Fans must pivot from #FreeBritney to #GuardBritney
The #FreeBritney movement is one giant leap closer to mission accomplished.
On Tuesday, in a move that surprised everyone following this sad saga, Jamie Spears filed a court petition that amounted to an about-face. For the past 13 years, he has argued his pop star daughter, Britney, was incapable of handling her own affairs.
Now he’s changing his tune. As his lawyer wrote in this week’s filing: “If Ms. Spears wants to terminate the conservatorship and believes that she can handle her own life, Mr. Spears believes that she should get that chance.”
What’s telling about this filing is how it echoes but does not challenge the explosive testimony Britney gave in June, when she sounded like a political prisoner who was all but tortured for a third of her life. The conservatorship, she told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny, had left her “traumatized” and “depressed.” She felt like a “slave.” Her father’s control over her career, finances and personal life was “abusive.”
“I just want my life back,” she said.
The timetable for if, how and when her life is returned is unclear. The next hearing is scheduled for Sept. 29. But this week’s filing amounts to a seismic victory for Team Britney. Her father Jamie, who has pocketed good coin skimming off his daughter’s fortune since the conservatorship was established in 2008, is now asking the court to “seriously consider” whether it “is no longer required.”
It’s as if Ronald McDonald were to suddenly raise doubts about the need for Big Macs.
Cast as the supervillain by both Britney and the #FreeBritney movement, it would seem Jamie Spears realizes the jig is up. So instead of seeing red, he is waving a white flag. His daughter “wants control of her life back without the safety rails of a conservatorship,” his lawyer wrote, and now dad is inclined to agree.
Safety rails, guardrails, these are terms that have seeped into
this case docket for years. But what was ignored until recently is that Britney was forced to feel like a crash test dummy. Even if the court ends the conservatorship, questions remain. Britney can’t truly be free until the terms of her legal imprisonment are investigated.
That would include, in my opinion, a forensic audit of her finances since 2008, including payouts and back-end percentage deals on the gross revenue of performances from a career that never stopped despite the fact she was deemed legally unfit to take care of herself.
It would include a sharper grasp of the medical treatments she has received over the past 13 years. In June, Britney alleged she was forced to take lithium after balking at the gruelling schedule of a four-year concert residency in Las Vegas. She claimed there is an IUD in her body she is not allowed to have removed, despite wanting to get married and have another baby.
She has had little say in the therapy she receives, which defeats the point. There was no first choice of doctors and no second opinions. The people tasked with helping her were imposed upon her. She footed the bills without ever having a toehold in what she wanted.
Even the most quotidian of tasks — driving a car, going for a walk, picking out new kitchen cabinets — could not be made without the approval of her conservators. Britney might as well have spent the past 13 years living under Taliban rule.
Were there reasonable grounds to start the conservatorship as a temporary measure in 2008, after Britney suffered a mental health crisis and was teetering on the brink of self-destruction? Of course. Is there any justification in continuing to rob her of her agency in 2021? Absolutely not.
That’s not to say Britney does not require ongoing help. She does. But if Jamie Spears is sincere when he says in this new filing that, “all he wants is what is best for his daughter,” he needs to come to terms with how his toxic conservatorship amounted to what was worst for his daughter.
From the tail end of her 20s, and throughout her 30s, she has begged for the freedoms the rest of us take for granted. Those days of needing permission to socialize with a new friend or buy a new electric toothbrush appear to be numbered. And if her fans want to help their heroine transition back into having a life she controls, they should pivot and think less about #FreeBritney and more about #GuardBritney.
Encourage her. Support her. Watch out for her. Stand on guard for her.
The countdown clock on this conservatorship is now ticking louder than ever.
Britney Spears was wronged by a system designed to help her.
That’s worth remembering as her fans help her forget.