Following a troubled period in the mid-2000s, Britney Spears was placed under a conservatorship in 2008 that was administered by her father Jamie and attorney Andrew Wallet.
But while the parties in charge of that conservatorship have recently changed, it remains in place despite the fact that the breakdown that prompted it occurred over 13 years ago.
Fans have long suspected that this arrangement has allowed her father and others in her life to take financial advantage of Spears and exert undue control over her life, which has since inspired the launch of the “free Britney” movement and the creation of the New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears .
But while Spears has been evasive about these fan concerns in the past, her recent statements at a conservatorship hearing on June 23 reveal just how restrictive the past 13 years have been for her.
While speaking to Judge Brenda Penny in a virtual court hearing based in Los Angeles Wednesday, Spears stated that her conservatorship forces her to work constantly without any control over her finances.
In a full transcript provided by Variety , she said that this amounted to 10-hour shifts seven days a week.
She also said that if she refused a gig or tried to take a significant break, her former therapist would claim she wasn’t taking her medication and — on one occasion — suddenly put her on lithium.
She was also pressured into going to rehab despite apparently not drinking alcohol.
As she said, “I deserve to have a life. I’ve worked my whole life. I deserve to have a two to three year break and just, you know, do what I want to do.”
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However, she also said that her conservators’ control over her doesn’t stop at her financial decisions and work schedule.
As she stated, it also disallows her from marrying her boyfriend of five years, Sam Asghari, as well as anyone she might feel hypothetically inclined to tie the knot with.
It also blocks her from getting pregnant and while that may seem harder to enforce, her conservators have made it possible through an intrauterine birth control device.
As she put it, “I just want my life back. And it’s been 13 years. And it’s enough.”
And Spears has made it clear that this IUD is inside of her body against her will.
Although it appears that Spears would like her sons Jayden and Preston to have a sibling, those managing her affairs are vetoing the idea entirely.
In her words, “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 children – any more children.”
According to her father’s attorney, Vivian Lee Thoreen, Spears could have petitioned to end her conservatorship at any time and has not done so.
That information comes courtesy of People , who reported that Spears responded by saying that she had no knowledge that this was even an option for her.
And as the _Variety_ transcript makes clear, she said that her previous attempts to end her conservatorship have resulted in psychological evaluations that resulted in rehab stints at her own expense.
In her words, “I deserve to have the same rights as anybody does, by having a child, a family, any of those things, and more so.”
h/t: Variety
