Lance Bass and Miley Cyrus are speaking out about the Free Britney movement fueled by fans who want to help end Britney Spears' conservatorship and give her back control of her finances and personal decisions.
Spears, 38, has been under a conservatorship since 2008 after dealing with mental health breakdowns while in the public eye.
The arrangement gives the pop icon's father and an attorney the power to manage her financial assets, her estate and career negotiations. Fans behind the #FreeBritney campaign believe the arrangement is being used to manipulate Spears and have pointed to her recent unusual social media posts as possible coded messages asking for help.
"I get a lot of questions about this, but I always stay silent because I'm like, ‘I don't know.' If I had something positive or some real information to share I probably would," Bass said on the Aug. 13 episode of The Daily Popcast.
"Obviously she’s got some problems. I don’t know what she’s going through, I don’t know exactly what her diagnoses are but online these videos are definitely out of character for her,” the longtime friend of Spears added. “This is kind of a new thing. So something’s going on. I think that’s why a lot of the fans are like, ‘She’s being held hostage because she’s acting so strange."
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Bass said Spears at least seemed happy in the videos, where she dances, tries on outfits and seems to be having fun.
The former NSYNC singer said he has no behind-the-scenes information of what is or isn't going on with Spears, however he said based on his personal relationships with the singer's siblings Brian, 43, and Jamie Lynn, 29, he knows they wouldn't stand for anyone manipulating their sister.
“They would never want to hurt (their) sister and they would never go along with anyone taking advantage of her. They just wouldn’t. I think they would be privy to what’s going on with their parents taking care of her,” he said. “I just think we need to trust the system. We can be skeptical and be conspiracy theorists all day long, but then you have to use common sense. Do we really know and what really makes sense here?”
Cyrus, who is known to shout "Free Britney" at her concerts, said in an interview with iHeartRadio on Friday that she doesn't know Spears well and feels like "another public speculator."
“It’s a treat others the way you wanted to be treated kind of thing. I definitely don’t know her personally enough to know any of the details," Cyrus said. "I scream a lot of things at my show. I also think Britney, like anyone else, should have the freedom to live the life that’s most authentic to her."
In an interview earlier this month, Britney's father, Jamie Spears, called the #FreeBritney movement "a joke" and denied accusations that he's stealing from his daughter.
“All these conspiracy theorists don’t know anything," he said. "The world don’t have a clue. It’s up to the court of California to decide what’s best for my daughter. It’s no one else’s business.”