American singer and songwriter Britney Spears shared and then deleted a 22-minute audio clip, giving an in-depth look at the chronology and horrors of her conservatorship.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the clip posted on Britney's YouTube channel appeared unlisted on the platform before being deleted. The only audio clip was shared on the singer's Twitter account before the tweet was also deleted.
In the audio Spears offered background on the court-ordered conservatorship she was put under in 2008, with her father Jamie Spears acting as the sole conservator until it was terminated in November 2021.
She started, "So I woke up this morning and I realized that there's a lot going on in my head that I haven't really shared with anyone really. I'm here honestly just to open myself to others and try to shed a light on if anyone out there has ever gone through hardships."
Starting from the beginning, Spears said the conservatorship started when she was 25. "I was extremely young, I remember a lot of my friends texting me and calling me and we were extremely close and they wanted to see me. But what had happened, honestly, still to this day I don't know what really I did, but [due to] the punishment of my father I wasn't able to see anyone."
"You have to imagine none of it made sense to me. I literally spoke in a British accent to a doctor to prescribe my medication and three days later there was a swat team in my home [with] three helicopters," said Spears detailing the confusion of the time, adding that her "playing chase with paparazzi", something she enjoyed, was used as further evidence of erratic behaviour, reported The Hollywood Reporter.
On her recollection of the night things began, Spears said, "There were over 200 paparazzi outside my house videotaping me through a window of an ambulance holding me down on a gurney." Spears says she believes the conservatorship was "premeditated" and her parents colluded with outside elements.
Spears said that her father Jamie Spears wanted "control" of her life which he achieved through the conservatorship. "He loved to control everything I did. I remember the first day he said I'm Britney Spears, and I'm calling the shots, and I'm like alrighty then."
The singer then detailed at length the hardships and horrors she had to suffer under the conservatorship. Her every movement watched, the restrictions on what she could and couldn't do. "I was never ever able to leave or go anywhere," she says.
"I was told I was fat every day. I had to go to the gym... I remember feeling so demoralized and just they made me feel like nothing, Spears revealed. She continued, "I had to just play this role that everything was okay all the time and I had to go along with it because I knew they could hurt me."
Spears explained that she was forced to do tours she didn't want to and in those moments when she tried to push back, in a particular instance over a dance move she didn't want to do, her father would threaten her with more legal action which would result in her losing even more of her freedoms.
She laid the blame for her trauma, squarely on her family. "They literally killed me. They threw me away. That's what I felt like my family threw me away." Spears added, "I'm honestly more angry at my mom because I heard when reporters would call her at the time and ask questions of what was going on she would ... hide in the house and she wouldn't speak up."
As per The Hollywood Reporter, the singer concluded the clip by explaining why she made it. "I'm sharing this because I want people to know I'm only human. I do feel victimized after these experiences and how can I mend this if I don't talk about it?"
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