Superstar Britney Spears was under the conservatorship of her father Jamie Spears from 2008 to 2021. Recall that in early 2008, Spears was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, and the conservatorship was initially temporary and was only supposed to last a few days. It was extended for several months and eventually made permanent, despite the singer’s objections. Spears’ long-standing dissatisfaction with the conservatorship surfaced in investigative reports in 2019.
Jeymie’s legal team argued that the conservatorship was in Spears’ best interests and sought to maintain it, but the #FreeBritn fan movement calling for the conservatorship to be ended attracted media attention around the world. It all ended with Spears making her first public statement in the trial in June 2021 and asking for the conservatorship to be ended. She accused her father and family of abuse, and on November 12 of that year, a judge officially suspended the conservatorship.
When the pop princess appeared on the U.K.’s “The Jonathan Ross Show” in 2016 to promote her album “Glory,” she mentioned a legal agreement, explaining that it often interfered with her creative process. Spears’s team famously prevented her from publicly discussing the conservatorship at the time, so her comments during the taping were edited out of the final episode of the show. The never-before-seen footage aired Saturday during a special highlighting memorable moments from the long-running talk show.
You’re more involved in the music on this new album, I understand, than you were on previous albums? Do you have more control over your music than you did before? Why did you wait until now to do this? — host Jonathan Ross asked the singer.
Britney was 34 at the time.
There are a lot of reasons, but I’m not going to go into detail,” Spears said hesitantly.
Ross interrupted the artist to remind her that viewers remember her history, including her public breakdown in 2007, so she shouldn’t be afraid to mention her discomfort.
Since I’ve been under conservatorship, a lot of things are being created without me. And I just thought, I want this album to be my baby, and I want to do it myself.
Spears herself spoke about the excision of this segment from the air in her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me.
I even mentioned the conservatorship on a talk show in 2016, but for some reason that part of the interview didn’t make it on the air, she wrote. — Hmm, how interesting.
The star didn’t publicly address the conservatorship until 2021, when she described her situation as “abusive” during a public court hearing, claiming that her father, Jamie Spears, who had been in charge of her personal and financial affairs for 13 years, had neglected his power to control her. Three months later, a Los Angeles judge removed Jamie as his daughter’s conservator and then permanently terminated the conservatorship.
