Even if you’re not a dedicated fan of pop star Britney Spears, you’re still probably aware of how the singer has spent over a year now making some very serious allegations against her family with regards to the conservatorship she lived under for 13 years. Some of those reports of abuse have been levied at her mother, but now Lynne Spears has filed new court papers claiming that the "beginning of the end of" both the poor treatment of her daughter and the conservatorship as a whole was because of her intervention.
What Did Lynne Spears Say About Her Role In Ending Britney Spears’ Conservatorship?
It’s been nearly a year now since the “Hold Me Closer” singer was able to get out of the court order that ruled her life for well over a decade. The months leading up to that ruling were filled with her speaking out about her shocking claims of abuse, with her noting that she’d like to sue her whole family for what happened while she was in the conservatorship. The Blast has now obtained new court documents filed by her mom, where the elder Spears (who is currently suing her daughter for $663,202 in legal fees) alleges that it was her actions that led the conservatorship to end in November 2021. The filing says, in part:
Factually, the beginning of the end of the abusive conduct, and indeed the conservatorship itself, started at that court hearing at which Lynne Spears first appeared in May of 2019. The Court ordered a medical review. The lithium stopped. Ms. Spears could see her children and was allowed to travel. Five months later, in September of 2019, her father temporarily resigned as the Conservator of her Person. After nearly eleven straight years of an unchallenged Conservatorship, five months after Lynne Spears intervened as an interested party, the structure of the conservatorship was upended, and the direct beneficiary of that change was Britney Spears.
For those who haven’t quite kept up with the many changes to the conservatorship prior to it ending for good, let’s back up a bit and detail how it originally worked. At first, there were two people in charge of the conservatorship, with one handling all financial matters and Jamie Spears handling every other facet of his daughter’s life. However, when the co-conservator resigned, the “Gimmie More” singer’s father was given control of both aspects of the conservatorship.
Then, in September 2019 (as this new court filing noted), he stepped down temporarily, saying health reasons were the cause, and this led to the superstar’s longtime care manager, Jodi Montgomery, being installed as sole conservator on a temporary basis. The temporary conservator was set to be removed in August 2020, and Spears attempted to have her dad replaced by Montgomery permanently then, but her petition was denied by a judge. However, the songstress didn’t give up her fight, eventually landing the right to appoint her own attorney, which led to even more changes and the conservatorship ending outright. The filing continued:
Immediately after the resignation of Jamie Spears as the Conservator of Ms. Spears’ Person, discussions began to have him removed altogether. While those discussions were ongoing, Lynne Spears proposed that a professional fiduciary serve as the Conservator of her Estate. After endless hours of Lynne Spears’ counsel negotiating with the then-counsel for Britney Spears and counsel for the Conservator, such a professional fiduciary, Bessemer Trust Company, was proposed to the court as Conservator of Ms. Spears’ Estate. At the request of her daughter, Lynne Spears pushed every button available to her to make Ms. Spears’ life more tolerable.
So, the pop legend’s mom seems to be saying that all of the movement we saw in the case was because of her court appearance in the spring of 2019. While there’s been no word from Britney Spears or her lawyers on the claim just yet, with how she’s been known to rant against her mom, it’s not unlikely that we’ll hear a rebuttal at some point.
