Between 2008 and 2021, Britney Spears released four albums, toured twice and had a four-year residency in Las Vegas. From the outside, one could get the impression of a normally working pop star. In fact, Spears, who turns 41 on December 2, was underage during those 13 years.
In 2008, a court ruled that her father, Jamie Spears, was allowed to make the most important career decisions and manage the assets. This decision was preceded by Britney Spears’ public relegation, which was exploited by the tabloid press.
In 2007, Spears briefly visited a rehabilitation center specializing in addiction therapy, after which she and dancer Kevin Federline had a dispute over custody of their children.
The long guardianship of Jamie Spears was then more and more criticized. Was this paternalism of an adult, which was only lifted by a court in November 2021, really proportionate? A 22-minute audio recording has now been published on a YouTube fan channel, among other things, which is said to have originally been available on Britney Spears’ official channel. In the recording, the singer recapitulates the time of her father’s guardianship.
It is a harsh charge against her mother, Lynne Irene, and her sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, in particular, who she accuses of inaction.
The idea of guardianship, where her father managed his daughter’s large fortune, originally came from her mother. Later, her mother and sister did nothing to help her. “They secretly thought it was good that I was the bad guy.”
The father, in turn, wanted to control everything about Britney Spears’ brother and behaved “really abusively” in this regard when he was younger. “They literally killed me,” Britney Spears says of her family’s behavior over the 13 years of guardianship.
Spears describes several examples of when she felt unduly controlled during the period. It started with being admitted to the hospital. “There were no drugs in my blood, no alcohol, nothing, it was pure abuse,” says Spears. She describes a two-week stay in hospital during this initial period as traumatizing.
Her work afterwards was a “demoralizing experience”. Her environment told her that she was too fat. “You made me feel like I was nothing.”
She did not like her professional achievements. The workload was also too high: seven days a week without free time. Her father also forced her to undergo inpatient therapy by threatening lawyers. Britney Spears describes the experience as “almost military” and prison-like.
Among other things, she was monitored when she changed clothes, and her diet was also subject to strict controls. “I wasn’t even allowed to smoke. People on the death track are allowed to do that.” She also had to attend meetings of “Alcoholics Anonymous”, although she was not an alcoholic.
It is now almost a year since the end of the controversial guardianship that led to a fan movement to free Britney Spears. The pop star is far from finished with that. This is also shown by the legal battle Spears is currently in with her father.
It’s about the allegation that he, as a long-term guardian, enriched himself with his daughter’s money, who, at the turn of the millennium, released her albums “Baby One More Time” and “Oops! … I Did It Again” had become an internationally known star and teen idol. Her current net worth is estimated at $60-70 million.
But Britney Spears has recently made headlines again away from the legal dispute. She shared several revealing photos on her Instagram account, which caused some fans to worry about the star’s mental state. The account is now no longer accessible.
Apparently, Spears has shifted her social media activities to her Twitter account instead, where she has been posting again since August 25 and also stands out here with revealing photos of herself.
Spears recently worked on a mashup with Elton John: the hit “Hold Me Closer” was released in August 2022.
