YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME

Britney Spears Cancels Her Las Vegas Residency Amid Her Father’s Recovery From “Life-Threatening Illness”

The “Domination” show is on hold indefinitely.

Jan. 4, 2019

Britney Spears Signs a New Las Vegas Deal

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“Domination,” Britney Spears’s upcoming residency at Las Vegas’s MGM Park hotel and casino, has been put on hold: Spears announced on her Instagram and via a press release Friday that, due to her father’s recent sudden illness and subsequent hospitalization, she’ll be taking an “indefinite work hiatus” to attend to her family this year.

“I don’t even know where to start with this, because this is so tough for me to say,” she wrote in the caption to her Instagram, an image of herself as a child with her parents, Jamie and Lynne Spears. “I’ve been looking forward to this show and seeing all of you this year, so doing this breaks my heart. However, it’s important to always put your family first,” she went on, “and that’s the decision I had to make.”

Late last year, Jamie was abruptly hospitalized for a ruptured colon, immediately underwent surgery, and spent the next 28 days in the hospital—what the release described as a “long, complicated post-operative period.” He’s now expected to make a full recovery.

Spears, per the release, has been “tremendously involved” in his recovery, and, she said in a statement, “I want to be with my family at this time just like they have always been there for me.”

“Domination” was to be Spears’s second Las Vegas residency, after the blockbuster “Piece of Me,” which ran at Planet Hollywood from 2013 to 2017. (Over the course of the residency, she was plagued by accusations that she lip-synched her set, prompting her to perform a cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “Something to Talk About” in response.) She took “Piece of Me” on tour throughout 2017 and 2018, and proceeded to sign on for a second Vegas residency swiftly after. “Domination” was to have—and will have, if it’s rescheduled—an “urban, street, hip-hop vibe,” TMZ reported last year.

Though, her decision to be there for her father is completely understandable. James Spears was instrumental in guiding his daughter through her mental health struggles of the late ’00s and back to the stage to begin with, and has served as her conservator ever since.