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Britney Spears Now Able To Hire Her Own Lawyer In Case To End Conservatorship

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Britney Spears received an amazing victory in her battle to end the conservatorship that she’s been in for 13 years now. The pop star is now able to hire her own lawyer to help end the conservatorship which Spears herself has called “abusive.” 

The conservatorship currently gives Britney’s father, Jamie Spears, full control of her business, estate, finances, social outings, and personal affairs. He is currently the sole individual in charge of her $60 million estate. 

“You’re allowing my dad to ruin my life. I have to get rid of my dad and charge him with conservatorship abuse.” 

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Spears spoke in front of the court via phone call in an emotional testimony filled with understandable rage and sadness. She claimed to have always been “extremely scared of [her] dad.” 

“I’m fed up with the multiple psychological evaluations and want the conservatorship brought to an end without another one. I’m not a perfect person, but my team’s goal is to make me feel like I’m crazy.” 

This marks the second time Spears has been able to address the courts herself since the conservatorship began. Last month she made headlines after calling the legal arrangement abusive and stupid in a passionate 20-minute testimonial. 

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny approved of former federal Mathew Rosengart to be Spears’s lawyer. Rosengart spoke to the media after this major announcement, claiming that he would be filing a petition to end the conservatorship and remove Jamie Spears as the conservator “as soon as possible.” 

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“We will be filing a petition as soon as possible to move Mr Spears, subject to our formal retention. As I said in open court, a very fair question is: Why is Mr Spears not voluntarily stepping down? He does not belong in this conservatorship any more. And we believe he should voluntarily step down immediately,” Rosengart claimed. 

This has been a major win for Spear’s fans all around the world who have been advocating for her freedom from the conservatorship for years now. 

“This is not just about Britney alone. This is about every other person who is trapped in one of these, what I would call a prison,” said 34-year-old Patrick Thomas, head of the recently formed Free Britney America group, whose group is pushing for a congressional hearing and federal oversight of conservatorships.

As Thomas mentioned, Britney’s current situation has opened up a much larger conversation about abusive conservatorships in general, and the unfair control they give certain individuals.

Britney Spears Star

Britney Spears Speaks Out After Request To End Conservatorship 

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Britney Spears spoke for the first time in front of a judge to request an end to her conservatorship. After the pop star made headlines with the shocking revelations of what her team and family have put her through, she took to social media to speak to her fans directly who have been so supportive and outspoken about the abuse Spears has faced over the past two decades. 

“I just want to tell you guys a little secret, I believe as people we all want the fairy tale life and by the way I’ve posted … my life seems to look and be pretty amazing … I think that’s what we all strive for !!!!” Spears posted on her Instagram.

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“I’m bringing this to people’s attention because I don’t want people to think my life is perfect because IT’S DEFINITELY NOT AT ALL … and if you have read anything about me in the news this week … you obviously really know now it’s not !!!!”

“I apologize for pretending like I’ve been ok the past two years … I did it because of my pride and I was embarrassed to share what happened to me … but honestly who doesn’t want to capture their Instagram in a fun light !!!!” 

“Believe it or not, pretending that I’m ok has actually helped … so I decided to post this quote today because by golly if you’re going through hell … I feel like Instagram has helped me have a cool outlet to share my presence … existence … and to simply feel like I matter despite what I was going through and hey it worked … so I’ve decided to start reading more fairy tales,” Spears concluded her post.

While the Instagram caption seemed to make sense in terms of the week Spears’ has had, many of her fans who have led the #FREEBRITNEY movement have exposed multiple times that the singer is not in control of her own social media as a part of her conservatorship. 

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This became especially apparent with the release of the “Framing Britney Spears” documentary and numerous press conferences her father and his attorney have held in which they claimed Britney was fine and liked the conservatorship. Many fans said if she really felt like that why has she never said anything herself? Why is it always through other people or a screen and never from her voice directly? 

Well, during the virtual hearing in a Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, Spears finally was able to speak for herself, and she didn’t hold back with how much she despised her conservatorship.

“I want changes and I want changes going forward. I don’t want to be evaluated to determine if I’ve regained my mental capacity. I just want my life back. All I want is to own my money and for my boyfriend to be able to drive me in his car. I want to sue my family.”

