DISS-GUSTING DAD
Friend claims torrent of insults at Britney
Britney Spears’ dad called her “fat,” a “whore” and a “terrible mother” soon after her conservatorship began — and had so much control over her life that he would bellow, “I am Britney Spears!” a close family friend has alleged.
Jamie Spears (inset) shocked those around the family when he took control of his daughter’s life after she was taken to a psychiatric ward for mentalhealth evaluations in 2008, The New Yorker reported.
“Jamie said, ‘Baby’ . . . and I thought he was going to say, ‘We love you, but you need help,’ ” longtime family friend Jacqueline Butcher told the magazine.
“But what he said was, ‘You’re fat. Daddy’s gonna get you on a diet and a trainer, and you’re gonna get back in shape,’ ” Butcher claimed, saying the comments left her feeling sick.
Jamie, now 68, was trying to mastermind Britney’s return to showbiz with her guest spot on the hit CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” Butcher alleged, saying he would point to a TV and tell his daughter that the news would soon say, “She’s back.”
But instead of encouraging Britney, he would wear her down with abuse, Butcher alleged.
“He would get all in her face — spittle was flying — telling her she was a whore and a terrible mother,” Butcher told The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino and Ronan Farrow.
Jamie would tell Britney that she could see her children only if she followed his orders, and her mother, Lynne Spears, “was just, like, ‘Obey Daddy and they’ll let you out,’ ” Butcher claimed.
Lynne, now 66, wrote in her 2008 memoir, “Through the Storm,” that she divorced Jamie in 2002, partly at her daughter’s urging, after “years and years of verbal abuse, abandonment, erratic behavior.”
The mom agreed to the conservatorship only because she thought it would last months, not 13 years — and was happy for her ex to be in control because it would make Britney resent him, and not her, Butcher told the magazine.
But when Lynne first tried to tell Jamie how she hoped the arrangement would work, he started shouting about his control over Britney’s life, including limiting Lynne’s access, Butcher said.
Butcher recalled him yelling, “I am Britney Spears!” — a refrain she would repeatedly hear him saying during the early years of the conservatorship, she said.
Lynne refused to discuss the situation at length, telling The New Yorker that she might have to hang the phone up if other family members walked in, the mag said.
“I got mixed feelings about everything,” Lynne said. “I don’t know what to think . . . It’s a lot of pain, a lot of worry.”
A rep for Jamie declined to answer specific questions but characterized his behavior as that of a loving father saving his daughter from possible ruin, the mag reported.
Jamie recently filed court papers insisting he was no longer directly in control of his daughter, claiming he has been “cut from communicating” with her for at least two years.