Britney Spears apologises after lighting a cigarette on a plane

Britney Spears has apologised after lighting a cigarette on a plane in a move that caught police’s attention.

• READ MORE: ‘Controlling Britney Spears’ review: toxic conservatorship back under the microscope

On Thursday (May 22), the ‘Toxic’ singer was on a charter plane, and, as she has since told fans on social media, lit a cigarette mid-flight.

According to TMZ, flight attendants were “alarmed and ordered her to put out the cigarette”, with authorities issuing a warning to the pop star once her private jet landed in LAX.

Addressing the moment on Instagram, Spears described the incident as “incredibly funny,” and wrote: “Some planes I’ve been on you can’t smoke mostly but this one was different because the drink holders were on [the] outside of [the] seat.”

In the accompanying video to the post, she can be seen smiling as she holds a bottle of wine. She wrote that she later tried vodka for the first time, and after doing so, wanted to smoke a cigarette. She says her friend then placed one in her mouth and lit it. “I was like OH SO THIS IS A PLANE WHERE YOU CAN SMOKE !!!,” she wrote.

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“I do so apologize to anyone I offended but the flight attendants always make sure I’m way at the back of plane anyways,” she continued.

When authorities met her at the airport after being alerted about the incident, Spears understood it to mean that they were greeting her “as support”, writing: “WOW I feel special,” and joking: “Am I famous or something?”

The singer went on to allege that one flight attendant in particular had tried to “embarrass” her, sharing that she “didn’t like me the moment I got on plane”.

“Nobody was on the plane for first 20 minutes and she wouldn’t let me get out of my seat I wanted to stand up !!!,” she wrote. “She acted so weird about making sure I sat down and it was weird !!! I didn’t like the way she put the seatbelt on me and invaded my space !!!”

Meanwhile, earlier this year Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown reiterated her desire to portray Spears on screen – but said it was not her story to tell.  The actor had first spoken about potentially playing the pop star on screen in 2022, though Spears was quick to shoot down the idea.

Last summer, Universal Pictures announced that Spears’ best-selling 2023 memoir The Woman In Me would serve as the basis for a new biopic about the singer, with Jon M. Chu (Wicked, In The Heights, Crazy Rich Asians) attached as director.

Chu later said that teased that he had an “initial conception” of the story the upcoming film would tell. “I think it’s a lot about how we treat people, young people, stars that we think we own, women, mothers,” he said.

Despite the project having already been announced, Spears herself caused confusion back in September when she seemed to imply that the “secret project” she was working on with Chu was in fact not a biopic of her life, but a “fictional musical”.

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