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Britney Spears Fans Suspect Something Is Afoot Amid Odd Social Media Posts

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Photo: JB Lacroix, Alexi Rosenfield (Getty Images)

Britney Spears’ conservatorship was dissolved about one year ago, but concerns about the singer’s safety have recently escalated on social media following a slew of odd posts from the star. Of course, Spears has a persistent, charming history of off-the-wall social media posts—but what’s worrying her fans is that some of them of the newer ones seem recycled or edited, and she hasn’t been seen in public for some time. This has convinced TikTok conspiracy theorists that she’s secretly missing or unwell, and her husband Sam Asghari is covering this up by taking control of her social media accounts.

I want to be clear before taking you down this rabbit hole with me: There is little to no evidence of this. But it’s certainly notable how sincerely Spears’ fans seem to distrust Asghari—to the point that some viral videos claim Spears never even returned alive from the couple’s July honeymoon in Fiji, sparking the viral #WhereIsBritney hashtag.

Last week, on Tuesday, Spears appeared to briefly deactivate her Instagram account yet again, prompting Asghari to take to his own Instagram stories the following day to clear the air. “Social media can be traumatizing,” he wrote. “Sometimes it’s good to take a break.” Asghari continued, “She has her voice and is a free woman. I have respect for her privacy and I protect it at all times. Thank you to all of her protective fans.” In another post, he wrote, “Out of respect for her privacy I don’t post her 247. I ask for permission if I ever do.”

Not long before these posts, Asghari caught heat from Spears’ fans for appearing to post an Instagram Live without the singer’s consent. In November, when Asghari was Live on the app, he asked Spears if he could show her to his followers, to which, off-camera, she replied, “I have nothing to say. I don’t want to talk to them right now.” The incident drew backlash from Spears’ fans who said Asghari had violated her privacy.

But to some Spears fans on TikTok, the incident was a minor slip-up in a greater conspiracy against Spears. A number of videos shared shortly after Spears deactivated Instagram last week speculated that recent posts from her and Asghari actually feature a body double of Spears, insisting that the women pictured lack her characteristic features, like a mole on her face or the tattoo on her foot. Some said that a post appearing to show Spears at Nobu last week isn’t real and was edited to include her, citing the apparent messiness of her hair. One of the videos theorizing this was flooded with comments further pointing out that there were no paparazzi snaps of Spears at Nobu because the woman pictured was a body double, ostensibly with Spears’ face Photoshopped on top of the woman’s in photos posted online. “Sam really thought he slick,” one user commented.

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The lack of pap pics of Spears lately is a recurring point for Spears fans. Other theory videos have singled out a post earlier this month in which Spears lavished some very unexpected praise upon her younger sister Jamie Lynn, whom Spears has long accused of being complicit in Spears’ conservatorship and abuse. As of Friday, when Spears posted a suggestive video of herself dancing to a Christmas song and eating cake on the floor, some said the video was old, as it has no relevance to the caption alluding to her recent 41st birthday.

Another theory is that Spears has never had control of her Instagram account even since her conservatorship lifted, and whoever doeshave control purposefully posts more unhinged content timed to new hearings or developments in her ongoing legal fightagainst her dad. One hearing took place place last Wednesday. Asghari, some of her fans posit, has essentially recreated the very conservatorship from which Spears struggled for years trying to get free.

“Celebrity is actually dead and uses a body double” is a pretty common internet conspiracy theory. See: right-wing websites during the time Hillary Clinton got pneumonia in 2016, the great Avril Lavigne replacement theory, or, my personal favorite, the Melania Trump body double theory.

Nevertheless, I’ll never blame Britney fans for being afraid for her safety. Spears was in a conservatorship that controlled and surveilledevery aspect of her life for 13 years. And for a while, her father and others in the conservatorship did a pretty decent job making it look like everything was OK—even as, on the inside, Spears testified that she was being denied time with her children, forced into abusive rehabilitation centers, and required against her will to keep an IUD in, despite wanting more children.

The #FreeBritney crowd has been right about some things in the past, and Spears’ social media activities have been a bit out there lately. But I’m not convinced the singer is buried somewhere in Fiji and that Asghari is employing a rotation of body doubles to keep up pretenses. Spears deserves nothing but safety, freedom, and love after everything she’s had to endure, and to that end, I can’t imagine that a smattering of viral conspiracy theories about whether she’s even alive are particularly pleasant for her to watch.

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Tina Turner’s Cause of Death Revealed

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More details on Tina Turner’s passing have come to light.

One day after the legendary performer died at the age of 83, her cause of death has been attributed to natural causes, her representatives confirmed to DailyMail.com. Her publicist also told NBC News her death came after a long illness.

E! News has reached out to her manager for comment but hasn’t heard back.

On May 24, her team shared that she passed away at her home in Switzerland.

