In the early months of 2021, the affairs of pop-icon Britney Spears began to gain traction. Concerns for her well-being and rights as an individual inspired a huge movement in support of her freedom from an oppressive conservatorship that had been controlling her life for over a decade. More about this issue and its implications can be found in my article from last April, “Why You Should Care About Freeing Britney.”
But hey! You have not misread: the conservatorship had been controlling Britney’s life, which means that, yes, she is finally free! On November 12th, 2021, a Los Angeles judge moved to end Britney’s conservatorship. Her story did not lose its voice in the months prior, but in fact became increasingly louder.
Britney testified against the conservatorship in July of 2021, which was recorded and spread like wildfire across the web. The full transcript can be found here. Britney’s experience is nothing short of heartbreaking, mentioning instances of abuse, trauma, and denial as consistent occurrences in the past 13 years of her life.
In September of 2021, The New York Times released a follow-up documentary to their 2021 film Framing Britney Spears. The new feature takes a deeper dive into the dark and controlling workings of Britney’s conservatorship. Interviews with security guards, managers, costume designers, personal assistants, and paparazzis unveil the truly unjust ways that Britney was treated for the majority of her adult life. Take a look at the documentary, Controlling Britney Spears, here.
Now that Britney is free, we have had the consistent pleasure of seeing her online personality develop. Through social media, Britney provides insight about her own thoughts and feelings, as well as some spicy call-outs to her family! The drama keeps unfolding between Britney and her family members—it’s hard to keep track and decipher between truth and misconceptions. In a tweet last month, Britney called out her sister, Jamie Lynn, claiming she’d been lying to the media about their family’s situation. This may have been in response to Jamie Lynn’s Good Morning America interview, in which she stated that she had no knowledge of the conservatorship’s abusive nature.
Jamie Lynn is not the only member of the Spears family to face Britney’s long-awaited outcry: she also spoke out against her father, Jamie, who had a major role in the conservatorship and is now seeking financial compensation for legal costs. Britney refuted this outrageous request by claiming that Jamie had committed numerous financial misconducts while controlling her money during the conservatorship. The New York Times covered this issue and informed that investigations and legal battles are still going on, as of last month.
Britney’s backlash is more than warranted, and I don’t expect it to stop! The pop star suffered many years of oppression, which took on multiple forms: financial, personal, substance abuse, invasions of privacy, you name it. She continues to surprise us with her unconventional Instagram posts, Tik Tok videos, and hostile tweets toward her haters. More about Britney’s anger can be read in Vanity Fair’s “What to do with Britney Spears’s Rage?” We are now in the aftershock of a conservatorship that never should have existed, and we are fortunate to be hearing Britney’s side of the story for as long as she needs.