Britney Spears

VGThuy said:
Agreed. Her wanting “babies” is actually a very important issue and relates to forced sterilization. As for the medication issues, that’s really between her and a therapist she trusts.
Click to expand...
I agree with you but I'm not the judge who has not shown much sympathy for Spears' position prior to this.
 
maatTheViking said:
I think this is key for me. If she needs help to manage her affairs that is one thing, but reading one article she was not allowed to reject a dance move for her show?

I honestly think that in a case like Spears there is so much money involved. How can any of these people be trusted to have her interest in mind, when they're set to profit off it?
Click to expand...
This. It is the key for me, too. Performing is associated with a lot of stress and anxiety and if Britney is not in a good place mentally, it could be horribly detrimental to her mental health. She is not allowed to take time off (she wants a few years off according to her testimony), she is not allowed to change dance moves, but she has to put her health on the line over and over, be on tours/deal with paparazzi and be a cash cow for a large number of people? That sounds completely exploitative to me. If one has been in the limelight and wants a break, the answer is not to "up the therapy" to three times a week. The answer is to get a break for as long as she wants.
 
Last edited:
Britney is not at all my cup of tea as a performer/artist, but I have always seen her as so lost, and clearly not calling her own shots. She has the most gorgeous smile, but her eyes have always been sad. I really hope things will change now and she gets the right type of help she needs and not the exploitation she has been under for her whole life. What an awful situation, I feel so bad for her.
 
clairecloutier said:
I find this whole situation disturbing and it’s just reflective of where we’re at as a society, and not in a good way. There is so much that is wrong with what’s happened to this woman. 😢 And the fact that it happened to a woman is not coincidental.
Click to expand...

I had no idea that a woman could be forced to use birth control. That's just so wrong, as you say.
 
quartz said:
Britney is not at all my cup of tea as a performer/artist, but I have always seen her as so lost, and clearly not calling her own shots. She has the most gorgeous smile, but her eyes have always been sad. I really hope things will change now and she gets the right type of help she needs and not the exploitation she has been under for her whole life. What an awful situation, I feel so bad for her.
Click to expand...
She has a very serious mental illness. regardless of what happens …. I almost wish she’d just get out of the business for her own sake.
 
Judy said:
She has a very serious mental illness. regardless of what happens …. I almost wish she’d just get out of the business for her own sake.
Click to expand...
Do we really know that? I don’t think it’s ever really been disclosed. I’ve heard rumors of bipolar disorder, but has that been confirmed?

When she was having her most public issues she was dealing with a divorce, she had 2 children in less than 2 years, paparazzi were uncontrollable, and she was one of the biggest pop stars in the world. I’d bet she was suffering from some post partum depression at the very least. Any of those scenarios would have been overwhelming, but all of these situations at once would make any of us crazy. Or I should say susceptible to a breakdown. I believe that her handlers and managers of this conservatorship have exasperated her issues. She admits to needing some therapy. Three days of therapy a week is exhausting.

I don’t think she really wants to stop performing completely. She wants to do it on her terms and not be a cash cow for the sycophants.
 
Judy said:
I’ve never really followed a lot about Brittany although was aware of the mental health issues.

Bipolar is tricky too. I read an article where she is in a serious relationship and wants a baby. That can be a bit risky because of the meds
Click to expand...
If she is on lithium, which it sounds like she is, wouldn’t she have to go off of it before getting pregnant? I had a friend who tried to do this and had a manic episode where she lost her job and never had a baby after she went back on medication.

The whole situation is a mess because too many people have conflicts of interest - making $ off of her. If she is as ill as she is supposed to be, I can’t see why she is forced to perform to support everyone else.
 
I don't think Britney has ever disclosed if she has a mental illness or not but I remember the head shaving incident and the rumors at the time were that her husband was going to get her drug tested to gain custody of the children so she shaved her head to try and avoid those tests where they use your hair to determine if you'd been using.

It sounds like she is in an awful situation and I don't understand how a judge can't see that. At the very least they should let her choose her own doctor and lawyer and take her dad off the payroll.
 
