Britney Spears has reflected on “the hardest years” of her life, when she was separated from her two sons.
The US pop star, 43, told her followers that her “secret to survival” was “denial and a lot of tears”, while stating that her marriage to actor and personal trainer Sam Asghari felt like a “fake distraction” to help her deal with the pain of being away from her children.
“We’re just people so fragile and human,” she wrote in a post to Instagram on Sunday (24 August).
Spears was estranged from her sons Sean Preston, 19, and Jayden James, 18 – whom she shares with ex-husband Kevin Federline – after her conservatorship case, which lasted until November 2021.
She and Asghari married in 2022 but separated two years later.
“The hardest years of my life were [when] my two sons [were] gone for those three years… I was cut off from calling or texting and I remember in shock my secret to survival was denial and a lot of tears,” she said.
“It’s weird me and Sam were married but it almost felt like a fake distraction to help me deal with it…”
The Independent has contacted Asghari’s representatives for comment.
Spears appears to have since repaired her relationship with her sons, as she has been sharing videos and photos of them to social media regularly over the past year.
In April, she posted a video of one of her sons playing the piano, captioning it: “Mamas don’t get enough credit at all these days !!! I mean just saying !!!
She added: “I made a person !!! A live breathing person and I made two of them !!! And my boys are so incredibly sweet and charming !!! I’m so blessed.”
In the new post, which accompanied a nude photo of Spears with her back to the camera, the “Toxic” singer said she knew she was healing because she was “hungry again like a child or a baby”.
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“I’m so hungry it hurts and when I eat it’s like it’s my first time ever eating in my life,” she said.
Spears has previously claimed that she was put on a strict diet during her conservatorship, which controlled her business and personal affairs.
In 2022, she posted to Instagram to say she struggled to vocalise when she wanted more food during a meal, claiming she had never been given “seconds” at a dinner table.
“It’s weird just the other night someone made me the best mac and cheese,” she said. “I swear I wanted more so bad !!! But I didn’t do it then I thought about it !!! Have I ever had seconds ???”
In the 2021 documentary Controlling Britney Spears, her former head of wardrobe Latisha “Tish” Yates claimed she witnessed Spears’s father Jamie and Robin Greenhill – an employee of the company that managed her business affairs – turn down simple requests by the star.
“Britney would say, ‘Hey, is there any way we could have sushi for dinner?’” she recalled. “And I would hear Robin say, ‘You had sushi yesterday, it’s too expensive. You don’t need it again.’”
