17, and Jayden, 16, are refusing to meet their mother, claiming they have seen drugs being delivered to her house.
Her family are scared, with Britney's father, Jamie, telling me he worries she will meet the same fate as English singer Amy Winehouse, who died at the tragically young age of 27.
Having spent time with both families – Amy's in the three years before her death and Britney's over the past year – I can see disturbing parallels.
And as her ex-husband put it several times: 'Every time the telephone rings, I fear that there will be devastating news.
'I don't want the boys to wake up one morning and find their mother has taken an overdose.'
Having cut off her family after her conservatorship ended, accusing Jamie – the arrangement's instigator – of being 'abusive', 'bullying her' and even forcing her to take birth control, she has left them powerless to intervene.
Britney Spears at the 1999 Teen Choice Awards in Los Angeles
Kevin Federline, Britney's ex-husband said: 'I fear she's on meth – I've been praying someone would make it public and that she wakes up' (pictured together in 2004)
I first encountered the Spears family in July of last year when, with my producer Erbil Gunasti, I started filming a TV news special with Britney's family members.
The idea had been to look at both points of view – from that of a singer recently released from the shackles of the conservatorship, but also from her two boys and those left to bring them up. Bit by bit, we were able to piece together how Britney and her family reached this catastrophic point.
Various family members say they would like to reach out to her but they claim she no longer depends on their care and is instead now reliant on an entourage of powerful advisers – with those once closest to her unable to get through.
Last month, Britney revealed there had been a step towards reconciliation with her mother, Lynne, whom she said had 'showed up at my doorstep after three years', adding on Instagram: 'I love you so much!!!'
For the rest of her family, there has been no such rapprochement. None were present at her wedding last year to the 26-year-old American-Iranian model Sam Ashgari.
Britney's sister, Jamie Lynn, is also estranged following her memoir Things I Should've Said, in which she described struggling with a lack of self-esteem due to Britney's fame.
The book also detailed an occasion in which she claims Britney locked the pair in a bathroom while holding a knife – allegations described by the singer as 'crazy lies'.
Britney would struggle to refute her history of substance abuse in the same way.
Britney's sister, Jamie Lynn, is also estranged following her memoir Things I Should've Said (pictured together in 2003)
During a custody hearing in 2007, a California judge described her as 'a habitual, frequent and continuous' user of alcohol and prescription drugs.
Kevin told me that at one point, when the boys were still babies, he instructed his lawyers to warn Britney not to breast feed them while on drugs.
In August, I disclosed in The Mail on Sunday that the boys had decided not to see their mother until she finds help. They have kept their word.
They told me that they had been through many traumatic experiences with her over the years.
And things did not improve as they grew older. They claim, for example, that she attempted to continue bathing them when they were age 11 and 12.
In one frightening stay at Britney's home, they say they found her standing near the door of Jayden's bedroom in the middle of the night – with a kitchen blade in her hand. 'She was standing there with a knife,' Jayden told his dad.
Bright, attractive and well-mannered, Jayden and Preston have told me they are not angry, just concerned for her wellbeing and desperate for her to get the help they believe she needs. The response to our MoS article was dramatic. Britney took to social media and attacked her sons like a wounded animal. Jayden received heated phone calls from her while he was at school and stopped answering her calls and texts.
Contact has not completely stopped. Preston called her on December 2 to wish her a happy birthday. He told us that they've had good conversations on the phone – but when she asked him to visit he said he was not ready for it and that he
