Britney Spears to the judge: "I just want my life back".

The singer turns against his father and calls for an end to a "abusive" legal guardianship

3 min
Britney Spears in a file image

There was anticipation to know if Britney Spears would testify Wednesday before the judge who assesses the legal guardianship of her father to which she has been subjected since 2008. Finally, it has been so. The singer appeared in court in Los Angeles to read a statement, which was written on four sheets of paper, in which she asked for an end to a guardianship that she considers "abusive". "I want my life back. I've been like this for 13 years and enough is enough. I haven't owned my money for too long. My wish and my dream is for all this to end without being put on probation", explained the Princess of Pop, who for the first time has spoken out publicly against the guardianship. In her statement, the Toxic singer confessed that she is unhappy, can't sleep and cries almost every day.

James Spears, the singer's father, assumed legal guardianship of his daughter in 2008 after she had to enter a psychiatric hospital and lost custody of her two children from her relationship with Kevin Federline. In the summer of 2020, the legal guardianship was evaluated and the court decided that it would continue until at least February 2021. Subsequently, the court decided that James Spears would share the guardianship with an investment fund chosen by the singer.

Abuse and mistreatment by family and managers

During her account, Spears was very critical of her family, whom she says she would like to sue. "I would also like to be able to share my story, what they did to me, instead of being the secret that everyone has benefited from", Spears said. The singer recalled that for years she was forced to work and tour exhaustingly without the possibility of rest. When she approached her managers in 2018 about taking a break between tours, she was told that in order to get one, she would have to hire lawyers, which she couldn't do because she didn't have access to their money, she has recounted.

In her terrifying account, Spears explains the pressures and mistreatment she endured when she asked not to do a new show in Las Vegas (the singer had already done a daily show in the city for four years). "Three days after I said I didn't want to do the Vegas show, my therapist sat me down and told me he'd gotten a million calls saying I wasn't cooperating with rehearsals and wasn't taking my medication. All untrue. Out of nowhere, he started me on lithium and took me off the medication I had been taking for five years", the singer complains. Spears explains that lithium was a very different medication than anything she had ever taken before and that it left her unable to function normally.

Britney Spears' fans in court calling for an end to the guardianship

The singer points to her family and more specifically her father as co-responsible for the situation she was in. "Not only did my family do nothing to help me, but my father was behind everything that happened to me. Anything that had to do with what was happening to me had to be approved by my father", she remarks.

The singer has denounced that the legal guardianship has regulated even the most intimate aspects of her life, such as the possibility of getting married or having more children. "They told me I couldn't get married or have a child. Right now I have an IUD (intrauterine device) so I can't get pregnant", explains Spears, who confesses that she would like to take it out and have the possibility of expanding her family if she wants to. "But my so-called team won't let me go to the doctor to have it removed because they don't want me to have any more children", she says.

"I want changes and I want these changes to come. I deserve these changes", the singer exclaimed to the judge. Spears claims she wants the legal guardianship to end but refuses to re-submit to a mental evaluation, as she has done on several occasions. "I don't think I owe it to anyone to be evaluated. I've done more than enough. I don't feel like I have to be in a room with someone who offends me by trying to question my intelligence, whether I have to continue under this stupid guardianship or not", said Spears, who says she is "traumatised".

The singer called for those responsible for her current situation to pay in some way: "The people who have done this to me should not be able to get off the hook so easily for their responsibility for everything that has happened to me".

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