Britney Spears Says She Looks Up to ‘Wise’ and ‘Incredibly Strong’ Madonna

Britney Spears is a fan of Madonna.

The “Hold It Against Me” singer, 44, shared a photo of Madonna, 67, to Instagram on Monday, Jan. 19 alongside a caption about experiencing a “spiritual animal awakening” and why she admires the Queen of Pop.

“The beast within … I prefer to call it the spiritual animal awakening,” wrote Spears in an apparent reference to Madonna’s “The Beast Within” remix of her 1990 hit “Justify My Love,” released on her greatest hits album The Immaculate Collection.

“It’s been a long time for me,” continued Spears. “I know the wild ones more than anyone !!! Yet, we’re honestly all the same under our mask we secretly wear every day !!! Vulnerability, fragility, insanity, real innocence … but also confusion, depression, extreme hurt, anger … stuck in our heads.”

“We go through all of these and sometimes the spiritual animal is the only way to cross to the other side,” she added. “It’s the most unknown powerful existence there is, yet it’s usually defined as ‘dangerous’ !!! This picture is clearly an understanding ‘DO NOT PISS HER OFF’ … Name XILA RIVER RED ROSE.”

Spears then turned her attention to the “Express Yourself” musician. “I admire and look up to Madonna more than anyone,” she said.

She described Madonna as “wise, incredibly strong and has remained gentle and genius” before adding, “Again … DO NOT PISS HER OFF !!!”

The two pop stars have known each other for decades. In Spears’ 2023 book The Woman in Me, she wrote about how Madonna mentored her following the “Work Bitch” star’s breakup from Justin Timberlake in 2002.

“Madonna’s supreme confidence helped me see a lot about my situation with fresh eyes. I think she probably had some intuitive sense of what I was going through. I needed a little guidance at that time. I was confused about my life. She tried to mentor me,” she said.

They later hit the stage together and famously locked lips at the 2003 MTV VMAs, before collaborating on the duet “Me Against the Music” the same year. Madonna also attended Spears’ 2022 wedding to ex-husband Sam Asghari.

“I was in awe of the ways Madonna would not compromise her vision,” Spears wrote in the book. “It was an important lesson for me, one that would take a long time for me to absorb: she demanded power, and so she got power. She was the center of attention because she made that the condition of her showing up anywhere. She made that life for herself. I hoped I could find ways to do that.”