What's going on with Britney Spears?
Last week, Britney Spears, 39, asked the Los Angeles court in an extraordinarily urgently requested proceeding to end the guardianship through which her father, Jamie Spears, controls both her assets and her person. It was the first time that Britney spoke about the situation, which has lasted for 13 years.
Britney spoke last Wednesday for more than twenty minutes, reading a letter in which she expressed all her frustration in relation to the vital situation that this tutelage is causing her, and regretted having pretended to be happy during all this time to despite being traumatized.
It was in 2008 that Jamie Spears was appointed the singer's guardian because of her concern for her various hospital admissions due to her mental health and substance abuse. It had been the year before that Britney lost custody of her two children after her divorce from Kevin Federline and that she had started to have bizarre performances that were treated with great harshness and humiliation by the press. In 2019, Britney would explain in court that she was forced to stay in a mental health center against her will, despite being of legal age at the time.
In any case, the appointment of her father made him the absolute controller of Britney's life and fortune of some 60 million dollars, as well as all the negotiations and financial agreements that this involved. In fact, despite the huge amount of money the pop star was making, she could only enjoy $ 2,000 a week, and any mistake on her part had really strict and coercive consequences. On the other hand, her father obtained about $ 16,000 a month to be her guardian, apart from receiving percentages of various agreements that he signed on behalf of her daughter, and thanks to her work.
A guardianship finds its purpose in the management of the financial affairs of a person who has been considered incapable of managing them by himself -as it seems to be the case with the singer- for which another person is appointed who will be in charge of doing it. This is determined by a judge who grants - in this case to Britney's father - an authorization to assume a large part of the powers of the ward. An important part of her civil rights pass to her father, considering that the first of her does not have the capacity to make these types of decisions.
However, it must be borne in mind that the singer's case contains certain aspects that question the normality of the situation, since hers is not a typical case of guardianship, which is normally raised for people in situations of dementia or quite disabilities. developed. It is not usually about a successful person in her work - much less to the point that the artist is - and doing all kinds of activities related to her profession. She herself explained to the court last week that she "would not have to be protected if I can work, provide money and work for myself and pay other people."
In fact, just a year after being incapacitated, she was already appearing as a guest on several television shows, she put out an album that was monumentally successful and toured almost a hundred countries.
In addition, it is important to point out that Britney, in 2008, did not necessarily lose her right to be a participant in important decisions in relation to her properties and possessions, nor did she lose her right to be heard and taken into account in the actions to be taken. cape. In fact, guardianships have to give priority to the wishes of the ward and have to be part of the path that leads them to regain their independence.
However, she herself explained that now guardianship is a form of control and pressure against her person and that she already restricts things such as who she goes out with, being able to go get her nails done on her own, choosing what furniture to put in her house , use your credit card to buy a coffee, receive according to what visits or drive. She has also been forced to work against her will and she has not been able to choose her lawyers or her therapists, in addition to not being able to decide whether or not she takes the medications that are recommended to her.
One of the most frustrating issues is the fact that the singer cannot remove the IUD (Intrauterine Device), in order to avoid having children even if she wanted to. This form of forced sterilization in the long term is one of the things that makes it more evident that guardianship of her can be considered more a question of control than protection. This restriction of the freedom of reproduction seems to be a response established too frequently in guardianships that respond to mental health problems. In fact, in the United States, in more than half of the states, guardians are allowed to inflict not only birth control on their ward with disabilities, but permanent sterilizations.
Britney was already considering that her father was not the right one and that his role as guardian had to end in 2014. In fact, in 2008, when the guardianship became effective, she already insisted that she did not want him to be her father who will carry out the function. She also in 2016 she made some statements explaining how abusive Jamie Spears' control could be over every aspect of her life. It should be noted that she temporarily stopped the tutelage of her daughter in 2019 for health reasons, transferring it to Jodi Montgomery, to a specialist in tutelary procedures, but without having ceased to have control over the singer's money.
And that, according to various court records, interviews or interventions, the singer's relationship with her father, a recovering alcoholic and accused of both physical and verbal abuse, has been very complicated for many years. In fact, to this day, Britney's lawyer says that the star is afraid of her father, that he has always been a controlling and obsessive of his career, and that he has no intention of returning to the stage if he is the one who controls. the income you get from your performances.
Britney has not been the only one to warn of questionable actions on the part of her father. In fact, Lynne Spears, the singer's mother, asked for a restraining order when she divorced Jamie for fear that the reaction was violent or as a result of alcohol intake. Lynne also explains to her memories that her father treated her daughter badly, with episodes of verbal abuse and abandonment. In addition, last summer, Jamie also starred in an incident with the singer's thirteen-year-old son, which resulted in the prohibition that the grandfather see his grandson.
The hashtag #FreeBritney, in favor of ending her tutelage, is just the title of a movement that advocates for the freedom of the artist and that has been removing the networks and mobilizing her followers for many months. Added to that is the documentary that The New York Times has published about it and the support obtained from artists such as Justin Timberlake, his current partner Sam Asghari, the singer Mariah Carey or the activist and actress Rose McGowan.
It is curious that everyone has been able to speak about Britney Spears publicly, while she remained silent until last week, subjected to a guardianship that treats her like a little girl who, despite having unquestionable professional success and being in an exceptional moment to enjoy his adult life, he is being forbidden because his freedoms are deprived.
