Britney Spears’ attorney filed legal documents today requesting the end of her father’s position as curator of her estate, the New York Times reports. Her new attorney, Mathew Rosengart, filed papers to replace Jamie Spears with auditor Jason Rubin. The move comes after Spears alleged in court that she didn’t know she could move to end the Conservatory position.
Spears’ father James “Jamie” Spears started the conservatory in 2008. Britney Spears had been pushing for an end to restrictions since 2014, according to a report released in June. Her fans had also stood up against the conservatories for years with the #FreeBritney movement. Following the resignation of her former attorney, Sam Ingham III, Bessemer Trust – the wealth management firm that served with Jamie Spears as co-curator of the Spears estate – petitioned to withdraw from the conservancy.
On June 23, Spears spoke at length in court about her life under the Conservatory, ruling it abusive and saying its conditions controlled her finances, working life and reproductive freedom. She claimed that she wanted to sue her family over the way she was treated. “I refused. I was in shock. I am traumatized. I just want my life back, ”she said. She spoke at length about her father’s behavior. “The control he had over someone as powerful as me – he loved the control of hurting his own daughter one hundred thousand percent.”
She made her first public statement the following day in an Instagram post. “I apologize for pretending to have been fine for the past two years,” she wrote, adding, “I did it out of pride and I was embarrassed to share what happened to me is. ”Many other artists, including Dionne Warwick and some contemporaries of Spears, including Christina Aguilera, have expressed their support. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey also discussed cases from conservatories, citing Spears’ testimony as an example of the most egregious abuses of the system.
