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Britney Spears was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in Southern California on Wednesday night, officials said.
The California Highway Patrol arrested Spears, 44, around 9:30 p.m. local time, and she was released Thursday, according to Ventura County jail records. Her vehicle was towed.
A CHP spokesperson said Spears was arrested in Ventura County after a report was made around 8:48 p.m. of a black BMW 430i driving erratically and at high speed on the southbound 101 Freeway.
Spears was pulled over near Westlake Boulevard, showed signs of impairment and was given field sobriety tests, and she was then arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of a combination of drugs and alcohol, the spokesperson said.
Spears was the sole occupant of the BMW, the CHP spokesperson said. Chemical tests are pending, and the incident remains under investigation, the agency said.
“This was an unfortunate incident that is completely inexcusable,” a representative for Spears said in a statement. “Britney is going to take the right steps and comply with the law and hopefully this can be the first step in long overdue change that needs to occur in Britney’s life.”
Spears’ representative said Spears’ “boys” are going to spend time with her. She has two adult sons with her ex-husband, Kevin Federline.
“Her loved ones are going to come up with an overdue needed plan to set her up for success for well being,” the representative added. The statement also did not indicate why she was arrested.
The company that towed Spears’ car, Roy’s Towing, declined to comment.
Spears’ arrest follows a flood of videos she has posted to her Instagram account recently, the majority of them showing her dancing alone in her Thousand Oaks, California, home. The seemingly never-ending stream of videos and lengthy social media diary entries have been widely mocked online, with some users expressing concern for her mental health.
Spears’ Instagram account appeared to have been taken down Thursday morning.
Her arrest also comes half a decade after a judge freed her from a controversial conservatorship that gave her father control over her finances, career and personal life for 13 years. Spears’ father was named her conservator after she suffered a series of mental health crises in the early 2000s.
Spears detailed the conservatorship and how nearly every aspect of her life was controlled by others in her bestselling 2023 memoir, “The Woman in Me.”
Despite intense media scrutiny and a number of high-profile public incidents — in one of which she was photographed with a newly shaven head hitting a car with an umbrella — Spears has not previously been arrested.
Spears is behind some of the best-selling singles in history, including “…Baby One More Time,” “Oops!… I Did It Again!” “Womanizer” and “I’m a Slave 4 U.” She is widely referred to as the “Princess of Pop,” and she is arguably one of the most popular performers of the 21st century.
She won her first Grammy in 2004 for best dance recording for her hit “Toxic,” and she was nominated for seven other awards.
Spears sold the rights to her music catalog to publisher Primary Wave for about $200 million in recent weeks.
TMZ was first to report her arrest.
Matt Lavietes is a reporter for NBC News.
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