If there is proof otherwise, then her conservators should have to show otherwise. A judge is not a psychiatrist, nor can they provide an independent evaluation. Whether the judge is capable of an independent evaluation of her contracts and the circumstances of how they were signed and her finances depends on the experience of the judge.
 
kwanfan1818 said:
If there is proof otherwise, then her conservators should have to show otherwise. A judge is not a psychiatrist, nor can they provide an independent evaluation. Whether the judge is capable of an independent evaluation of her contracts and the circumstances of how they were signed and her finances depends on the experience of the judge.
Click to expand...
IINM, Britney Spears is the Petitioner and has the burden of proof. The judge, however, can appoint independent experts.
 
There was a NYT article that came out earlier this week, before her statement, that was talking about a 2016 report from a court investigator that said:

“After consulting with Ms. Spears, her conservators and her doctors, the probate investigator concluded in 2016 that the conservatorship remained in Ms. Spears’s best interests based on her complex finances, susceptibility to undue influence and “intermittent” drug issues, though the report called for “a pathway to independence and the eventual termination of the conservatorship.”

The article also says that the judge at one point said she would consider ending the conservatorship if Britney produced one year of clean drug tests and established a healthy relationship with a therapist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/...ervatorship.html?referringSource=articleShare

I find the details about the drug use and drug tests interesting. I suspect there so much more to this story, but my heart breaks for her and what she has been through and continues to go through. At a minimum her father should have removed as part of this process a long time ago. I hope this can all work out in her best interests and that she can find some peace and happiness.
 
Was there ever "a pathway to independence and the eventual termination of the conservatorship."
Vagabond said:
IINM, Britney Spears is the Petitioner and has the burden of proof. The judge, however, can appoint independent experts.
Click to expand...
Then, presumably, she can show that she objected to the therapists she says she was forced to work with and legal counsel and that she wanted to have her IUD removed and who rejected her requests. She can describe the circumstances under which she was prevented from getting into her boyfriend's car.

Either she signed contracts to perform, in which case, allowing her to sign them when there were substantial controls about her other behavior is, at best, problematic, and certainly in other people's best interest, or other people (co-)signed them, and it was in their best interest that she performed.

I don't have access to the NYT: did article give details about the type of therapist with whom Spears had to establish a healthy relationship? Someone of Spears' choice, or someone chosen for her?

It's not difficult to bait someone who has mental illness and is trying to recover from it into "bad" behavior. If even a fraction of the social controls she claims were true, they could set back any progress for miles and make an independent investigator conclude that she still needed conservators. If she does, she needs new ones who will provide her with the means of establishing that she doesn't need them anymore.
 
What role has her mother played in all of this? Why is she all of a sudden got lawyers and showing up at hearings? Is she complicit?
 
skatfan said:
If she is on lithium, which it sounds like she is, wouldn’t she have to go off of it before getting pregnant? I had a friend who tried to do this and had a manic episode where she lost her job and never had a baby after she went back on medication.

The whole situation is a mess because too many people have conflicts of interest - making $ off of her. If she is as ill as she is supposed to be, I can’t see why she is forced to perform to support everyone else.
Click to expand...
I am not sure but I would think it has to be very planned and then monitored by doctors. You can’t go off cold turkey either.

hopefully she doesn’t choose this. Yes when this much money is involved .. who do you trust. Her life was very unstable prior to all this. I’m glad the kids weren’t aolely raised by her.

i’m not a huge fan of really young people being used to make a super star. I think of Justin Bieber, Michael Jackson etc. You hope for really, really stable parents. Having said that of course a teenager is involved and maybe not preventable.

Money sure doesn’t buy everything.
 
skatfan said:
If she is on lithium, which it sounds like she is, wouldn’t she have to go off of it before getting pregnant? I had a friend who tried to do this and had a manic episode where she lost her job and never had a baby after she went back on medication.
Click to expand...

People on lithium should not get pregnant. I have a few bi-polar cousins who take lithium, and one of them told me about a woman on the drug who carried a baby to term. The woman had to go off her lithium, and be in hospital and sedated for her entire pregnancy.
 
