Artist News Legal

Britney Spears asks court to “get rid of my dad and charge him for conservatorship abuse”

By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 15 July 2021

Britney Spears spoke about her conservatorship in court again yesterday, asking said court to “get rid of my dad and charge him for conservatorship abuse”. The statement came shortly after the judge had approved a request for Spears to select her own legal representation – in the form of attorney Mathew Rosengart – following the recent resignation of her court-appointed lawyer Sam Ingham.

“I want to press charges for abuse on this conservatorship today… all of it”, she told the court. “I’m here now today, your honour, to remove my dad altogether”.

She then reeled off a list of grievances about the conservatorship that has controlled her financial and personal affairs for thirteen years. These included that she had been forced against her will to take psychiatric tests and have blood taken during her ‘Circus’ tour. She was promised, she said, by several people involved in her conservatorship that complying with those requirements would result in the guardianship arrangement coming to an end. It did not.

“I did it all and they lied, they did nothing”, she said. “They didn’t end it, and I kept working”. She added that “it was their goal to make me feel crazy, which I’m not”.

In a list of specific claims against her father, Jamie Spears, the musician said that, as a result of his actions, she had lost her driver’s licence, been prohibited from drinking coffee, was not been allowed to choose what she ate, and had her “pink hair vitamins” taken away. “Ma’am, that’s not abuse, that’s just fucking cruelty”, she told the judge. “Excuse my language but it’s the truth”.

She added that she had grown up “extremely scared of my dad” and has “serious abandonment issues”, which had been exploited by her conservators.

“Instead of trying to investigate my behaviour or my capacity, I want my dad investigated”, she said. “This conservatorship is literally allowing my dad to rule my life. That is abuse and we all know it”.

Already speaking up for his new client in court, Spears’ lawyer Rosengart followed up the singer’s own statement by calling on Jamie Spears to voluntarily resign from his position as conservator.

“This is not working”, he told the court. “What is supposed to be at the heart of this has been lost … There is a real question as to why Mr Spears does not voluntarily step down today. Is he here for financial reasons? Does anybody really believe that Mr Spears’ involvement is in the best interest of his daughter?”

Rosengart concluded that, “if he loves his daughter”, Jamie Spears would resign. However, in response, Jamie Spears’ attorney, Vivian Thoreon, said that her client would not resign and questioned the accuracy of Britney’s claims of abuse.

Earlier in the hearing, the judge approved requests from Spears’ former attorney Sam Ingham and the co-conservator of her estate, the Bessemer Trust, to withdraw from the conservatorship. That currently leaves Jamie Spears in sole control of his daughter’s finances.

Britney has previously said that Ingham – who had been her attorney since being appointed by the court at the start of the conservatorship in 2008 – had previously encouraged her not to speak out against the arrangement. Although no petition to end the conservatorship has yet been filed, Rosengart indicated that he and his team would not only argue for it to be ended, but also that the whole thing “was probably not necessary” in the first place.

Elsewhere in the hearing, the judge addressed a request from the conservator of Britney’s personal affairs Jodi Montgomery to have her security costs covered by the musician’s estate. In a recent court filing, she said that she has been receiving death threats since Britney’s previous court statement. She added that Jamie Spears had refused to cover those costs without a court order. The judge said that this matter would be dealt with in another hearing next week.