A Los Angeles judge has granted Britney Spears’s request to have her father suspended from her conservatorship, a major victory for the singer, who has for years objected to the arrangement that has stripped her of her independence.
Judge Brenda Penny ordered Jamie Spears, who has controlled his daughter’s estate and other aspects of her personal life for 13 years, suspended as conservator effective on Wednesday.
“The current situation is not tenable,” Penny said at a courthouse hearing, adding that the current arrangement reflected a “toxic environment”.
A certified public accountant will take over as temporary conservator of the estate. Mathew Rosengart, Britney Spears’s attorney, has called for a hearing for full termination within 30 to 45 days.
The decision comes three months after the pop star first publicly pleaded for her father to be removed, alleging that he had been abusive and saying, “He loved the control to hurt his own daughter.”
Jamie Spears has aggressively fought efforts to be removed and recently requested that the conservatorship be terminated entirely – a move that Britney Spears’s lawyer said was an effort “to avoid accountability and justice”.
A recent documentary also alleged that Jamie Spears had hired a security firm that was secretly surveilling his daughter’s phone, recording her conversations in her bedroom and monitoring fans who protested to end the conservatorship.
The case has sparked international outrage, and state and federal lawmakers are now considering major reforms to the conservatorship system. A large, fan-led #FreeBritney movement first drew public attention to the arrangement, and has recently held huge rallies in support of the pop star.
Conservatorship is a type of court-appointed guardianship intended for people who can no longer make decisions for themselves, typically older and infirm people. But critics have argued that the process can be exploited and have pointed to Spears's case as an example of such abuse.
Spears was placed in the arrangement in 2008 while facing apparent mental health struggles amid intense paparazzi abuse and media scrutiny. The arrangement gave her father control over her finances and healthcare, even though reporting has suggested he was largely absent from her life before the conservatorship. – Guardian