"Mentally ill" is a catch-all umbrella term that covers many different distinct illnesses. None are fun or easy but the difference in the degree to which they impact a person's life and incapacitate them is immense. Even the term "bipolar" is confusing and now a person can be diagnosed as BP1 or BP2 which manifest differently although we mostly are familiar with the signs and symptoms of BP1. To that you add the fact that mania feels much better to the person afflicted than does depression and the person appears much better to those not involved in the day to day, although often the most destructive decisions and actions are committed when manic. The most terrifying is surely psychosis and having witnessed it I can certainly understand why in early days they thought the person was infected by devils. The medications are improving all the time and hopefully so is the counselling. When an effective medication is found and the person feels better there is a very real temptation for them to feel cured and stop taking it which leads to the yo yo situation. We really know very little about what Britney's diagnoses is and I hope it stays that way.

We are fortunate with our daughter in that she has a loving and committed husband of 18 years who has experienced pregnancy, childbirth, different medications. Following the birth of their first child, we had to bring her back from her home in the U.S. and we cared for her and the child. We wondered if we had now become "parents" again and her marriage hung by a thread. Fortunately, he came to the decision to stay. She gradually got better, returned home, and two years later they chose to have a second child with a number of important safeguards in place. It was worse! I went down and stayed and if I live forever I doubt I will ever forget the pain of that year and my very real concern for those two precious little boys. The fluctuations of hormones in a female due to pregnancy and childbirth can put them at much greater risk as opposed to their male counterparts. Now I just have menopause to worry about.

My heart goes out to Britney and frankly all of those involved. With all that money on the line, everyone's motives are questionable. They really need a "Solomon"!
 
FiveRinger said:
What role has her mother played in all of this? Why is she all of a sudden got lawyers and showing up at hearings? Is she complicit?
Click to expand...

I was wondering that too. Her mother wrote a book several years ago, and a lot of it was about "Britney was this wonderful girl when her career took off and I was involved, and then those evil managers and producers took her away from me". I was actually surprised that her dad was appointed conservator instead of her mom, because her mom was much more involved in Britney's career than her dad ever was, and seemed to know more about how the business worked. I imagine the mom has some financial interests wrapped up in Britney's business dealings and that's why she's getting involved now.
 
kwanfan1818 said:
I don't have access to the NYT: did article give details about the type of therapist with whom Spears had to establish a healthy relationship? Someone of Spears' choice, or someone chosen for her?
Click to expand...
No. The article does mention that the part of the transcript was unsealed by mistake, so there's no way of telling what might have been said that hasn't been disclosed to the public.

Meanwhile, The New York Times published an "annotated transcript" of Britney Spears' opening statment at yesterday's hearing.

www.nytimes.com

The Britney Spears Transcript, Annotated: ‘Hear What I Have to Say’ (Published 2021)

In a 23-minute speech, the singer said she desperately wants to end her conservatorship, calling it an abusive system in which she was drugged and forced to work against her will.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

Here's part of it:
I’m scared of people, I don’t trust people with what I’ve been through. And the clever setup of being in Westlake, one of the most exposed places in Westlake, which today, yesterday, paparazzi showed me coming out of a place literally crying in therapy. It’s embarrassing and it’s demoralizing. I deserve privacy when I go. I deserve privacy when I go and have therapy either at my home, like I’ve done for eight years. They’ve always come to my home. Or when Dr. Benson — the guy, the man that died — I went to a place similar to what I went to in Westlake, which was very exposed and really bad. OK, so wait, where was I? It was identical to Dr. Benson, who died, the one who illegally, yes, 100 percent abused me by the treatment he gave me, too. And I’ll be totally honest with you I was —

JUDGE BRENDA PENNY: Ms. Spears, excuse me for interrupting you, but my reporter says if you could just slow down a little bit, because she’s trying to make sure she gets everything that you’re saying.

OK, cool. And to be totally honest with you, when he passed away, I got on my knees and thanked God. In other words, my team is pushing it with me again. I have trapped phobias being in small rooms because of the trauma. Locking me up for four months in that place. It’s not OK for them to send me — sorry, I’m going fast — to that small room like that twice a week with another new therapist I pay that I never even approved. I don’t like it. I don’t want to do that. And I haven’t done anything wrong to deserve this treatment.
Click to expand...
I find her statement disturbing on many different levels.
 
