Glory
Britney Spears is officially a free woman. After almost 14 years in her conservatorship, my queen will get to celebrate her 40th birthday without the watchful eye of her father, security guard, or management.
Realizing she can do whatever the f*ck she wants.
This is a case I’ve followed closely (and have talked about incessantly) since 2019. In the last year I’ve written about the sexist media portrayal that led to her conservatorship, how much I despise Justin Timberlake, her sketchy management, the many documentaries surrounding her case, her pivotal June 23rd hearing, the legality of her forced IUD, the impact of other famous conservatorships, the day her dad was suspended as conservator, and her use of Bitcoin as a means to financial independence.
Today, I get to write about her freedom.
Oh baby, baby.
😭😭😭
In the Zone
On Friday, November 12th at 5:09 pm EST, I read a tweet that said “SHE’S FREE.” At the same time, hundreds of fans had a dance party outside of the LA courthouse.
I, by contrast, was at a bank. This isn’t the first time I’ve cried in front of an ATM, but it was by far the best.
The tears come from a mix of emotions. I’m ecstatic to see Britney regain basic rights, like driving a car, voting, or making medical decisions for herself. I’m also devastated that these were stripped away in the first place. The sadness is compounded by how quickly the court was able to rule on her freedom. I had braced myself for a long fight, and it’s disheartened to learn that the whole situation could have ended at the will of the judge. As #FreeBritney supporters, we were told this was a losing battle. Lawyers said over and over again that people don’t come out of conservatorships. Turns out that the fate of Britney’s freedom could have been granted at any time, specifically because it was never filed properly in the first place.
It makes the last 13 years look that much worse in hindsight.
The #FreeBritney movement has been steadily gaining steam since 2019. In the last few months, it’s been in hyperdrive. My DMs have exploded with acquaintances jumping on board and asking questions. I have whiplash from last Spring when #FreeBritney was still a conspiracy theory to the outpouring of congratulatory messages I saw on Friday (Britdependence Day).
Public perception changes on a dime, and I’m worried about what comes next.
I’ve been a Britney fan since I was a kid. I loved the way she danced, but more importantly, I loved (and still admire) the way she carries herself. This is a woman who wore her wedding dress out shopping after a divorce, was routinely wearing inappropriate graphic t-shirts, and wrote blogs online before that was even really a thing. In interviews she’s goofy. On stage, she’s unbearably sexy.
The die-hard Britney fans love more than just her music. If I’m honest, she has a lot of songs that are terrible (sorry Brit). What I’m drawn to is how she bears her soul to the world. Her unapologetic and unpolished demeanour just hits differently than other icons.
If you need proof, look at her most scathing Instagram posts. The phrasing is weird, the emoji’s plentiful, her sarcasm dialled up to 1000%. Everything she does is a stream of consciousness, but many of us believe we’re paddling down that same stream. Since the days of “Leave Britney Alone” there have been fans empathizing and seeing her struggles in a way that the media couldn’t.
Team conservatorship cast enough doubt for us to second guess the story. In 2008, I believed she’d gone crazy – I think many fans did. From there it was impossible to prove anything different. Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino put it well in their piece for the New Yorker:
Spears’s case has illuminated the impossible bind that conservatees can sometimes find themselves in: once a person has been formally deemed incapacitated, she might well lose the opportunity to ever prove her capacity.
The bind worked because no one can ever really know Britney. There’s an enigma to Britney Spears that’s almost as intriguing as her personality. What is normal behaviour for someone who’s been through what she has? Her past is only comparable to celebrities who have died, and for years she’s been trapped behind an ironclad wall.
A #FreedBritney is unpredictable. Without the barrier of the conservatorship, I expect she’ll lash out. A reaction that’s entirely deserved.
In advocating for her freedom, we’re saying that we accept whatever decisions she makes. I don’t think everyone has fully grasped that. Since gaining more agency on her socials Britney’s already posted many pictures of her ass, much to the chagrin of those who only wanted a free and palatable pop star. Alas, that’s not for anyone else to decide.
Right now we’re in the zone of loving her and her flaws. Public opinion is on her side for the moment, but I worry the media won’t take kindly to her future choices. On some level, I think people still expect the 1999 America’s sweetheart version of Britney to come out of this tragedy. More and more I hear people excited for her future advocacy against conservatorship abuse.
Those are some high expectations for someone coming out of an abuse scandal.
Britney is already feeling the pressure. She shared on her Instagram:
I'll just be honest and say I've waited so long to be free from the situation I’m in … and now that it's here I'm scared to do anything because I'm afraid I'll make a mistake !!! ….So like I said I'm fearful of doing something wrong ... so I won’t be posting as much in a world where it's our liberty to be free, it's a shame.
The person emerging from this conservatorship is not the person who went in, nor should it be. As fans, or just as empathetic people, we need to give Britney the space to heal. We’ve freed her, and now it’s time to protect her from scrutiny. She owes us nothing, and we owe her our grace.
What she does now is anyone’s guess, but it’s only one person’s choice.
That’s the fucking point.
Britney winning lawsuits for the next 5 years
Femme Fatale
The conservatorship is over, but the work isn’t done. We’re entering a new season, marked by a new hashtag: #JusticeforBritney.
Now that Britney is free, I hope the lawsuits are quick to follow. It’s no secret that she’s harbouring anger, the evidence is clear in her lengthy captions. About her upcoming freedom she said, “I haven’t prayed for something more in my life!!! I know I’ve said some things on my Insta out of anger and I’m sorry but I’m only human…. And I believe you’d feel the same way if you were me!!!”
