If drama is a virus, Britney Spears has been infected for 20 years. It started when she was a teenager from Kentwood, La., and continues today as the 39-year-old mother of two teenagers.
The singer’s drama returned to the news this week because of a court hearing in Los Angeles, where she seeks to end a conservatorship that has been managed by her father, Jamie, for much of the past 13 years.
The first instinct is to follow blindly the lead of the “Free Britney” fans and agree that 13 years of control by someone else, even her father, is long enough. But information from The Associated Press indicates there’s more to the story, and that there may be good reasons for all the restrictions on her activities.
The AP described a conservatorship in California as an effort to protect someone with “a severely diminished mental capacity.” It grants someone else the authority to make financial decisions for them, and even to make choices about their life.
Few will disagree that Spears needed this kind of protection in 2008, when the conservatorship was established. Her behavior had become erratic, to put it charitably, as she struggled with being a star, a paparazzi target and a new mother all at once. When she lost custody of her two sons and refused to return them after a visit, she was forced into a hospital for psychiatric care. This led directly to the creation of the conservatorship.
While Spears must do the bidding of her father and a management company he recently hired, the control of her life over the past 13 years clearly has been extreme.
She said at this week’s court hearing that she has been compelled to take medication against her will, has been forced to use birth control and even required to give performances when she didn’t want to. She said she wants to get married and have another baby, but the conservatorship — her father, presumably — will not allow this.
The lack of information that intentionally surrounds Spears’ conservatorship makes it easier to feel sorry for her, and to wonder if 13 years hasn’t been long enough. Courts rarely hold public hearings, like the one this week, on what is a very private matter.
The AP reported, “The mandatory secrecy of medical records has kept murky the reasons why Spears must remain in hers, but it’s clear that it involves psychiatric issues. A recent filing said that she wasn’t capable of giving consent for medical treatment.
“Spears’ father and his attorneys have emphasized that she is especially susceptible to people who seek to take advantage of her money and fame.”
There’s a lot at stake. Spears is estimated to be worth at least $50 million, and if her father believes she’s determined to squander most of what she’s earned, or may get swindled out of it, the protective bubble is understandable.
If Spears wants her life back, she needs only to prove to the court that she is competent. The fact that this has not occurred may be the best defense of these admittedly harsh restrictions.
