Britney Spears’ conservatorship will return to court on Wednesday for a high-stakes hearing in which a judge will consider requests to remove her father as the authority over her estate and to terminate the legal arrangement entirely.
The hearing comes just days after a new documentary claimed that Britney Spears’ father, Jamie Spears, and a security team he hired secretly recorded her interactions in her bedroom, including conversations with her boyfriend and children.Judge Brenda Penny will consider whether to terminate Jamie’s role as conservator of the singer’s estate at the highly anticipated hearing in Los Angeles, which is expected to draw a large crowd of fans.
For the past 13 years, the pop star’s personal life and finances have been controlled by the contentious legal arrangement, and she has asked the court to remove her father from the arrangement. In a filing this week, her legal team accused Jamie of crossing “unfathomable lines” and engaging in “horrifying and unconscionable invasions of his adult daughter’s privacy.” Jamie’s lawyers have previously stated that he will step down “when the time is right,” but have fought efforts to immediately suspend him.Jamie’s lawyers asked the court to end the conservatorship entirely in a surprising filing earlier this month, which the judge will also discuss on Wednesday.In response, the singer’s lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, accused Jaime of attempting to “avoid accountability and justice” and stated that Spears supported full termination but first wanted her father removed.
The conservatorship requires Spears’ estate to pay for her father’s attorneys and other bills, and Rosengart stated that she has been forced to pay approximately $540,000 for Jamie’s “media matters” while he fights her requests.Records show that Spears has been strongly opposed to the conservatorship for years, but she spoke out publicly for the first time in court in June. She described the arrangement as “abusive,” claiming that her father and others had control over intimate details of her personal life, including her birth control, and had forced her to work against her will. She stated that the judge had a duty to remove Jamie immediately, and she hoped that full termination was imminent: “Public pressure is mounting.” I’d like Britney to walk away a free woman.” A Black Box lawyer stated that the company was “proud of their work in keeping Ms Spears safe” and had “always” operated “within professional, ethical, and legal bounds.”
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