After news that pop icon Britney Spears has lost yet another legal battle with her father, her extraordinary case captures widespread public attention again.
Britney Spears has been an influential singer and dancer for the best part of her life, earning the title of the ‘Princess of Pop’ at a very young age. Her career has seen her become a global success with six number one albums on the Billboard 200, and two of the best selling albums of all time, making her the best-selling teenage artist to date.
Despite her career continuing to blossom into her adult life, Britney has not been able to live the life a pop star of her caliber usually would. For the last 12 years she has been deprived of her right to have control over her finances and assets, has no independent control over her music and career, and is not even allowed to get married without the permission of her father.
For over a decade, Britney has been held under strict surveillance by her father and lawyers as she entered a conservatorship in 2008 after her very public meltdown.
In 2007, she began displaying erratic behaviour in public which hinted towards the deterioration of her mental health. The most memorable of her outbursts include shaving her head and attacking a photographer’s car with an umbrella.
Her father, Jamie Spears, petitioned courts for a ‘temporary’ conservatorship to which he was granted. As her ‘legal guardian’, Jamie has strict control over Britney’s life in all aspects.
Since the beginning of the conservatorship, Britney has been forced to live in a very restricted manor. Some of these constraints include:
•30% custody over her children – at the beginning of the conservatorship ex husband Kevin Federline received full custody of Sean Preston and Jayden James with Britney having monitored visitation. She has now been given more responsibility but is still restricted from seeing her children.
•No control over her music or career – she is not allowed to make any career moves without the permission of her father and cannot have any unscripted interviews.
•No shopping – given a weekly allowance of $1500 out of her own money for necessities and each purchase has to be approved by Jamie.
•No takeout food or drinks – the singer must adhere to a strict diet.
•Her social media is monitored – despite Britney describing her posts on social media as a type of ‘therapy’, her accounts are still overseen by her conservators, with many of her fans believing she is being silenced over of this.
•She is not allowed to vote — since the beginning of the conservatorship Britney has been stripped of her constitutional right to vote.
•She cannot hire personal lawyers – this factor of the conservatorship has caused public outcry. A change.org petition was started to let her have her own lawyer whilst battling for her freedom from her fathers supervision. It has 175,000 signatures and counting.
•She cannot visit friends or colleagues — most of Britney’s posts on social media show that she spends quite a bit of time alone. Any meetings with friends or work colleagues have to be approved by Jamie.
•She is not allowed to have children — even something as personal as deciding to have another child would have to be approved by Jamie.
As Britney’s conservator, Jamie gets paid a yearly salary out of the stars income. He receives a huge sum of $130,000 annually for managing his daughter’s life and affairs.
Fans have been questioning the conservatorship from as early as 2009, petitioning for Britney’s freedom. FreeBritney.Net was a fan site created with the intention of starting a movement so that Britney’s case could be widely recognised.
The statement on the homepage of the site expresses concern that Britney is ‘legally not her own person’ and that the basis on which the conservatorship was agreed upon is no longer relevant.
In the 12 years that Britney has been tied to this legal agreement, she has continued to build an empire as she has toured the world, created a fragrance line, and released multiple albums.
Followers of the #FreeBritney movement claim that it is no longer fair for Britney to be constricted by this agreement as ‘the judge who initially approved the permanent probate conservatorship stated that it was for protecting her finances and businesses.’
As her career has managed to thrive over the years, it is no longer a sustainable argument that she is ‘too disabled due to dementia to care for herself’, as her conservators put it in L.A. Superior Court documents.
Britney has shown that she is on board with the #FreeBritney movement as she has taken to the courts to dispute the terms of the conservatorship. Business Insider documents report that she spent around $1.1 million on legal and conservator fees in 2018 alone.
Her most recent battle in court has seen her family at war as her parents have different perspectives on what the best step forward is.
In September this year, Britney appealed to the court to remove her father as the primary conservator and replace him with Jodi Montgomery, her long time ‘care-manager’. Jodi had previously been involved in the legal agreement and had to step up in 2019 when Jamie was accused of physically abusing Britney’s son Sean, who was 14 at the time.
Britney has also been fighting to have her case and hearings made public but this was not approved.
Whilst she wishes to remove her father as a conservator, Jamie is appealing to the courts to extend the agreement again. However, even Britney’s mother Lynne thinks it is time for Britney to take control of her finances and personal life. She would like for a care plan to be established so that her daughter can finally transition towards a personal life and out of the guardianship.
Despite her efforts, Britney lost in her bid to remove her father as a conservator for now. At the beginning of November, Jamie argued in the hearing that she was not ready to take back control of her life.
Now Britney is refusing to perform as long as her father continues being a part of the conservatorship with her last performance being in early 2019. Her lawyer, Samuel D-Ingham III, declared to the judge at the hearing:
“My client has informed me that she is afraid of her father. She will not perform again if her father is in charge of her career”.
As more time passes and more is revealed about the singer’s personal life and lack there of, more and more questions are being raised.
Is it really fair for a young woman to be trapped under such an intense guardianship for this long? An action that is usually reserved for elderly dementia patients or those with debilitating mental illnesses?
Is Britney really incapable of making her own decisions, or is the conservatorship preventing her from being able to reach her full potential of health both physically and mentally?
The absence of adult responsibilities in Britney’s life for such a long period of time is ultimately conditioning her as unstable when in actual fact she has not been given the opportunity to prove herself and adapt to a more ordinary life.
Some may find parallels between Britney’s public breakdown and Kanye West’s outbursts in recent years. Many have supported West as he is on his journey to recovery and Kim Kardashian received many messages of comfort when she took to Instagram to share the difficulties in dealing with his bipolar.
Britney may not be fighting for the end of what seems like a glorified 12 year prison sentence but many believe she should be. Even her long time friend Paris Hilton has chimed in on the matter:
“It breaks my heart that people have so much control over her. It’s not fair to be an adult and be treated like a child.”
Undeterred by the public uproar towards his daughter’s case, Jamie refuses to change his position regarding Britney’s need for supervision and guidance in her day to day affairs. Instead, he condemns the ‘conspiracy theorists’ who fuel the #FreeBritney movement.
He claims that “the world don’t have a clue” and that ultimately “it’s up to the court of California to decide what’s best for my daughter. It’s no one else’s business.”
Many are not convinced by Jamie’s statement and Britney’s lawyer recognises that his “aggressive use of the sealing procedure over the years to minimize the amount of meaningful information made available to the public” has only inflamed the worldwide response to the unique case.
It is also hard to believe that Jamie’s intention in prolonging the conservatorship is entirely pure and with good reason regarding his daughter’s health when Britney has in fact revealed to the courts that she is afraid of him. This, alongside the fact that Jamie vehemently opposes making the case public, has given people reason to believe that his intentions are not all in favour of helping Britney recover.
Instead, his actions have led to the #FreeBritney movement becoming widely recognised and supported.
The next hearing for the case is scheduled for December 16, with millions hoping for some kind of win on Britney’s behalf.
After 12 years, enough is enough.
Jess Little
Featured image courtesy of Andrea Leon via Unsplash. This image has in no way been altered. Copyright is available here.
