In 2020, Spears released a handful of singles recorded around her 2016 album, Glory, but “Hold Me Closer” marks her return to the studio and official comeback after her fight for freedom from a conservatorship overseen by her father, James “Jamie” Spears, since 2008. That battle was chronicled in a series of documentaries set off by The New York Times’ Framing Britney Spears, as well as extensive reporting in The Times and The New Yorker. Their journalistic efforts, and those of Spears’ diligent fan base, resulted in a highly publicized court case that culminated in late 2021, when a Los Angeles judge granted Spears control of her life.
A $15 million book deal followed—a “tell-all memoir” set for publication by Simon & Schuster—along with a wedding: She married the actor Sam Asghari in June this year. The previous month, she mourned the loss of her “miracle baby” with Asghari.