Britney Spears’ 2016 interview axed from talk show resurfaces online

An interview from 2016 that never made it to air, in which Britney Spears discusses her conservatorship, has now resurfaced online.

The artist appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show to discuss her last album ‘Glory’ and briefly brought up the conservatorship, saying how it impacted her creative process. Her team intervened to prevent her comments from airing.

In a recent special edition of the long-running chat show that looked back at some of its most memorable moments, the 2016 clip was unearthed.

“The new album, you are more involved in this musically, I understand, than previous ones?” Ross asked. “So you’ve taken control. You’re more in control of your music than before? Why did it take you so long? Why did you wait until now to do it?”

“Well, um, there’s a lot of reasons, but I won’t get into the whole story,” replied Spears. “Since the conservatorship … I felt like a lot of the things were planned for me to do and, you know, being told what to do. And I was just like, for this [album], I want to make it my baby, and I want to do it myself. I was very strategic about the way I did it. And yeah, that’s why it means so much to me.”

Spears referenced the interview in her recent memoir The Woman In Me. “I even mentioned the conservatorship on a talk show in 2016, but somehow, that part of the interview didn’t make it to the air,” she wrote. “Huh. How interesting.”

Spears’ conservatorship was terminated after 13 years in November 2021, finally giving her a say in controlling her estimated $60million (£45million) estate and the freedom to make her own medical and personal decisions. The case was heavily supported by fans under the name #FreeBritney.

In other news, Spears recently said that she appreciated Sabrina Carpenter paying homage to her at the MTV VMAs, but she didn’t “understand” the entire performance.

Carpenter played a medley of ‘Please Please Please’, ‘Taste’ and ‘Espresso’. At one point during her performance, she kissed an alien before segueing into ‘Espresso’ from a portion of her recent single ‘Taste’. Carpenter also paid homage to Spears by playing a snippet of audio from the latter’s Mars-set video for ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’.

“Did you guys watch the VMAs? I didn’t watch the VMAs, but I did see stuff on my phone from YouTube of Sabrina Carpenter,” Spears said to start off her video – which has since expired from Instagram but was recorded and shared on X/Twitter.

She continued: “Why is she kissing an alien on stage? I adore her. I love her to death. I didn’t understand that part. Why didn’t she kiss a girl? Like, that was weird.”

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