LETTER FROM BEIRUT
For months, the Arab public has been held spellbound by the setbacks of the Egyptian singer Sherine Abdel Wahab, struggling with a story mixing divorce and accusations of domestic violence, addiction and forced hospitalization by her family. Many have expressed their support for the 42-year-old pop star presented as “Arab Britney Spears”. Her story reminded Egyptians of the American star’s fight against her tutelage and the sometimes precarious plight of women in the conservative country. The Egyptian artist has, for the time being, offered her fans a happy ending: she has put an end to the public unboxing after the announcement of her remarriage with the Egyptian singer Hossam Habib and new concert dates.
This isn’t the first time Sherine Abdel Wahab has made headlines since her acclaimed 2002 debut with the album FreeMix 3, which has sold over 20 million copies. The prolific singer – seven albums, a film, a sitcom and a role as a juror in the Arabic version of the talent show The Voice – had been given a six-month suspended prison sentence in 2018 for joking during a concert about the quality of the Nile water, before being acquitted.
The analogy with Britney Spears imposed itself on the public eye when Sherine Abdel Wahab took the stage in January 2022 in Abu Dhabi, her head shaved, as the American singer had done in 2007. Stunned, some of her fans had evoked a punishment for having dared, a month earlier, to divorce her husband, the singer Hossam Habib. Their rocky relationship had been feeding the tabloids for months. “Why wouldn’t it be a new look? A change ? Or something I would have done myself, even if I was depressed? Why did you immediately assume the worst? » she replied on Twitter. In July, Sherine Abdel Wahab changed her tune. She revealed to the press that she had been assaulted by “blows and insults” by her ex-husband, and accused him of being behind her shaved head. What followed was a long descent into hell, marked by respective accusations and complaints.
“Hospitalization was necessary”
In a new twist, her brother, Mohammed Abdel Wahab, announced in mid-October that he had to force her to start drug treatment. Then accusations of kidnapping soon emerged. The comparison with Britney Spears, kept under guardianship by her father for her health problems, was this time invoked by her fans, who showed their support on social networks by bringing out the hashtag #freebritney (“free Britney”) . The celebrity lawyer filed a complaint against her brother, accused of beating her and forcibly hospitalizing her, before withdrawing the complaint. “Medical reports say hospitalization was necessary”then justified Me Yasser Qantush on television.
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