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As we all know, Britney Spears’ conservatorship chaos has recently exploded in the news and triggered the #freeBritney movement across the U.S., and perhaps the world.
Sadly, what comes to mind for many of us when we think of Britney Spears is the infamous break down she experienced at the age twenty-six. The wildly expansive award of control over her person and estate, initially put into place by Commissioner Reva Goetz in a Los Angeles court (2008), eventually became the first conservatorship publicly known to ever be extended not only once, but multiple times.
This is so because there is no legal precedent for the extension of these appointments, as they are nearly always put into place in cases of the elderly who’ve lost ability to care for themselves, or others who are similarly incapacitated.
You might be wondering why this even matters to me as a grandmother who has no attachment to, and who hasn’t followed Britney since my near-thirty year old daughter had years ago.
Generally, I believe we all trusted that Britney’s intervention was necessary at the time in order to protect her person and her better interests.
(Photo courtesy of The Boar, November 2020)
Fast forward thirteen years and I feel a fair deal of resentment on behalf of Britney as a woman, for the horrible things that she is now alleging were committed against her by her own family, most specifically her father, Jamie Spears, and others surrounding her court appointed affairs.
Britney’s case is not merely a matter of some eccentric pop diva partying all the time, making critically bad decisions, and then wondering how her life fell apart. The world learned that Britney was sadly at a very low point, medically and emotionally during that time. However, the way she was treated by many of us, perhaps unaware of our own biases, and the way she was portrayed in the media ushered an great disservice to the efforts still so tirelessly being made today to break the stigma associated with mental illness.
During her unfortunate time surrounding 2008, she was professionally at the top of her game. Despite her challenges over the years, she has reliably continued to perform, record music, host a television show, and has been maintaining millions of dedicated fans all around the world.
(Photo courtesy of Deseret News, July 2021).
Yet, Britney somehow has ended up here, living a nightmare. As we recently learned, the conditions she has been living, under the veil of what she eludes to be nefarious intent for the past thirteen years, is coming into focus, and we now see just how dysfunctional the laws surrounding conservatorships really is.
Through the 2008 ruling, the stage had been set for this abusive cycle to exploit a person suffering from mental illness in every way imaginable, including using the threat of taking her children away, forced and invasive birth control, and being made to sign contracts against her will, which objectively sounds to me like state-sponsored labor trafficing.
Recently, Britney has felt no alternative other than to publicly swallow her pride and muster the courage to voice her experience while still under the watchful eye of her conservators. She has begun fighting for her own most basic civil and human rights, described in her own words as demoralizing, lonely, and abusive during recent testimony.
Unexpectedly to many, Britney has come out with figurative guns a’ blazing. The extent of just how exploited, manipulated and shall we say “harmed” she has been all this time is unfathomable. Hearing the nearly 25-minute audio of Britney addressing the courts, pleading for the removal of her father from her conservatorship, and pleading for permission, yes permission, to hire her own legal counsel, was jarring.
It was almost unbelievable that we had just been witness to her bear-all, first-hand account. A grown woman worth an reported $60 million is asking for permission to use her own resources in her own way.
In her impassioned testimony, we learned that during this conservatorship, specifically and legally ordered by the courts for the purpose of allegedly protecting her, just how unbelievably far-reaching the arrangements as described by her have been. Living conditions for the pop icon who had no problem admitting that she would benefit from continued therapy (are we at all surprised about this?), are abruptly unfolding as a far cry from the allegations being made by select members her conservatorship “team”, namely Jamie Spears, Britney’s father.
Britney’s value is said to be estimated at $60 million, which her overbearing father wants to take credit for amassing, however, it’s also been reported that her perfume line alone carried a value of around $1 billion. Added to the fact that Britney is of sound mind enough to know how to connect the dots about something being seriously wrong.
(Photo courtesy of the BBC, July 2021).
In short, Britney has clearly been well enough to function while simultaneously supporting hundreds of aides, staff and crew while performing world tours, television hosting, fulfilling her Las Vegas residencies, all while describing living under extreme and abusive control, including forced medication and denial of basic rights.
Ordered by the court in 2008, a conservatorship was put into place, naming a team of people granted authority, who were legally entrusted to care for her. This was rapidly granted by bypassing the five-day requirement to enable notice be given to her regarding the upcoming filing. All-too conveniently, Britney also states that knowledge of her rights to select her own legal counsel had been for over a decade withheld.
In the opinion of many, the State of California has entirely failed her, as publicly unknown legal justification facilitated both possible types of conservatorships being put in place by the courts, awarding authority to her conservators over both her person and her estate in the unprecedented move of numerous consecutive extensions of the order. One could argue that both she and her sons have essentially been given life sentences by the State of California.
