A few days after announcing to the world that her partner of five years, Sam Asghari, has proposed, singer Britney Spears has deleted her Instagram account. Her sudden disappearance sparked concern amongst her 30 million plus followers, who have often speculated that due to her ongoing conservatorship, Britney wasn't in total control of her social media output.
Britney's Gram, the account linked to the Toxic podcast which has long spearheaded the Free Britney movement (which the singer has recently acknowledged as being a welcome support during her legal battle to have her father, Jamie Spears, removed as the conservator of her estate), posted about her account's sudden take down.
"B’s account has apparently been deleted… we have only ever followed @britneyspears so it’s very weird to see that we are following 0 people," Britney's Gram wrote. "What is going on? We hope she just wanted a break from social media which is understandable… or was this someone else’s doing?"
However, the hitmaker herself then followed up with a tweet explaining that she was merely wanting to take some time off from IG to celebrate her engagement to Sam.
"Don’t worry folks… just taking a little break from social media to celebrate my engagement!!!! I’ll be back soon," she tweeted.
Whilst many fans were quick to congratulate Britney again and agree that it's important to take time off from socials, others - over on the Britney's Gram page - said they still had concerns.
"Lord knows we all need a social media break from time to time… but it doesn’t seem like B was ever the one posting to her Twitter so this tweet isn’t as comforting as we’d hope," the podcast hosts, Barbara Gray and Tess Barker, wrote. "Stay vigilant y’all."
Earlier this year, Britney spoke out in court and asked a judge to formally end her conservatorship, which sees her father Jamie Spears and a team of professionals have control over her money, schedule and, according to her testimony, pretty much every aspect of her life.
While delivering this statement, she also told Judge Brenda Penny that her complex legal situation has allegedly seen her forced to keep an IUD in her body and that marrying Sam wasn't something her conservators approved of.
"I would like to progressively move forward and I want to have the real deal, [but] I was told right now in the conservatorship, I’m not able to get married or have a baby," she shared via a remote link. "I have an (IUD) inside of myself right now so I don’t get pregnant. I wanted to take the (IUD) out so I could start trying to have another baby. But this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don’t want me to have children – any more children."
A little over a week ago, Britney's father, Jamie, officially filed paperwork requesting that the court - should it see fit - should consider ending the conservatorship entirely. This includes the role of conservator of the person held by Jodi Montgomery, who is part of the private firm Pais Montgomery Fiduciary.
