She was not long out of school uniform when she had her first child. Admittedly that was the school uniform in her infamous (Hit Me) Baby, One More Time video. But at 24, Britney Spears was still the fresh-faced, girl next door.
Few would have believed then, that the next 16 years would be dominated by her breakdown and mental health issues - and that her experience of being a mum would be tainted by depression, controversy, custody rows and the constraints of her draconian conservatorship.
But with the singer finally released from her father Jamie’s control after a public court battle last November, Britney has at last been allowed to become that feisty independent woman she always sang about.