A few weeks earlier she called out those closest to her, writing “Lord have mercy on my family’s souls if I ever do an interview!!!”
Britney is daring the world to hit her one more time.
It’s not just her. Britney’s lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, is also out for blood. There’s a whole Circus of complicit family and team members that have been skulking in the background. Jamie Spears has been the villain of this story since 2019, but other characters are finally showing up on our Radar. Robin Greenhill and Lou Taylor are at the front of the pack.
Robin Greenhill was featured heavily in “Controlling Britney Spears”. Her job was as an assistant, but the documentary claims she monitored Britney at all hours through a group chat with the security lead and Jamie Spears. A former security staffer claims there was a recording device put into Britney’s bedroom which captured over 180 hours of audio in 2016. He further alleges Robin monitored Britney’s communication by secretly mirroring her messages to an iPad she had locked in a safe.
Robin works for Tri Star, a company owned by Lou Taylor. Lou has worked closely with the Spears family since she began acting as their spokesperson in 2007. Up until October 2020, Lou was Britney’s business manager, and she is still working with Britney’s younger sister, Jamie Lynn.
Since the onset of the conservatorship in 2008, Jamie Spears and Lou created multiple companies to help manage the Britney Spears brand, all of which were astronomically lucrative. That was, in large part, because Britney was never allowed to take time off.
By 2019 Lou saw her firm increase its assets by approximately $600 million, though very few new clients were added to the roster. In 2020, however, those $600 million dollars suddenly vanished. In all that time, Britney only received an allowance of $1,600 a week.
Many articles have come out exploring why Britney’s estate is so undervalued, and I believe Tri Star has everything to do with it. Rosengart agrees and has subpoenaed a long list of documents from Tri Star. Among his 26 requests are:
All correspondence Robin had with security in an effort to monitor Britney
All docs related to establishing the conservatorship
All correspondence Robin had with Jamie
All correspondence regarding Britney's medications, hospitalizations and rehab facilities
If Britney's estate paid for Lou Taylor and Robin's legal representation
Most importantly, Rosengart wants to know exactly how much money Tri Star has taken from Britney since 2008. A simple, and seemingly innocuous ask for a business management company.
Tri Star, however, hasn’t responded to Rosengart’s requests for financial records. In his words. “Tri Star's ongoing failure to answer this question speaks volumes and leads to the unfortunate and inexorable conclusion that Tri Star has much to hide."
Also hiding is Black Box Security, the team that facilitated the excessive surveillance of Britney’s person. When Tri Star falls, they’ll be dragged down with them.
Lest we forget about Sam Ingham, Britney’s court-appointed lawyer that did nothing to help her end the conservatorship, fight against mismanagement of her money, or prevent Black Box from spying on his client. Mathew Rosengart took mere weeks to accomplish what Britney wanted for years - requests that Ingham had been ignoring for over a decade. It’s infuriating to picture him along for the ride without ever pausing to help his client.
To give you a sense of how much Sam Ingham made by doing nothing, from October 2020 to June 2021, the lawyers that fought against Britney’s freedom took $4 million from her estate.
Honestly, fuck that guy.
Even less talked about is Larry Rudolph, Britney’s long-time manager who retired earlier this summer. He’s been getting off lightly in the press, but there’s no way Larry was unaware of what was happening around him. He is also loosely linked to Kesha’s legal battles, so mark my words, this dude is up to some sketchy shit.
Similarly, I wonder what Kevin Federline knew of her situation. It’s been long reported that Jamie used access to Britney’s sons as a means to control her. What kind of father allows their children to be pawns in their ex-wife’s abuse narrative?
Jamie Lynn, the youngest of the siblings, is releasing a book in January about her experience with mental health and teen pregnancy. She claims the family pushed for her to get an abortion and cut her off from the outside world. Her story is devastating, but her lack of support in her sister’s case (and Britney calling her out directly on Instagram) leaves fans questioning her motives and the timing of the book. She took so much heat that the mental health organization Jamie Lynn was planning to donate a portion of her sales to is refusing her money.
Whether she’s as evil as the fans think remains to be seen, but she is undoubtedly also a victim of her parents.
The other sibling, Bryan Spears is practically non-existant in media coverage. Back in June, Bryan shared on a podcast that his little sister had “always wanted to get out” of the conservatorship . He further elaborated that the situation has been "a great thing for our family."
Yikes.
Beyond the family, Ingham, Larry, Black Box, and Tri Star, there are tons of anonymous team members that are left to be outed. Medical teams, law enforcement, the court system, the mental health facility staff etc…. This conservatorship passed through hundreds of hands, and all of them are complicit in the tragedy that happened to Britney Spears. Her freedom is just the beginning.
Frankly, I hope she burns the whole system to the ground like she did her gym.
We did it!
Lucky
The entire case is surreal, but Britney has a way of grounding it. She posted on Twitter right after the news was announced,
Good God I love my fans so much it’s crazy!!! I think I’m gonna cry the rest of the day !!!! Best day ever … praise the Lord … can I get an Amen???? #FreedBritney
Truthfully, I’m still crying. That she is still able to show such positivity and gratitude after what she’s been through is a strength I can’t even comprehend. The emotions are intense, but I’m also taking another piece of advice from Britney:
I’m celebrating Christmas 🎄 way early this year … because why not ???!!! I believe any reason to find more joy in life is a good idea … and it’s no secret that I’ve been through it in the past … so I might have to do things a little differently from now on !!!
Amen, Britney. Amen.
I hope you find all the joy you’ve ever wanted and more.