Spears must now file a formal petition to end the conservatorship, something she always had the ability to do, but was never told she could. After the petition is filed an investigator will be appointed by the court to the case, and they will speak to everyone involved in the current arrangement. 

Future court proceedings may be sealed moving forward until an actual solution is met, however, one thing is now for sure, the world truly knows what Britney Spears has been enduring throughout her whole career, and a change will be made.

Britney Spears Star

Britney Spears’s Conservatorship Case Heading Back To Court 

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The legal battle over Britney Spears’s finances and conservatorship is heading back to Los Angeles court this Thursday, just days after a new Hulu documentary sparked widespread outrage over the controversial guardianship the pop star has been living under that is typically only for elderly individuals with dementia or other cognitive issues that make them unfit to be in control of their own finances. 

Jamie Spears, the pop stars father, maintains control over her estate, career, finances, social media, medical treatments, and a slew of other aspects of her personal life; he’s also had this control for the past 13 years, so any career endeavors that Spears has endured within that time, including her Las Vegas residency, were not her decision. 

Lawyers for Spears filed last year to have Jamie removed as conservator, arguing that she was “afraid of her father” and would be refusing to resume her performing career while he still had control over it. In November a judge refused to remove Jamie but added Bessemer Trust as co-conservator and corporate fiduciary. This Thursday’s hearing will include a discussion of what role the two conservators will play in overseeing Spears’s estate. 

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Supporters of Britney Spears attend the #FreeBritney Protest Outside Los Angeles

Conservatorship by definition is “a form of court-appointed guardianship that is typically used for elderly and infirm people, or others who can’t make decisions for themselves, the arrangement is often temporary.” 

The release of Framing Britney Spears, a New York Times-produced documentary, has now “raised questions about the fraught process that led the courts to institute the conservatorship, Jamie’s role as a conservator, the motives of Spears’s entourage in keeping the arrangement in place and the media’s treatment of the star.”

The documentary followed Spears’s rise to fame and the intense abuse she faced by paparazzi, the media, and fans as well. The approval of her conservatorship was partially a result of the American media painting Britney to be mentally unstable. The documentary also depicted Jamie as an absent father up until he took on the conservatorship in 2008, when he gained complete control over her finances. 

The biggest question raised by the documentary is how can someone who the court deems unstable enough to be in control over basically every aspect of her personal life be stable enough to go on multiple tours, perform a Las Vegas residency, work as a judge on X-Factor, etc. The amount that Britney has done in her career within the past decade does not line up with an individual unfit to be in control of their own finances. 

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American pop culture, the media, and the entertainment industry in general is now being analyzed with a fine-tooth comb, specifically over how it treats female performers and makes light of their struggles. The film also featured the #FreeBritney movement, “a fan-led campaign advocating for the singer to be freed from conservatorship and from her father’s control. Organizers said this week they hoped the reaction to the film would put pressure on the courts to restore the singer’s independence,” according to the Times. 

 Leanne Simmons, a #FreeBritney advocate who was featured in the documentary, told the press recently that the documentary “has lit a fire under all of us to keep pushing, because we do have that support from the general public. I work in post production in the film industry, and have been closely following the court case and plan to attend the Thursday hearing in person. 

“We’ve been trying to get this message across for so many years, and to essentially have the narrative change overnight is pretty extraordinary. The documentary was hard to watch. It brought me back to that moment of watching this in realtime in 2007. I felt so frustrated back then like no one was listening to her, or to me when I would try to defend her. I can’t believe it took this long and this documentary for people to realize that it was always wrong.”

Spears publicly acknowledged the #FreeBritney movement for the first time last year through her lawyer in court, when he claimed that Britney was “trying to regain some measure of personal autonomy, and she welcomes and appreciates the informed support of her many fans.”

Conservatorship

Britney Spears’ Father Gives Up Conservatorship; Fans Rejoice

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Britney Spears’ father, Jamie, has officially stepped down from his role as Britney’s conservator this past weekend. This ends an 11 year run of Britney not having full control over her own medical treatment in regards to her mental health. 

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