Britney Spears has sold the rights to her music catalog to publisher Primary Wave, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
Spears’ representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. A spokesperson for Primary Wave also did not immediately respond.
The deal between Spears and Primary Wave was for approximately $200 million, according to the source, who was granted anonymity to discuss a confidential matter.
Spears, whose debut album was released in 1999, is behind iconic hits, including “Oops!… I Did It Again!,” “…Baby One More Time,” “Gimme More,” “Circus” and “Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman.”
The pop star, 44, was released from her conservatorship in 2021, after 13 years. In her 2023 memoir, “The Woman In Me,” she detailed how every aspect of her life was controlled by others. The book sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S. alone through its first week, and Universal Pictures later announced it had picked up the rights to adapt it. (NBC News and Universal are both part of Comcast.)
In the years since being freed from her conservatorship, she married — and later divorced — Sam Asghari. She has continued to draw attention online for her Instagram posts, which often feature her dancing in front of the camera or sharing stock images with cryptic captions.
In a post on Instagram last week, Spears wrote in a caption that she feels “incredibly lucky to even be alive” after how her family “treated” her, adding that she’s “scared” of her relatives. She has since deleted the caption, leaving just a photo of an adult holding a baby’s hand.
Spears is among several big-name artists who have sold their catalogs in recent years, including Bob Dylan (his recorded music to Sony Music Entertainment in 2022, and his entire catalog to the Universal Music Group in 2020) and Bruce Springsteen (to Sony Music for about $500 million in 2021).
Primary Wave owns the rights to music from Stevie Nicks, and the estates of Prince and Biggie Smalls, according to its website, which also notes that "the songs represented by Primary Wave include more than 1,000 Top 10 singles and over 400 No. 1 hits."
TMZ first reported the Spears news.