Thirteen years is simply way too long for a conservatorship this restrictive to continue. Free Britney, indeed.
 
honey said:
There was a NYT article that came out earlier this week, before her statement, that was talking about a 2016 report from a court investigator that said:

“After consulting with Ms. Spears, her conservators and her doctors, the probate investigator concluded in 2016 that the conservatorship remained in Ms. Spears’s best interests based on her complex finances, susceptibility to undue influence and “intermittent” drug issues, though the report called for “a pathway to independence and the eventual termination of the conservatorship.”

The article also says that the judge at one point said she would consider ending the conservatorship if Britney produced one year of clean drug tests and established a healthy relationship with a therapist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/...ervatorship.html?referringSource=articleShare

I find the details about the drug use and drug tests interesting. I suspect there so much more to this story, but my heart breaks for her and what she has been through and continues to go through. At a minimum her father should have removed as part of this process a long time ago. I hope this can all work out in her best interests and that she can find some peace and happiness.
Click to expand...
Yah there always is. I feel she should have some say in contracts/performances with her record label.
 
I do love the idea that the conservatorship automatically terminates unless there is proof it's still needed. As stated above there is supposed to be "a pathway to independence and the eventual termination of the conservatorship."
 
mpal2 said:
I think one of the biggest problems is that she has repeatedly said she doesn't want her father in charge and no one cares. If they find that she does need someone because of mental health issues at least let her have a say in getting away from someone she clearly doesn't want to be around.
Click to expand...
Don't confuse not getting what you want with people not caring. Britney Spears has Bi-Polar disorder. This is a condition for which there is NO cure. It can be managed with medication and psychiatric therapy. One of the biggest problems for people with Bi-Polar Disorder is that when they are feeling well (which is the aim of the treatment) they often become convinced that they are fine, and no longer need the medication and treatment.
Given the extreme nature of her behavior, two 5150 holds and treatment, and the fact that she is living an unrealistic life (I say that because she has people in her employ and around here who are dependent on her for their livelihood. They are not going to necessarily call her on slipped or manic behavior) I would think it would be in her best interest to have a conservatory.

It does not need to be her father. But she has demonstrated that she does need someone to make final decisions on her behalf. She should have a say, but the final decision should be left to her conservators. Bummer?
Depends on how you look at it.

The custody agreement she has with her children's father is that she has 30% custody. Obviously the kids should see their mom, but they need to be protected.

By all accounts, Kevin is very supportive of Britney "Kevin has been consistently a supporter of Britney, he hopes for Britney that she is able to enjoy her life in a safe and healthy way and he looks forward to being able to enjoy the benefits of being able to co-parent two teenage children" He still wants to maintain the 70/30 arrangement re the kids.

I also read somewhere that now that the boys are teenagers, they will be able to assess the situation with their mother and manage their safety and mental health. Not so much. These kids have lived through a tone of drama and instability. Their own decision-making vis a vis their mother has to be skewed.
 
attyfan said:
According to CNN, some bank has been co-conservator of her estate since Nov of 2020 ... so there is some check on the family's handling of her money.
Click to expand...
True. And as it should be. She has a fortune, and it should be seen to by people who are qualified to manage money. That would not be me, for example.
 
I recall at about the time that there were public displays of her acting out or - likely ill - her mother did make a public statement indicating that Britney was ill and in serious need of help. It seemed to me that shortly after that her father was put in as her conservator and things did appear to settle down. If he is no longer really in a position to observe her or those she trusts then I can't see how he can make the decisions. I thought there was a time recently that her sister had asked to be on the conservatorship.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 5 (members: 0, guests: 5)

Similar threads

olympic
2020 Worlds - What would have happened?
Replies
14
Views
4K
sheetz
S
shutterbug
2024–25 Canadian Women: News and Updates
6 7 8
Replies
237
Views
67K
withwings
W
shutterbug
2024–25 Canadian Men: News and Updates
2 3
Replies
80
Views
20K
honey
H
Sylvia
Mikaela Shiffrin
Replies
14
Views
3K
Sylvia
Sylvia
B
Forced starvation of skaters in Eteri's training camp
2 3 4
Replies
91
Views
29K
On My Own
O
Back
Top
Do Not Sell My Personal Information