The pop star Britney Spears will avoid jail time after pleading guilty on Monday to a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
When prosecutors in Ventura County, Calif., charged Ms. Spears last week, they did not say what drug Ms. Spears had taken. Last month, after her arrest, one of her representatives said she had voluntarily checked herself into a treatment facility.
Ms. Spears, 44, was arrested on the evening of March 4, when the California Highway Patrol said its officers observed her driving fast and erratically. A representative for the pop star said then that her actions were “completely inexcusable” and that “hopefully this can be the first step in long-overdue change that needs to occur in Britney’s life.”
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, before her mental health and substance abuse became a topic of speculation, Ms. Spears was known for hits like “ … Baby One More Time,” “Oops! … I Did It Again” and “Toxic.”
In 2007, she was seen with a shaved head, hitting a photographer’s car with an umbrella, and in early 2008, she was twice taken to a hospital for involuntary psychiatric evaluations. Later that year, when she was 26, she was placed in a conservatorship that gave her father control over her life and finances.
A judge terminated the conservatorship 13 years later after Ms. Spears vocally objected to the arrangement, saying she had been drugged, compelled to work against her will and pushed into involuntary medical evaluations and rehab.
Matt Stevens is a Times reporter who writes about arts and culture from Los Angeles.
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