Will Britney Spears Break Free From Her Father’s Conservatorship?

On Wednesday, June 23rd, Britney Spears spoke out publicly against the conservatorship she’s been under since 2008. In her 20 plus-minute address to the judge overseeing the case, she called the conservatorship abusive and asked for the ability to have her life back.

The public statement, as depressing and horrifying as it is in confirming how little control Britney has over her life, addressed how little freedom the grown woman has over her own life.In the testimony, delivered remotely in direct address to the judge, she detailed being unable to take out her IUD even though she wanted to have children, being unable to be married, her inability to even drive along in her boyfriend’s car, how she was once forced to perform on tour in 2018. Of the forced IUD, which is a horrifying action against her reproductive autonomy, she said, “I want to have the real deal. I want to be able to get married and have a baby. I was told right now in the conservatorship that I’m not able to get married or have a baby, I have an [IUD] inside of myself right now so I don’t get pregnant.” She alleged her team won’t let her go to the doctor to remove the contraceptive because they don’t want her to have more kids. (She also has limited access to her two children she shares with ex-husband Kevin Federline, who recently took a restraining order against Britney’s dad after he got into a physical altercation with their son.) If she didn’t do the tour, she could be sued. She described being changed medications to a lithium dose that made her feel “drunk,” and that she believes her conservatorship is “abusive.” She included testimony of how she was forced to go to a facility as punishment for not wanting to do the second Vegas residency, where she gave 8 vials of blood a week, couldn’t change in private, had to work 7 days a week and paid $60,000 a month for the experience. She described her father as someone who “loved the control to hurt his own daughter 100,000%. He loved it,” and said that “my dad and anyone involved in this conservatorship and my management who played a huge role in punishing me when I said no—ma’am, they should be in jail.” “Basically this conservatorship is doing me way more harm than good. I deserve to have a life. I’ve worked my whole life. I feel ganged up on, I feel bullied, I feel left out and alone. I’m tired of feeling alone. I deserve to have the same rights as anybody,” she said. The explosive testimony is the most at length Britney has spoken about the conservatorship she’s been under in over a decade, though the New York Times recent reporting about the conservatorship has revealed that she’s been quietly fighting the arrangements of the ordeal in court for years, even though she hasn’t spoken out about it publicly. “I’ve lied and told the whole world I’m OK, I’m happy… I’ve been in shock. I am traumatized,” she said. “I’m not happy. I can’t sleep.” And now, with Spears asking the court to end the conservatorship (and also revealing that she never knew she could ask the court to end it) — and detailing just how much of an abusive relationship she is in with the conservatorship system — it’s possible that her arrangement could end. Hopefully, it does. “The last time I spoke to you,” she told the judge, addressing the court, “it made me feel like I was dead, like I didn’t matter, like you thought I was lying. I’m not lying, so that maybe you understand the depth and degree. I deserve changes… Maybe… that’s why I didn’t want to say any of this to anybody, to the public, because I thought people would make fun of me or laugh at me and say, ‘She’s lying, she’s got everything, she’s Britney Spears.’” Hopefully, the court listens to these serious allegations and ends the arrangement that Britney has been forced to be under for over a decade. So that she can have children if she wants, gets married if she wants, never perform again if she doesn’t want, but mainly, have autonomous control over her life as a human, woman, and adult who deserves individual rights.