Britney Spears: I'll never return to music industry

Britney Spears has said she will "never return to the music industry" after rumours she was planning a return to the studio surfaced last week.

The pop star was responding to claims in the US media that she was lining up songwriters for a 10th studio album.

"Just so we're clear most of the news is trash!!!" the singer wrote on Instagram.

"They keep saying I'm turning to random people to do a new album … I will never return to the music industry!!!"

Some outlets had suggested that Julia Michaels and Charlie XCX had been tapped up as collaborators.

But Spears added that she only wrote music for fun and also revealed that she had written more than 20 songs for other people over the past two years.

"I'm a ghostwriter and I honestly enjoy it that way!!!" wrote the singer, known for hits including Baby One More Time, Oops!... I Did It Again and Toxic.

The post was accompanied by Guido Reni's Renaissance painting titled Salome Bearing the Head of St John the Baptist.

In August 2022, Spears released her first new music since being released from a conservatorship that controlled almost every aspect of her life.

Hold Me Closer - a duet with Sir Elton John - marked Spears' return to music after a six-year hiatus.

Fans have been clamouring for her to return to music and although she has hinted before that she is wary of returning to the industry, this is the first time she has unequivocally ruled it out.

She published her memoir last year, titled The Woman in Me, which detailed life living under a conservatorship and revealed she had had a medical abortion while dating Justin Timberlake.

The artist wrote at the time: "Pushing forward in my music career is not my focus at the moment.

"It's time for me not to be someone who other people want; it's time to actually find myself."