Britney Spears's father Jamie asks court to end singer's conservatorship

Legal setup has controlled music star's life and money for 13 years

Jamie Spears, father of singer Britney Spears, has reportedly filed with a Los Angeles court to end his daughter's conservatorship. AP

Britney Spears’s father filed on Tuesday to end the court conservatorship that has controlled the singer’s life and money for 13 years.

James Spears filed his petition to end the conservatorship in Los Angeles Superior Court.

“As Mr Spears has said again and again, all he wants is what is best for his daughter,” the document says.

“If Ms Spears wants to terminate the conservatorship and believes that she can handle her own life, Mr Spears believes that she should get that chance.”

Judge Brenda Penny, who is overseeing the case, will need to approve the move.

There was no immediate reply to an email seeking comment from Britney Spears’s lawyer.

Jamie Spears had been the target of much of the anger surrounding the conservatorship, from both his daughter and the public.

A petition from the singer’s lawyer to remove him was set to be heard at the next hearing in the case on September 29.

Jamie Spears said in a filing on August 12 that he was planning to step down as the conservator of her finances, but gave no time.

He gave up his control over her life decisions in 2019, keeping only his role in overseeing her money.

He has repeatedly said there is no justification for his removal, and he has acted only in his daughter’s best interest.

The conservatorship was established in 2008 when Spears began to have public mental struggles as media outlets obsessed over each moment, hordes of paparazzi aggressively followed her everywhere and she lost custody of her children.

Tuesday’s filing tells how her “impassioned plea” to end the legal arrangement in a June 23 speech in court gave a jolt to those who wanted to see her freed from it, quoting from the transcript of that afternoon.

“I just want my life back,” she said. “And it’s been 13 years and it’s enough. It’s been a long time since I’ve owned my money. And it’s my wish and my dream for all of this to end without being tested.”

Tuesday’s filing notes that the singer said she did not know she could file a petition to end the conservatorship, which she has yet to do.

It says that Judge Penny’s decision to allow her to hire her own lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, demonstrates that the court trusts her with major choices.

And it says evidence shows she has apparently “demonstrated a level of independence” by doing things such as driving herself around Southern California.

It also tells of her desire to make her own decisions on therapy and other medical care.

Spears had said in her June 23 speech that she was being compelled under the conservatorship to take medications and to use an intra-uterine device for birth control against her will.

Her father called for a court investigation of these and other allegations, saying they were issues that were beyond his control because he had stepped down as conservator of his daughter’s person, handing the role to court-appointed professional Jodi Montgomery.

Rosengart said when he was hired by Spears in July that he intended to help end the conservatorship, and questioned whether it needed to be established in the first place, although he had not yet filed to terminate it.

He filed for Jamie Spears’s removal on July 26, alleging he had mismanaged his daughter’s money and affairs, and suggesting he had used the conservatorship for his own gain.

Spears gave the conservatorship’s initial existence credit for keeping her career afloat, though she has now put her work entirely on hold for more than two years.

Fans objecting to her circumstances and seeing what they believed were pleas for help in the pop star’s Instagram posts began calling online to #FreeBritney, and began appearing outside her court hearings to protest.

Famous names including Miley Cyrus and ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake have joined the outcry in recent months, especially after a pair of passionate speeches Spears made to the court in June and July.

Judge Penny, who has the ultimate power over the conservatorship, has not appeared inclined to end it before, but she has also never been presented with such a clear opportunity.