Fans around the globe fear for pop legend Britney Spears – especially after the release of the smash-hit documentary about her plight.
Now JLS star Aston Merrygold says he sympathises with the Toxic singer, and came close to quitting the biz himself because of pressure.
Britney, 39, has been in a “conservatorship”, giving her father control over her career, since she suffered a public breakdown in 2008.
Aston says it would be easy for the pop icon to fall out of touch with normality because every single minute of her day would be managed.
“For someone like Britney, your whole life is planned – from when you wake up, when you go to sleep, when you’re sleeping and so on and so forth,” he says.
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“Every single day. But when you stop paying people, that’s it.
“This is why you see so many kids these days thrust into the limelight and there is no one there for them to talk to.
“An artist’s job is 24/7, and a lot of the team clock off on Friday at 5pm. Some people need people on their shoulder every minute of the day, and what happens when that stops?”
He says that when JLS split in 2013, after five years together, he had forgotten how to check in at an airport or manage his own diary.
Aston, 33, reveals he nearly quit showbusiness after being relentlessly pressured to get a solo No1 hit after the band broke up.
He says a row with record industry chiefs left him with a “chip on his shoulder”.
“There was so much pressure put on me to be the next big thing,” he tells me. “You’re put up on a pedestal because of what you’ve done.
“They’re like, ‘you need to exceed that’. That is mad pressure.”
In the end, his debut solo track Get Stupid went to No28. But he went on to be a hit on Strictly Come Dancing. A successful stint as Robin on the Masked Singer followed this year.
Now he says he is happy to have developed a “thick skin” and is chuffed to be releasing feelgood tune Share A Coke – inspired by his wife Sarah Richards. Sounds like the right attitude…
