Britney Spears was arrested by the California Highway Patrol on suspicion of driving under the influencein Ventura County on Wednesday evening and released early the following morning, TMZ reported.
Officers from the Ventura County division of the California Highway Patrol stopped the 44-year-old pop star at approximately 9:30 p.m. on 4 March. TMZ, which was the first outlet to break the story, reported that Spears was booked in the early hours of Thursday, 5 March, and released at 6:07 a.m. Arrest records show the booking was classified as a 'cite and release', with no probation conditions attached.
Spears is scheduled to appear in court on 4 May. The Irish Star said it reached out to Spears' representatives for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
In the hours following the arrest, Spears deactivated her Instagram account — a move quickly noted by fans and the press. The platform had long been one of her most prominent channels of public communication, and her posts there had drawn repeated concern from followers and commentators over several years.
The arrest followsa prolonged period of public unease surrounding the singersince the end of her restrictive 13-year conservatorship. Since then, she has alarmed supporters on multiple occasions through her social media behaviour and other public conduct. Her name was also drawn into a significant court case last year, as previously reported by the Irish Star.
The conservatorship Jamie Spears oversaw from 2008 cast a long shadow — one that stretched well past the financial controls most people associated with it. The restrictive arrangement lasted 13 years and shaped nearly every corner of her personal and professional life throughout that period.
It was a run of highly publicised incidents — alongsidepersistent allegations of alcohol misuse and substance abuse— that first prompted the court to step in. Those same circumstances carried direct weight in subsequent legal proceedings over the custody of her children, and came to define much of the public narrative around her life during that era.
During the conservatorship, Spears also lost custody of her two sons, Sean Preston and Jayden James, from her marriage toex-husband Kevin Federline. The custody outcome attracted sustained public and media attention that endured long after the conservatorship itself had ended.
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Britney Spears has been arrested in California for a DUI.What we know:https://t.co/FPq1xXhVdppic.twitter.com/d2lb6bb5dG
It was a detail that never quite faded from view — journalists and commentators were still returning to it years later whenever that chapter of her life came back into focus.
Source: International Business Times UK
