Britney Spears declares she will "never return to the music industry"

Posting, for some reason, alongside an image of Guido Reni’s 1600s-era painting of Salome holding the head of John The Baptist, Spears shot down recent press rumors that she’s working on a new album as “trash,” declaring that she actually now considers herself a “ghostwriter.” “I’ve written over 20 songs for other people the past two years,” Spears asserted, saying that she prefers working behind the scenes and handing off her new compositions to other artists. And now, of course, we’re going to spend the rest of our lives in a state of mild musical paranoia, because every time we hear a new song on Spotify, we’re going to ask ourselves: Britney?

Spears hasn’t released an album since 2016, with Glory serving as the latest of several albums released during her controversial conservatorship, which stretched from 2008 to 2021. She stopped performing publicly very early in 2019, with the cancellation of her long-running residency in Las Vegas. Most recently, she released her memoir, The Woman In Me, which gave her insider perspective on the numerous controversial and headline-grabbing moments of her life, while also declaring that she no longer considers herself in a state to publicly release music.

Meanwhile, Spears’ denial doesn’t seem to have done much to quell efforts by others to get her to possibly make a new album; Rolling Stone quoted an anonymous source today that says Spears’ team is trying to get her excited for the idea, including tapping Julia Michaels and Charlie XCX to supposedly write new songs for her to potentially record.