As the legal battle and public disagreement over Britney Spears’ finances and personal life continues, a lawyer for her father, Jamie Spears, told CNN that Jamie “would love nothing more than to see Britney not need guardianship”.
The comments came not long after “Framing Britney Spears,” a TV documentary from The New York Times, released last month, revisiting the details of the tutelage that shaped the life of this pop singer. Since it aired, Jamie Spears’ lawyer has sought to tell his client’s side of the story on national television programs, including “Good Morning America” last week and NBC News this week.
The #FreeBritney campaign, which was also explored in the documentary, has been campaigning for years to portray the guardianship regime as an unfair means of controlling Spears’ life and finances.
On Tuesday night, Vivian Lee Thoreen, Jamie Spears’ lawyer, defended the singer’s tutelage for NBC News.
“Britney being safe and not being taken advantage of is her # 1 priority,” said Thoreen of Jamie Spears as Britney Spears co-conservative.
Spears has been in guardianship, or guardianship, since 2008, after a series of public collapses captured by paparazzi. The complicated arrangement designates a representative to manage someone’s personal affairs and assets if that person is unable to take care of himself or is vulnerable to external manipulation.
Thoreen told CNN that Jamie Spears “would love nothing more than to see Britney not need guardianship”.
“The end of guardianship really depends on Britney,” added Thoreen. “If she wants to end her guardianship, she can file a petition to end this.”
Thoreen, who played Jamie Spears before the documentary, returned to his legal team. She did not return calls for comment Tuesday.
In the documentary, however, she told The Times: “Of the cases in which I have been involved, I have not seen a conservative who has successfully closed guardianship.”
Jamie Spears was one of his daughter’s conservatives for more than a decade, controlling crucial aspects of her life, such as her finances and mental health care. In 2019, citing health problems, he stepped back in his post and a professional conservative temporarily replaced him.
Britney Spears’ court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, made it clear for the first time in a lawsuit in August that the singer “strongly opposed” having her father as a conservative. Spears rarely commented on his guardianship. Ingham, who declined to comment on Tuesday, said at the hearing that Britney Spears believed that guardianship “should be changed substantially to reflect major changes in her current lifestyle and her stated wishes”.
Then, at a hearing in November, Ingham said Britney Spears would not perform again while her father was in charge of his career. “My client informed me that she is afraid of her father,” he told the judge.
The judge, Brenda Penny, responded to a request by Britney Spears for Bessemer Trust, a fiduciary company, to be added as a co-conservative. But Judge Penny did not remove Jamie Spears from the position of conservative in Spears’ estate. Britney Spears and her father returned to court on February 11, but the judge did not order any substantive changes.
In the week after the release of The Times documentary, some media responded with apologies for their earlier coverage of Spears’ mental health, maternal skills and sexuality. Spears’ ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake also apologized to her after the documentary reexamined their separation.
Joe Coscarelli and Julia Jacobs contributed to the report.