When Britney posts on Instagram

Spears's mental and physical well-being has been subject of speculation in recent months, ever since she cancelled a planned Las Vegas residency and announced an "indefinite work hiatus" in January

However meagre our lives, celebrity Instagram accounts offer certain reliable comforts: front-facing studio-quality portraits of our favourite stars standing or sitting alone in careful outfits; most photos taken from the manubrium up, so that our entire phone screen is dominated by their proportional features. And, if the celebrity is Beyoncé-level famous, a gorgeous unending colour story we can fall through forever: a block of white, silver, gold and indigo clearly curated by someone with the patience to learn colour theory. This is the fame trade-off in 2019: We give them attention and a lightly engaged readership with the potential to