Britney Spears learned about the #FreeBritney movement from a nurse while she was in rehab
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Where were you when you first learned about #FreeBritney — the fan-led movement to remove Britney Spears from her conservatorship? The toilet? Probably the toilet.
Wherever you were, it probably doesn't compare to Spears herself, who reveals in her upcoming memoir, The Woman In Me, that she was at a rehab facility and was amazed by the show of support.
In an excerpt from The Woman In Me, published by The New York Times, the "...Baby One More Time" singer recalls life under her conservatorship. She claims her father, Jamie Spears, threatened to embarrass her and make her look like an "idiot" in court if she didn't go to rehab for three months in 2018.
Phillip Faraone/FilmMagic Britney Spears
While at the $60,000-a-month facility in Beverly Hills, Spears was prescribed lithium and constantly monitored.
"They kept me locked up against my will for months," she writes. "I couldn't go outside. I couldn't drive a car. I had to give blood weekly. I couldn't take a bath in private. I couldn't shut the door to my room."
Spears could only watch one hour of television before bedtime at 9pm, but she learned about the #FreeBritney movement from a nurse who showed her clips of fans questioning the conservatorship.
"That was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen in my life," Spears writes. "I don't think people knew how much the #FreeBritney movement meant to me, especially in the beginning."
Spears was placed under conservatorship in early 2008 after a series of very public struggles, where her father had control over her finances, as well as much of her bodily autonomy. She noted, however, that while she was "too sick to choose my own boyfriend," she was healthy enough to fulfill her duties as a beloved pop icon.
The 41-year-old singer also laments the spate of documentaries about her that popped up around the time of her conservatorship, speculating "about what I must have thought or felt."
Now Britney Spears gets to finally tell her story in her own words. The Woman in Me will be released on October 24.
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