"I Just Want My Life Back": Britney Spear's Conservatorship and How It Unfolded
June 24, 2021Britney Spears has always been an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, having publicly stood up multiple times for trans youth and equal marriage. The majority of her fanbase is queer and she has brought a lot to gay culture since the naughties. She has however been on the topic of debates as the #FreeBritney movement has recently been highly mediatized.
Now, the pop star has finally had the chance to publically speak on the matter in court about how she wants out of the conservatorship. Brtiney spoke to the Judge over Zoom: "I feel ganged up on, I feel bullied and I feel left out and alone. And I'm tired of feeling alone... All I want is to own my own money and for this to end."
This follows the New York Times Presents’ “Framing Britney Spears” at the start of the year, BBC Two has also produced and released this May a documentary called “The Battle for Britney: Fans, Cash and a Conservatorship”.
The public has speculated over whether Britney wants this conservatorship or needs to be "freed", but with Britney finally able to speak for herself she couldn't be clearer - she wants out.
The court appearance also revealed the level of control the conservatorship has had over life including forcing her onto contraception when she wanted to have a baby with her boyfriend, and that she is not even allowed to be in a car driven by him. "I am forced to take birth control... I just want my life back."
Let’s take a few steps back to look at Britney’s career, what brought her in the situation she is now and what it means for her.
Early days
It’s 1992 in Kentwood, LA. Britney Spears is only 10 years old but all she wants is to sing and dance. Her parents encourage her to be a young star and she is already performing on National TV. The obsession they show to get her successful is said to be partly caused by their poor living conditions. Her mum, Lynne Spears, is the one who finds her daughter an agent and signs her first record deal at 15. In 1998, the young singer, aged 16, records what will be her first breakthrough hit “… Baby One More Time”. The single is straight away a hit and Britney doesn’t know that she is becoming the blueprint for a whole generation’s pop music. However, her team already sexualises her to the eyes of the public while she’s still a minor. She has the pressure of being every teenager’s dream and having her life being exposed to the world. The young singer records and releases albums every year and reaches a point where she is one of the most – if not the most - powerful celebrity in the world.
Mid 2000’s: a breakdown and the start of the conservatorship
In 2004, three months after starting dating, Britney Spears is engaged to the American rapper Kevin Federline. They get married in the same year and Britney gives birth to their two sons Sean and Jayden. Only three years later, the popstar files for divorce and requests custody of their two children.
It is at the end of 2007 that Britney’s mental breakdown is openly exposed. What seemed to be a difficult divorce has turned into a custody battle and a public nightmare for the celebrity. She is photographed shaving her head in a hair salon – an event that became widely talked about and still is to this day. The press and paparazzi are constantly looking for any of her moves that can show a sign of weakness. The intense pressure she’s facing makes her crumble. On January 3rd of the next year, Britney locks herself inside and refuses to let go of her two kids. She is hospitalised in a mental health facility against her will, marking the start of the conservatorship.
The conservatorship: what it means
In the United States, a conservatorship is the legal appointment of a guardian to look at different – sometimes all aspects – of an adult. It is designed for those who aren’t in the position to manage their own life, often because of dementia, which is the rumoured reason why Britney is in this position. Jamie Spears, who is the one to have petitioned for the conservatorship, has also been appointed as her guardian; he has the control over any detail of her life, including her 60-million-dollar estate. Any personal aspect of her life is in the hand of Britney’s dad: her friends, public appearances, social media and even phone calls. The official reason for the conservatorship was to protect Britney from doing unreasonable decisions due to her mental health. While a lot of people involved assure that Britney would not be here without the legal procedure, fans are asking for the end of what seems to be an abusive situation to profit off her fortune.
Fans and the #FreeBritney movement
The Free Britney movement started over 10 years ago, when hashtags weren’t a thing, by Jordan Miller and his dedicated website and forum BreatheHeavy. Fans have since then protested online for the release of Britney from this legal prison. The movement gained visibility and supporters when in 2018, another fan website called Britney’s Gram received an anonymous voice recording from someone pretending to have worked on the conservatorship legal team. This person affirmed that Britney had been put in a mental health facility without her consent and was forced to take the medication she didn’t want to have. Even if there has never been a way to authenticate the recording, this has been the trigger for fans all over the world to protest the situation. A fight that was until then online is now on the streets with organised demonstrations, especially in Los Angeles, where the court decisions are made. The movement, while being led by fans, became huge and is now backed by experts in probate law, reaching the eyes of Britney’s dad quickly, who is said to have called Jordan Miller to threaten him.
Britney’s voice on the situation
Britney Spears has never been overly vocal about the way she felt about the situation. She opened up in the 2008 documentary ‘For the Record”, where she openly said doctors and lawyers are refraining her from freedom and adds that every day is “groundhog day every day”. This sad sequence was the last time she talked about her feelings on this matter. The BBC Two documentary recently met Billy Brasfield, a former make-up artist and friend of Britney. He maintains that what the star wants is just to be able to do the simplest things on her own. Billy affirms having witnessed her healing and being past her problems.
Britney Spears doesn’t seem to have been able to express herself regarding her situation.
However, Britney’s socials have been alarming fans who claim she is leaving coded messages begging for help. The said messages are highly subtle and it is impossible to know exactly what they mean.
At the end of 2020, the singer requested for her dad to be removed as the conservator. The court rejected her attempt, without further information.
What is preventing her to get out of this legal jail?
There are a lot of arguments regarding the actors and their motives in the conservatorship, but money seems to be the main topic.
Lou M Taylor, Britney’s former business manager has been accused to be the mastermind behind the conservatorship to take over her estate. She denied it and said she was only hired to represent the estate in 2009, a year after the start of the conservatorship. However, court documents from 2019 show that Jamie Spears had agreed to pay half a million dollars a year on Britney’s earnings to Lou’s company.
Samuel D Ingham III is the court-appointed attorney in charge of representing Britney’s best interests. The first alarming flag is that she has never been able to choose the person in charge of her case. He is, on top of this, being paid around 10,000 dollars a week by the singer for his work. The situation makes it then obviously beneficial for him to stay in that position as long as possible.
Finally, her dad has always shown signs of wanting her success for her money. Spears’ record marketing director recalled Jamie saying, “my daughter’s going to be so rich she’s going to buy me a boat”.
The reason no end is being put to this conservatorship seems to be related to the fact too many people are profiting from this, including those supposedly on Britney’s side. The amount of money involved is so huge it suggests people are being paid off, including doctors who diagnosed Britney Spears with dementia: the law doesn’t matter anymore.
Britney didn’t have the time to grow up she was already a worldwide celebrity. While signing her first record deal at 15, neither did she or her parents know what they had to be ready for. Her whole life was being followed by paparazzi as soon as the naughties started and her close friends recall the pressure to have been too much for her. However, a breakdown doesn’t equal dementia and it is hard to know figure out if the conservatorship was an act of care or an abuse of power since no one knows the current situation in their family. It still seems to be a patriarchal situation in which the dad still has the full decisions in his now 39-year-old daughter’s life. For Billy Brasfield, her money is paying for everyone around the conservatorship it is going to be hard to reclaim the power they gave to the men in charge. The #FreeBritney movement has had a big impact on spreading the word about Britney’s situation and social media have played an important role in this.
Now, fast-forward to today and Britney had finally had her moment to address the conservatorship and could not be clearer that she wants it to end, with her statement sharing just how much pain it has put her through.
Whatever happens next - the whole world is watching. All we, the public, can do is hope that the judge will listen to Britney and act in her best interest.