In a post on Instagram on Aug. 5 Britney Spears wrote: ”I just got back from mass… I’m Catholic now…let us pray.”
The 39-year-old pop star was raised in a strict Baptist household and is a regular churchgoer, but has had a troubled relationship with her family and her fame.
Her apparent swim across the Tiber is the latest chapter in a story that began with Britney bursting into the public gaze in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform in the music video for ‘Baby One More Time’.
Thrust into international celebrity as a teenager, and presented as a sex symbol, she suffered greatly from the prurience of the press and attempts from various figures in her life to control her life.