In April of 2019, the hashtag “free Britney” went viral on all social media platforms causing an uproar of support for Britney Spears. For some time before this hashtag, Britney was fairly quiet and not in the spotlight as much as she was before. This hashtag was meant to bring awareness to her conservatorship as well as attention towards the fact that she had checked herself into a health facility. Fans were, and still are concerned about her mental health and they are concerned with the idea that Spears might be being held against her will.
Since 2008, Britney has been put under a conservatorship with her father Jamie Spears being the conservator for the person and her estate. What this means is that Jamie makes choices about Britney’s medical care, job, when and where she can go places, etc. Jamie also has full control over Britneys estate which is essentially the entirety of her finances. Jamie was also granted 1.5% of her gross residency touring revenue, which can amount to more than 66,000 dollars per week. Along with Jamie in this conservatorship was co-conservator Andrew Wallet. For reasons not yet known to the public, Wallet resigned as co-conservator in early 2019. This was a huge red flag that began the media outrage relating to spears and the true motives behind her conservatorship.
From the young age of eight, Britney has been performing live shows, producing and releasing her first album when she was just 16. Since this release, Britney has gone on to perform over 200 promotional performances. I think most people realize that exploitation of your personal life comes with fame. Spears seemed okay with this up until her children were involved. After researching this myself, it seems like Britney started taking a turn for the worst after her split from Justin Timberlake. Timberlake exploited their personal relationship with different tabloids all over the media. In a video clip from ABC’s primetime with Dianne Sawyer, you can see Britney start to cry over the condescending questions she was being asked regarding Timberlake. Sawyer made it seem like the breakup was Spears’ fault and this seemed to cause Spears a lot of distress. Dianne also taunts Britney about the ‘real’ meaning behind her music. Sawyer makes it seem as though Britney’s songs need to have some sort of underlying provocative meaning even when they actually do not.
The media outlets would have headlines that strictly focused on “what did Britney do wrong”, “Britney is the bad guy”. Seeing the distress and sadness this caused her, has led me to believe that this was the beginning of her breakdown. Shortly after this, in 2004, Spears got involved in a romantic relationship leading into marriage with Kevin Federline, an American DJ, and model. She went on to have two children with Federline, named Sean and Jayden. As paparazzi became more involved with Spears and her children as well as her relationship, you can see Britney start to change. She shows more raw emotion in her interactions with fans, interviews, and the paparazzi themselves. Come 2006, Spears filed for divorce from Federline and went on to fight for custody of her two children. Months later, spears shaved her head because she “was sick of everyone trying to touch her hair”. Shortly after this, Federline had her two children in his home where Britney was unable to reach them. She went to go try to see them and began being pestered by a small group of paparazzi at a gas station. They began asking her questions about how she was doing, and telling her they were there for her. In these clips, you can see Britney sitting in the vehicle looking distressed and upset. From the mobile gas station shown in these clips, they arrived at Kevin’s house. After being pestered by the paparazzi, Britney grabbed an umbrella and started beating the SUV of a paparazzi. She was yelling “f**k you” and “go f**k yourself” to the paparazzi. If this doesn’t show a woman who wants to be left alone, then I don’t know what does.
Shortly after, her father Jamie Spears files for a conservatorship and is granted sole conservatorship for the person (person being Britney) and sole conservator of the estate along with Andrew Wallet at the time, who has since resigned. According to her lawyers, Britney has stated multiple times she no longer wants her father as conservator, even her brother has stated that Britney wants “out of the conservertship”. Though Britney Spears has been compliant with the conservatorship during their routine court briefings, come 2020 she has begun to speak out in the court of law about it. In November of 2020, she lost her bid of trying to remove her father as conservator. Shortly after this, come December 2020 her conservatorship was extended until September 2021 in the state of California. As of February of this year, the conservatorship is still ongoing. However, Britney and her lawyers are working hard to make the hearings and sealed files public as well as working to make it so Britney can successfully terminate the conservatorship completely. It is unclear what the future holds with the next few hearings scheduled to take place this year. The fans and family of Britney can only hope she successfully terminates her conservatorship so she is able to see her children more, control her estate/ finances, and make her own life and business decisions.
“Britney Spears Montreal Concert – Smiling Britney” by Anirudh Koul is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
