Britney Spears Has Come a Long Way 11 Years After Head-Shaving Incident

Eleven years after suffering a public breakdown, the singer is in a better place and is currently enjoying time off from performing, with her sons and her boyfriend, Sam Asghari

By Corinne Heller Feb 17, 2018 4:25 PMTags

Britney Spears appears to be a great place in her life, eleven years after her famous head-shaving incident, which marked part of her public meltdown.

The 36-year-old singer is on a break from performing after completing a four-year concert residency in Las Vegas, which made more than $137.7 million. This summer, she will embark on a world tour.

Spears has been enjoying her time off with her sonsSean Preston and Jayden James, and her boyfriend, Sam Asghari.

"I've been with this man for over a year... everyday he inspires me to be a better person and that makes me feel like the luckiest girl in the world!!" she wrote on Instagram earlier this month.

Spears has also been spending time recently watching the 2018 Winter Olympics—she penned a personal tweet to figure skater Adam Rippon on Friday.

The singer certainly seems to be in high spirits; she posted on her Instagram page on Friday a video of her performing freestyle ballet fouetté turns, or twirls, in her living room, marking one of many clips she has posted in recent years showing her dancing or otherwise having fun. 

The year 2007 was a different story. 

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Britney Spears & Sam Asghari: Romance Rewind

Who doesn't love to twirl all day?? ??????

A post shared by Britney Spears (@britneyspears) on

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On Feb. 16 of that year, after a day-long rehab stint, the then-25-year-old singer—who remains one of the most popular in the world—shaved her own head at a Los Angeles salon. At the time, she was dealing with major personal turmoil, namely a divorce from Kevin Federline and a custody battle over their sons.

Spears had initially asked the salon owner, "I want you to buzz my hair off." The woman said she tried to talk the singer out of it, and that Spears then grabbed a pair of electric clippers and performed the task herself. The incident was captured on camera by the paparazzi, while a local news station's helicopter crew also shot footage of it from the air.

"When she shaved her head, it was quite literally a way for her to try to rid herself of her past," a source told E! News in 2017. "She felt like everything in her life was dictated by someone else. In her mind, people were always trying to tell her what to do, how to act...They were constantly touching her, telling her what to wear, how to style her hair...She felt like a doll. Shaving her hair off was the ultimate rebellion. It was almost a cleansing experience. It was her way of sending a clear message that she was no longer willing to be controlled."

Later that evening, she got a new tattoo—a pair of pink lips on her wrist—at a tattoo parlor a few miles away. Days later, Spears attacked an SUV carrying paparazzi with an umbrella. She then spent a month in rehab.

For the next year, Spears continued to make headlines over erratic behavior—she spoke in a fake English accent to the paparazzi and she made midnight runs to drug stores. In January 2008, Spears locked herself in her bathroom with her son Jayden. Authorities were called and she was later placed on a gurney and admitted to a hospital on a 5150 psychiatric hold. A month later, her father Jamie Spears was granted a temporary conservatorship over her and her affairs. It lasts to this day.

Spears told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth last year that she found her twenties to be "really awful" and that her thirties were much better as she got to know herself better.

"I think I should have taken breaks for myself, throughout my career, taken responsibility for my mental health," Spears said (according to remarks translated from an interview published in Hebrew). "There were a lot of decisions that were made for me."

"My life was too controlled by too many people and that doesn't really allow you to be yourself," she said. "In that situation, when you are not the person in control, you are less enthusiastic, there is less passion to do all that's needed in music."