“With her music and her boundless passion for life, she enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow,” a statement posted to her social media pages read. “Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us all her greatest work: her music. All our heartfelt compassion goes out to her family. Tina, we will miss you dearly.”

During the latter years of her life, the “Proud Mary” artist opened up about battling several health issues, including high blood pressure, vertigo, a stroke, intestinal cancer and kidney failure.

In her 2021 documentary, Tina, the singer also shared she experienced post-traumatic stress disorder as a result from her tumultuous marriage to her ex Ike Turner.

“I’ve been on such a wild roller-coaster in the four years since my wedding,” Turner—who wed music executive Erwin Bach in 2013—wrote in her memoir, My Love Story, per Today, “that even I have difficulty keeping my medical catastrophes straight.”

Turner’s passing came just five months after the death of her and Ike’s son Ronnie and nearly five years after her son Craig passed away.

Tina Turner's Cause of Death Revealed

Her death sent shockwaves through Hollywood, with many celebrities speak out about the influence her achievements had on the industry.

“Through her courage in telling her story, her commitment to stay the course in her life, no matter the sacrifice, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her,” Angela Bassett, who played the legend in the 1993 biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It, said in a statement. “Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom should look like.”

As the actress—who won a Golden Globe for her role—noted, it was an honor knowing the icon on a personal level.

“Her final words to me, for me, were ‘You never mimicked me. Instead, you reached deep into your soul, found your inner Tina, and showed her to the world,’” she added. “I shall hold these words close to my heart for the rest of my days.”

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Tina Turner survived an abusive relationship with Ike and death of two sons

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Tina Turner escaped an abusive relationship to find true love with her second husband, Erwin Bach.

The singer, who passed away aged 83 on Wednesday following an unspecified illness, was in a relationship with the record executive for 38 years. The pair married in 2013.

Tina had publicly praised Erwin for helping her find happiness after fleeing from her first marriage to husband, Ike Turner, which was plagued with physical and emotional abuse.

Ike first met Tina when she was a vulnerable teenager named Annie Mae Bullock. He renamed her Tina, and went on to form the musical duo, Ike & Tina Turner. According to Tina, he micromanaged her career, withheld her finances and beat her while she was pregnant.

After filing for divorce in 1978, Tina was left in debt and had her children to support. She went on to establish a successful solo career.

The songstress met Erwin in 1985 when he was working as an executive with EMI. The pair had an instant connection the moment they met, when he arrived to collect her from Düsseldorf airport.

She said Erwin had taught her how “to love without giving up who I am”, and that he had never been intimidated by her fame or success. He even donated a kidney to her in April 2017, which saved her life.

Writing in her book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, Tina said: “Falling in love with my husband, Erwin, was another exercise in leaving my comfort zone, of being open to the unexpected gifts that life has to offer.

“The day I first met Erwin, at an airport in Germany, I should have been too tired from my flight, too preoccupied with thoughts of my concert tour. But I did notice him, and I instantly felt an emotional connection.

“Even then, I could have ignored what I felt — I could have listened to the ghost voices in my head telling me that I didn’t look good that day, or that I shouldn’t be thinking about romance because it never ends well. Instead, I listened to my heart.”

Tina’s spokesman confirmed she died “peacefully” at home and added: “With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model. With her music and her inexhaustible vitality, Tina Turner thrilled millions of fans and inspired many artists of subsequent generations.”

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Tina Turner: legendary rock’n’roll singer dies aged 83

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Tina Turner, the pioneering rock’n’roll star who became a pop behemoth in the 1980s, has died aged age of 83 after a long illness, her publicist has told the PA news agency.
Turner affirmed and amplified Black women’s formative stake in rock’n’roll, defining that era of music to the extent that Mick Jagger admitted to taking inspiration from her high-kicking, energetic live performances for his stage persona. After two decades of working with her abusive husband, Ike Turner, she struck out alone and – after a few false starts – became one of the defining pop icons of the 1980s with the album Private Dancer. Her life was chronicled in three memoirs, a biopic, a jukebox musical, and in 2021, the acclaimed documentary film, Tina.

“Turner’s musical character has always been a charged combination of mystery as well as light, melancholy mixed with a ferocious vitality that often flirted with danger,” scholar Daphne A Brooks wrote for the Guardian in 2018.
Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on 26 November 1939 and raised in Nutbush, Tennessee, where she recalled picking cotton with her family as a child. She sang in the tiny town’s church choir, and as a teenager talked – or rather, sang – her way into Ike’s band in St Louis: he had declined her request to join until he heard her seize the microphone during a Kings of Rhythm performance for a rendition of BB King’s You Know I Love You.
She had suffered ill health in recent years, being diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and having a kidney transplant in 2017.

‘I was just tired of singing and making everybody happy’ … Tina Turner performs at the O2 Arena, London, in 2009. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

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