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Britney Spears father will voluntarily resign as her conservator “when the time is right”
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 13 August 2021
Britney Spears father has agreed to step down from his role as conservator of his daughter’s estate “when the time is right”, insisting that an “orderly transition” is required. The musician’s lawyer has welcomed that commitment as a “major victory” for his client, although called for Spears Senior to step aside with immediate effect.
Attorney Mathew Rosengart, who was hired by Britney last month, recently began legal proceedings to have Jamie Spears forcibly removed from his conservator role. Jamie has played a key role in the conservatorship that runs his daughter’s professional and personal affairs ever since it was set up by the courts thirteen years ago, and is currently in sole control of Britney’s finances.
However, his continued role came under the spotlight after he temporarily stood down from his conservator duties due to ill health, after which Britney attempted, unsuccessfully, to block his return.
As part of the legal wrangling around that dispute, Britney gave her headline-grabbing testimony in court in which she described the conservatorship as “abusive”, confirmed that she wanted the entire arrangement brought to an end, and was particularly critical of her father.
The musician’s court-appointed attorney quit in the wake of that testimony, after which she hired Rosengart. He almost immediately filed paperwork pushing for Jamie to be removed from his conservator role, adding that “serious questions abound” concerning Spears Senior’s “potential misconduct” during the conservatorship.
Jamie then hit back at those claims last week, saying in a legal filing that there were “no grounds whatsoever” for removing him from the conservatorship, and that he had “dutifully and faithfully served as the conservator of his daughter’s estate without any blemishes on his record”.
But in a new legal filing yesterday, Jamie’s lawyer wrote that his client “does not believe that a public battle with his daughter over his continuing service as her conservator would be in her best interests”. With that in mind, “Mr Spears intends to work with the court and his daughter’s new attorney to prepare for an orderly transition to a new conservator”.
Actually, the legal filing added, discussions of such a transition had already been underway with Britney’s previous lawyer. And, while Jamie supports such a transition, “Mr Spears continues to serve dutifully, and he should not be suspended or removed, and certainly not based on false allegations”.
To that end, the court should deny Rosengart’s petition to have Jamie forcibly removed from the conservatorship. “Mr Spears is willing to step down when the time is right”, the legal filing added, “but the transition needs to be orderly and include a resolution of matters pending before the court”.
In a statement to The Guardian, Rosengart said that the latest legal filing on behalf of Jamie was “a major victory for Britney Spears and another step toward justice”. However, he added, Spears Senior should really “step aside immediately”.
He continued: “We look forward to continuing our vigorous investigation into the conduct of Mr Spears, and others, over the past thirteen years, while he reaped millions of dollars from his daughter’s estate, and I look forward to taking Mr Spears’ sworn deposition in the near future”.
