Britney Spears shares horrifying new details about conservatorship: ‘It was pure abuse’
The now-deleted audio recording has outlined much of Britney Spears’ struggles with her conservatorship. (Michelangelo Di Battista/Getty)
Music icon Britney Spears has shared several horrifying new claims about her controversial 13-year conservatorship.
In a now-deleted 20-minute audio recording published on Sunday (28 August), the emotional star revealed a set of fresh details about how she was treated during the conservatorship.
The pop star broke free from the legal arrangement with her father, Jamie Spears, in November 2021. It had governed her life since 2008.
Since winning her freedom, Spears has been very vocal about the harmful effects of the conservatorship – which appointed Jamie Spears as manager of her financial and personal affairs – and how liberating the dissolution of the arrangement has felt.
“They literally killed me. They threw me away,” Spears said. “That’s what it felt like. My family threw me away.
“Honestly, still to this day, I don’t know what I did, but [because of] the punishment of my father, I wasn’t able to see anyone or anything. You have to imagine how none of it made sense to me.”
Among the claims were allegations that, during the initial days of her conservatorship, a “SWAT team” entered her house and that she was held down on a wheeled stretcher in an ambulance.
“I know now it was all premeditated,” she said, referencing the start of the conservatorship. “A woman introduced the idea to my dad, and my mum actually helped him follow through and made it all happen. It was all basically set up. There were no drugs in my system, no alcohol, nothing. It was pure abuse.”
The star then further claimed that during her Britney: Live in Concert tour in 2017, she was forced into a facility where people reportedly watched her get changed and shower.
“I went on one of the rehearsals and I said ‘no’ to a dance move,” she explained. “I just remember everything got really weird and quiet and the directors and producers went in the back room and just spoke.
“I was told I had to be sent away to a facility. That I was supposed to say to my Instagram that the reason why was because my dad is sick and I need treatment, which I didn’t want.”
She claimed she was told by her father that if she didn’t go, there would be a “big trial” and he had “way more people on [his] side”. She says he told her: “You don’t even have a lawyer.”
Throughout the conservatorship, Spears reportedly claimed her life was filled with rampant abuse, saying: “I was told I was fat every day, I had to go to the gym. I never remember feeling so demoralised and they made me feel like nothing.”
Britney Spears’ family gather for a photo in 2003. (Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
Despite the plethora of offers she’s received for exclusive interviews on the conservatorship, including from Oprah Winfrey, the “Gimme More” singer has said she doesn’t “want any of it”.
“For me, it’s beyond a sit-down, proper interview,” she said. “I get nothing out of sharing all of this.”
In the now-deleted audio recording, Britney Spears revealed she went along with her father’s unabashed attempts at controlling her because she was “scared”.
“He loved to control everything I did. I remember the first day, he said, ‘I’m Britney Spears, and I’m calling the shots.’ And I’m like, ‘Alrighty then’. My brother was a football player and my dad was really hard on him when he was younger and really abusive,” she said. “I didn’t even do anything wrong and he still did it.”
In her attempts to escape the hostile environment – which included a secret getaway plan where she planned to leave the country with a man she had formed a secret relationship with – Spears said fans’ #FreeBritney campaign proved her father wasn’t as in control as he thought.
One member of the movement, who said in an interview he truly believed those in charge of the conservatorship were “doing something to her right now”, gave Britney hope, even though he admitted he could be “totally wrong”.
“The whole thing that made it really confusing for me is these [that] these people are on the straight fighting for me, but my sister and my mother aren’t doing anything,” she said.
Lynne Spears, Britney’s mother, seemingly replied to the audio recording in an Instagram post which said: “Britney, your whole life I have tried my best to support your dreams and wishes! And also, I have tried my best to help you out of hardships! I have never and will never turn my back on you! Your rejections to the countless times I have flown out, and calls, make me feel hopeless! I have tried everything.
“I love you so much, but this talk is for you and me only, eye to eye, in private.”
Since leaving her conservatorship, the star has used her freedom to release a new duet with Elton John, which is a remix of Tiny Dancer and The One, with various other inspirations.
The track marks her return to music, six years since her last studio album “Glory”, and the star says the track has restored her “fire”.
“I think with confidence comes enlightenment,” she said. “The last thing they wanted me to do was to actually be better, because then who would be in control?”
