It seems that the Britney Spears has problems again. According to friends, the 43-year-old artist, who after a night out veered into the wrong lane on a highway, has lost control of her life in a sad repeat of her infamous 2007 meltdown.

In videos and photos published by the Daily Mail, the pop star appeared to be unable to walk properly at the upscale Red-O restaurant in Thousand Oaks. Witnesses described how the singer threw glasses and objects on the floor of the restaurant.

A witness said Britney Spears “almost hit her friend while pulling out of the parking lot,” forcing the mystery woman to jump aside as the singer sped off in the car. Her drive—about five miles on a freeway to her mansion in Thousand Oaks—quickly became dangerous.

It was 1998 when a girl from Louisiana, with a voice that burned and a look that promised glory, released “Baby One More Time” and changed pop music forever. Britney Spears became the idol of an entire generation. Twenty-five years later, the same woman is making headlines again — not for a hit single, but for her most personal demons.

The commissariat prison: 13 years in a foreign life

For more than a decade, Spears lived under a regime that would be the envy of even a dystopia novel: she had no right to drive, manage her finances, or make decisions about her body. The movement #FreeBritney changed the course of history. In 2021, a Los Angeles court acquitted Britney, ending one of the most controversial legal regimes in American showbiz history. “Finally, I can breathe, but I don’t know how to live free anymore”she had stated herself.

Her relations with her family remain deeply wounded. Her father, despite the public apology, has never really spoken to her again. Even more painful: the estrangement from her two sons, Sean Preston and Jaden. Her ex-husband, Kevin Federlinein his new book titled “You Thought You Knew”claims, among other things, that his then-teenage sons were afraid to stay at their mother’s house.

“Sometimes they would wake up in the night and see her standing silently in the doorway, watching them sleep with a knife in her hand”he writes. “Then he would turn and leave without any explanation”. In response to the allegations, Britney Spears’ spokesperson told The Independent newspaper: “With the release of Kevin Federline’s book, once again he and others are taking advantage of her and, unfortunately, this is after Kevin has terminated child support.”

The battle with mental health and the media

From shaving her head in 2007 to puzzling Instagram videos, Spears’ relationship with her mental health is now a public affair. Sources close to her talk about mood swings, periods of depression and intense isolation.

She lives almost alone, far from the industry that brought her up but also destroyed her. The media, as then, remains voracious. Her every post, every gesture, is analyzed, becomes a headline and creates new judgments. Now, she must learn to make decisions on her own, in a world that won’t let her be forgotten. And yet, behind it all, there is still the flame. In her book, “The Woman in Me”writes: “I’m still here. I’m not the victim you think. I am the woman who learned to say “no”.