For as long as Britney Spears has been a star, she has been the subject of irresponsible and intense media scrutiny. She’s been stalked by paparazzi who’ve aimed to shoot every inch of her life with no thought given to her mental health or her right to personal space. While it is common for celebrities to undergo this, what Spears has faced has been downright ridiculous and led to her infamous 2007 breakdown where she shaved her head and smashed the windows of a paparazzo’s car.

It was also the year when Spears lost custody of both her children to Kevin Federline following their divorce. In January, the next year, the pop icon was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital and was placed under temporary conservatorship under her father and attorney, Andrew Wallet – this conservatorship ultimately became permanent.

“I basically just want my life back … I want to be able to drive my car. I want to be able to live in my house by myself. I want to be able to say who’s going to be my security guard,” said Spears in a recording that was captured by Rolling Stone in 2008.

As a conservator, Spears’ father, Jamie basically “functions as a guardian, assuming control over the person’s finances, or health matters, or — as in Spears’s case — full legal responsibility for the adult’s life”, reports The Cut. This also means that they control her approximately $60 million fortune.

And her fans are not happy.

The #FreeBritney movement has grown in strength throughout quarantine with fans urging that Spears is sending out coded messages indicating calls for help and that she is strained.

In fact, popular Instagram page, Diet Prada also involved itself and posted slides of what the #FreeBritney movement is all about. The post claims that throughout her career, Spears “has been treated like a product meant to sell” and that even though she is 38 years old, she cannot drive a car, get married, have children, spend her own money, hire her own lawyer, have any control over her career and speak about the conservatorship publicly.

It is no wonder, then, that fans are fuming.