Britney Spears: ‘I’m depressed. I want my life back. It’s been 13 years. It’s enough’

Britney Spears has appeared in court to overturn the arrangement that puts her father in charge of much of her life.

Britney Spears continues to perform extensively while under the conservatorship. Picture: Getty Images

“My loneliness is killing me,” read one of the T-shirts. “Conservator-ship has got to go. Hey hey!” went a less pithy chant outside the court in Los Angeles.

The Britney Spears superfans were out in force again on Wednesday as their heroine for the first time gave ­direct testimony in the case to have her conservatorship dropped.

Imposed in 2008 amid concerns over Spears’ mental health and possible drug abuse, the legal order, normally reserved for the old, disabled or very ill, gives control of her $US60 million ($79m) fortune, medical treatment and other affairs to others. They ­include various lawyers and her father, Jamie, 68, whom many see as the fairytale villain who locked up his golden-haired daughter in a gilded cage.

For much of that time Spears has been silent. The vacuum has been filled by media coverage, documentaries and a blizzard of conspiracy theories from fans. Some think that she has been sending coded pleas for help via social media, claiming to see “Call 911” written in her eyelashes. More serious evidence emerged that Jamie had asked for his daughter to be put on medication for early onset dementia.

This week in court we finally heard directly from Spears. It was often painful. “I’ve been in denial. I’ve been in shock. I am traumatised. I just want my life back. It’s been 13 years and it’s enough,” she said by phone, her words broadcast to the court and the public ­listening online. “I’ve lied and told the whole world I’m OK and I’m happy.”

Among those to have expressed their support for the singer are Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Sarah Jessica Parker, Khloe Kardashian and Justin Timberlake, her former boyfriend.

Spears, 39, spoke from notes for more than 20 minutes, at first so quickly that the judge asked her to slow down for the transcribers. She said she had been drugged, and forced to perform live and had to change clothes in front of nurses and minders. Perhaps most disturbingly, she said she was prevented from removing a contraceptive IUD. Her conservators, she told the court, did not want her to have any more children or marry her boyfriend Sam Asghari.

Spears has two sons, Sean, 15, and Jayden, 14, with Kevin Federline, her former dancer whom she divorced in 2007, and who has 70 per cent custody of the children.

The singer has been with ­Asghari, 27, an Iranian-born actor, model and personal trainer, since 2016. They met when he played her love interest in the video for her song Slumber Party.

Asghari, who is starring in the TV series Hacks, supports his girlfriend’s legal battles, being pictured wearing a #FreeBritney T-shirt. This campaign gets top marks for its merchandise and messaging.

Samantha Stark, who directed Framing Britney Spears, a popular documentary for The New York Times, thinks Spears has been let down badly by the legal system. “Britney said what happened against her was trafficking because she was working against her will,” Stark says. The filmmaker says that nobody in the court seems to have said, “Wow, we didn’t know you were being abused, let’s investigate this.”

Stark says that she was shocked that Spears said she didn’t know she had to file a petition against the conservatorship, which suggests that those the court appointed to look after her didn’t make that clear to her.  Had Spears known that before, she could perhaps have extricated herself earlier from this horrendous situation. Now that she does know, could that be the beginning of the end? “If I had to guess I’d say yes,” Stark says. “But there’s not even a plan for what’s going to happen next in the court. It’s very shocking to me that our legal system is doing that.”

Happy with Asghari and speaking coherently if passionately in court, Spears at least ­appears to be in a better place than she was in 2007, when the world watched with macabre fascination as she shaved her head and “attacked” a member of the paparazzi with an umbrella. Less well remembered is her explanation for the buzzcut: “I don’t want anyone touching me.” Stark’s documentary showed Spears at 11 being asked by the male host of a talent show if she had a boyfriend because she had pretty eyes. “No, sir,” she replied. “They’re mean.” So it proved.

Years later Timberlake, her childhood sweetheart, was asked by a radio DJ if he had “f..ked her” and sniggered in the affirmative. A teenage Spears was quizzed about her breasts, whether she was a virgin and, accusingly, why she had broken Timberlake’s heart. Later footage showed her as an adult being forcibly ­removed from her home and ­admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

The conservatorship has two parts. The first, overseen by her father and a wealth management firm, handles Spears’ finances. The second half looks after her personal care, and has been run by a licensed conservator since 2019.

For a documentary about Spears this year the British journalist Mobeen Azhar visited Perez Hilton, the blogger who epitomised the lurid cruelty of ­celebrity culture in the noughties. Hilton once posted a picture of Spears with “unfit parent” scrawled over the top. Talking to Azhar, however, he cut a contrite figure who supported the conservatorship, worrying that “Britney would be dead” without it. “You sound quite compassionate and … nice? I wasn’t expecting that,” Azhar said. Did Hilton think he had contributed to her mental state? “Yeah, it’s a possibility and I feel awful,” he said.

Spears told the court that in 2018, after a disagreement about a dance routine during rehearsals for her Las Vegas residency, her conservators bombarded her therapist with calls “about how I was not co-operating in rehearsals and I haven’t been taking my medication”. She said that she was put on a course of lithium, which left her feeling “drunk. I couldn’t even have a conversation with my mum or dad about anything”.

Compare that with Louis Walsh’s memories of Spears from when they were judges on the American version of The X Factor in 2012. “They would literally have to stop the show and take her out because she was on so much medication,” Walsh said ­recently.

Jamie is the fans’ chief hate figure, his name invariably greeted with boos. Absent for much of his daughter’s youth in Louisiana, he later reportedly boasted that she was “gonna buy me a boat”. Several people have claimed Spears was scared of him. After Spears spoke to the court this week, Jamie’s lawyer read a statement on his behalf: “He is sorry to see his daughter suffering and in so much pain. Mr Spears loves his daughter and he misses her very much.”

Jamie has earned enough from his daughter to buy several boats. Court documents published this week by The New York Times showed that Spears received an allowance of $2000 a week from her assets, while her father’s ­salary as conservator was about twice that. A theme of Spears’ testimony was the strangeness of the conservatorship being paid for by her success.

It’s easy to forget, though, that there is a real human being at the centre of it. “I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive,” Spears told the court. “I deserve to have a life. All I want is to own my money, for this to end and my boyfriend to drive me in his f..king car.”

The Times