Society entirely missed the mark on the fact that this case presents not only serious ethical dilemma, yet serious ethical dilemma perhaps driven by, not considering, large amounts of money in play, and suspected to be the motive of seeking legal control, as opposed to some of the “team’s” intent to protect Britney well-being.
(Photo courtesy of UK News Agency, June 2021).
Let’s be real.
Would there have been such intervention made by Britney’s family in 2008, had Britney not been a public figure worth millions, had we been talking about Britney from small town Louisiana with $1,000 in the bank and similar custodial drama? We have no way of knowing, but I suspect the answer to be a hard no.
Have we yet seen any such control being granted (at least) so publicly and extensively played out in cases of successful men outwardly displaying signs of questionable or unstable mental capacity, or even extremely poor financial and personal decisions, who yet continue to work as productively and be as in demand as Britney has been? I venture to say no.
Next, I cannot even begin to rattle off every badly- or dangerously-behaved male celebrity that has behaved in ways that if measured against Britney’s behavior in 2008, should have questioned their stability, yet whom have still not been grossly exploited or forced to perform like dancing poodles, as Britney states she has been.
This has all happened at the hands of the State of California, its Courts, and the court appointed conservators. Her father made the ridiculous claim that he was unaware of her allegations, and that he is saddened to hear of her suffering, until he is blue in the face. The mere fact that he has never wavered to remain thoroughly involved with and in charge of every bit of her financial assets, yet now claims that he wasn’t aware of the allegations of harm and cruelty made by Britney. This claim itself gives the appearance of nefarious and malicious intent.
(Photo courtesy of Chris Pizello, AP, 2021).
I have news for some people. The arts and entertainment worlds are saturated with people showing tendencies towards what can be publicly perceived as some form of mental disorder or instability. This has long been perceived to be the case.
I have found either conflicting or weak scientific evidence of this, true. However, with a Masters in Public Health and a graduate certificate in epidemiology, I thoroughly understand the science of any reliable health study to be far more complex than the general public likely is aware of. This is why I take the studies I have seen thus far regarding the association with a grain of salt.
In a nutshell, the most reliable and accepted health studies require a high level of willing human participation over an extensive period of time, closely surveilled throughout the study, in a carefully selected study type and nature of funding, that is widely accepted by peers in related professions, and with minimal compensation given in return to the participants. In order to be clearly accepted as showing true evidence, there also needs to be more than one of these studies.
There are not enough of, if any, these types of studies.
Therefore, one conclusion I will propose is that despite conclusive evidence supporting a relation between creativity and mental illness not being available, there remains an indisputable fact that from the population of creatives and artists around the world, past and present, we have all benefited immensely from their talents. Where would society be today without the free creation of art in its many forms?
(Photo courtesy of Tenor gif, 2021).
There is no other way to say it. The life sentence that Britney was essentially sentenced to can be said to have done irreparable damage to her creative capacity, thereby, any potential works of art she would have otherwise since contributed to the world.
Britney also alleges that something as simple as self-care has been long denied her, which is nothing short of cruel and irrational given the statement conversely put out by her father following her explosive testimony claiming that he has always remained primarily focused on Britney’s health and safety.
In her own words, the only thing Britney states she can equate being forced to perform despite fighting a 102 degree fever to, would be sex-trafficing. It certainly appears to strongly mimic labor trafficing.
The bottom line is that mental illness is not a crime.
Mental illness is not a crime, and is one of the most unethical things for a human to be exploited over.
It also needs to be pointed out that if this could happen to someone with Britney’s resources and support available, it is extremely worrisome for the countless, less fortunate and needier people placed under the same legal control, in the forever care of whomever the courts see fit. As of late July 2021, and as a result, a bill has been presented addressing conservatorship abuse. Britney did not only speak up on behalf of herslef, in the end
Britney’s case will rightfully so no doubt call attention to the gross lack of oversight regarding, and the regulation of conservatorships, as well as human and civil rights, and mental illness and its stigma.
Two quotes come to mind.
“A win for any woman is a win for all women” (Unknown), and another,
“There’s a special place in h*ll for the women who don’t help other women” (Madeleine Albright).
Had it not been for Britney’s sleuthy and loyal fans, awareness of the intolerable conditions she had been living with under the overly restrictive terms of her conservatorship might not have been brought to light. I imagine that Britney will forever be grateful for their demands made in pursuit of her freedom through the #freeBritney movement. These fans deserve commendation for their perseverance to help Britney get her life back.
REFERENCES
The Guardian, 2008. Court gives father control of Britney. Retrieved 20 July 2021 from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/02/musicnews.usa.
U.S. Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. 2008. The relationship between creativity and mood disorders. Retrieved 20 July 2021 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181877/.
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