#Britney Spears Files to Oust Father Jamie Spears From Conservatorship

Britney Spears’ lawyer filed legal documents today petitioning to terminate her father’s position as conservator of her estate, The New York Times reports. Her new lawyer Mathew Rosengart filed paperwork to replace Jamie Spears with certified public accountant Jason Rubin. The move comes after Spears claimed in court that she wasn’t aware she could petition to have the conservatorship terminated.

Spears’ father James “Jamie” Spears enacted the conservatorship in 2008. Britney Spears had been pushing for an end to the restrictions since 2014, according to a report that was released in June. Her fans had also rallied against the conservatorship for years with the #FreeBritney movement. Following her previous lawyer Sam Ingham III’s resignation, Bessemer Trust—the wealth-management firm that served as co-conservator of Spears’ estate alongside Jamie Spears, requested to withdraw from the conservatorship. 

On June 23, Spears spoke at length in court about her life under the conservatorship, categorizing it as abusive and saying that its conditions controlled her finances, working life, and her reproductive freedom. She claimed that she wanted to sue her family for the way she’s been treated. “I’ve been in denial. I’ve been in shock. I am traumatized. I just want my life back,” she said. She spoke at length specifically about her father’s behavior. “The control he had over someone as powerful as me—he loved the control, to hurt his own daughter, one-hundred thousand percent.”

She made her first public statement the following day with an Instagram post. “I apologize for pretending like I’ve been ok the past two years,” she wrote, adding, “I did it because of my pride and I was embarrassed to share what happened to me.” Many other artists, including Dionne Warwick and some of Spears’ contemporaries, including Christina Aguilera, have voiced their support. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey also spoke up about conservatorship cases, citing Spears’ testimony as an example of the system’s most egregious abuses.