Britney Spears got the Internet talking on June 23rd, 2021, when she finally gave court
testimony via phone to ask to be released from the conservatorship that a lawyer and
her father Jamie Spears have been in charge of since 2008. In the terms of this conservatorship,
Spears needs to get permission for all financial and personal decisions. Now, her mother is
speaking out.
Lynne Spears gave a statement through her attorney, Gladstone Jones, soon after her
daughter's half-hour-long testimony was made public. Jones said that his client was "a
very concerned mother," according to US Weekly. Jones also asked the judge to grant Spears'
request to hire her own private attorney to fight her case for her. Lynne and Jamie Spears
divorced in 2002.
This wasn't the first time that Lynne Spears had objected to parts of her daughter's conservatorship.
US Weekly reported in April of 2021 that Britney's mother filed an objection to $890,000 worth
of legal fees from the law firm representing her former husband. Those fees had piled up
in just six months since the conservatorship battle began in October of 2020. The court
filing stated that Lynne Spears believed the fees were "procedurally and substantively
improper."
Britney Spears, is now 39, and has seemingly never lived her own life. She entered the
celebrity world when she was just a child, landing a part on "The All-New Mickey Mouse
Club" when she was just 11 years old. She was only 17 when her first hit single took
the music world by storm. "... Baby One More Time" propelled Spears from a Disney teen
into a sex symbol practically overnight. She continued to turn out songs over the years,
including 2000's "Oops! ... I Did It Again" and "I'm a Slave For You.”
Through all of this, Spears became tabloid fodder as she made daring and racy moves over
and over again, including sharing a kiss with pop superstar Madonna at the 2003 MTV Video
Music Awards. She also made headlines with her various romances, including a relationship
with Timberlake, and a very brief marriage in 2004 to an old friend named Jason Alexander
when she was just 23. That union only lasted two days.
Although her first marriage was over before you could blink, Britney Spears gave wedded
bliss another try in 2004, this time to Kevin Federline. A year later, she gave birth to
her first son, Sean Preston. Everywhere Spears went, photographers seemed to follow. They
got shots of her driving her car with her baby on her lap rather than strapped into
his car seat, calling into question her fitness as a mother. Second son Jayden James was born
in 2006, but the marriage was over just months later when Spears filed for divorce.
By 2007, Spears and Federline were embroiled in a custody battle for the boys, and the
singer made headlines with front page pictures in papers across the country when she very
publicly shaved her head after checking out of rehab. Within a day, she was back in rehab
for drug and alcohol abuse, and within another day, Spears checked herself out. By the end
of the year, Spears lost custody of both her sons to their father. In 2008, her troubles
came to a crescendo when she refused to return the boys to Federline after her time with
them. She then spent time in a mental health facility, and her father, Jamie Spears, went
to court to take charge of her finances, as well as her personal and professional decisions,
through a conservatorship.
Britney detailed how control of her own life had been taken from her and described the
time between 2018 and 2019 when, due to the conservatorship, she was forced to tour.
Spears also told the court that she wants to have more children with her longtime boyfriend,
Sam Asghari, but she is forced to have an IUD so she can't get pregnant again.
According to her testimony, she told the judge:
"I have a (IUD) inside of myself right now so I don’t get pregnant. 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 Lynne Spears, the conservatorship has not, “performed in good faith for the
benefit” for her daughter, at all.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text
Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI
(6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.