Britney Spears: will the princess of pop finally find freedom?

I followed the singer’s ups and downs since her first hit as a 16-year-old. Now a new documentary has highlighted how harshly she has been treated

The first time I interviewed Britney Spears she was 16: an instant, overnight superstar on account of her just-dropped single ... Baby One More Time. This was 1998 so I asked her about the other biggest story of the day – the affair between Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

“I just think the president is a very decent man,” she began in her honeyed drawl, “and it’s really not fair what all these people are saying about him and that gir–”