Britney Spears asks judge to end ‘abusive’ conservatorship
Britney Spears eviscerated her more than decadelong conservatorship in scorching remarks to a judge on Wednesday, saying she’s been “traumatized” and left in “shock” by it.
The “Toxic” singer was heard via a remote audio feed in an appearance before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny during a highly anticipated hearing Spears had requested regarding the status of her 13-year conservatorship.
“I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive,” Spears told the court in her first public remarks on the subject. “I don’t feel like I can live a full life.”
The entertainer’s father, Jamie Spears, has headed up her conservatorship since 2008, following his now-39-year-old daughter’s mental health and substance abuse struggles.
Britney Spears ran down a laundry list of startling allegations, accusing the conservatorship of preventing her from marrying her boyfriend or having a baby by requiring her to wear an IUD, of making her undergo nonstop psychiatric evaluations, and of forcing psychiatric medication on her that led to her feeling “drunk.”
“I would like to progressively move forward, and I want to have the real deal. I want to be able to get married and have a baby,” she said. “I was told right now on the conservatorship I’m not able to get married or have a baby.”
“I wanted to take the [IUD] out so I could start trying to have another baby, but this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don’t want me to have any more children,” she added. “So basically this conservatorship is doing me way more harm than good. I deserve to have a life. I’ve worked my whole life.”
According to a New York Times report earlier this week citing court records, Britney Spears has been attempting since as early as 2014 to cut her father’s ties to the conservatorship.
Jamie Spears has said in the past through an attorney that he believes “every single decision he has made has been in her best interest.”
The younger Spears torched her father Wednesday, recounting what she described as a phone conversation with him in which she was told she needed to enter a rehabilitation program. “The control he had … to hurt his own daughter, 100,000 percent, he loved it,” Britney Spears said.
“I’ve lied and told the whole world I’m OK and I’m happy. It’s a lie,” she said. “I thought just maybe [if] I said that enough, maybe I might become happy because I’ve been in denial. I’ve been in shock. I am traumatized. You know fake it till you make it? But now I’m telling you the truth: I’m not happy.”
A judge ruled in February that Jamie Spears didn’t have the sole power to delegate his daughter’s investments.
The mother of two’s conservatorship gained renewed attention earlier this year after the release of the Hulu-New York Times documentary “Framing Britney Spears.”
Fans of Britney Spears who oppose the conservatorship have rallied around the chart-topper as part of the “Free Britney” movement. On Wednesday ahead of her court appearance, Britney Spears’s longtime boyfriend Sam Asghari sported a shirt with “Free Britney” written on it in an image posted on his Instagram account.
The recording artist said she didn’t speak out about the conservatorship before because she was concerned about the reaction from the public, saying, “People would make fun of me or laugh at me and say, ‘She’s lying. She’s got everything. She’s Britney Spears.'”
“I’m not lying,” she said. “I just want my life back, and it’s been 13 years, and it’s enough.”
“All I want is to own my money, for this to end and my boyfriend to drive me in his f—ing car,” she continued.
“I would honestly like to sue my family,” she told the judge.
Britney Spears also expressed a desire to share her story “with the world,” saying she wanted to expose “what they did to me instead of it being a hush-hush secret to benefit all of them.”
“I want to be able to be heard on what they did to me by making me keep this in for so long. It’s not good for my heart. I’ve been so angry, and I cry every day,” she said.
Saying she has worked since the age of 17, Britney Spears said in court, “I have the right to use my voice and take up for myself.”
After the court broke for a recess following Britney Spears’s statement, a lawyer for Jamie Spears told the judge that he “is sorry to see his daughter suffering and in so much pain.”
Before ending the status hearing, the judge said both parties would likely “be talking about how they want to proceed” going forward. Penny also commended Britney Spears for “stepping forward and stepping out to have your thoughts heard by not only by myself but everybody who’s been involved in this case.”
Updated at 6:31 p.m.
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