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Over two years after her conservatorship ended, Britney Spears and her father James P Spears, settled their outstanding legal dispute on April 25, 2024. The legal battle between the singer and her father was over the payment of his legal fees and his management of her finances. However, the details of the settlement made in the Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday have not been made public.
Britney Spears was a pop icon during the 90s and early 2000s but she was placed in a conservatorship under her father in 2008 by a California court. This was after a series of the singer's reportedly erratic behavior including shaving her head and getting into an altercation with the paparazzi.
Thirteen years later, Spears' conservatorship was terminated in November 2021.
Britney Spears' mental health history explored
Britney Spears entered the entertainment industry as a child when she was cast in The Mickey Mouse Club House at 11 from 1993 to 1994. She was a part of the show with other child stars like Ryan Gosling, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake.
The series became a stepping stone to launch her music career in 1997 when she was 15. Britney Spears became a musical sensation overnight, releasing two back-to-back hit albums ...Baby One More Time (1999) and Oops!... I Did It Again (2000). She rose to popularity and her MTV VMA performance with a seven-foot albino Burmese python in 2001 is often called an iconic moment in pop culture history.
However, as her fame grew, it seemed like Britney Spears was encountering several mental health issues. The Mirror reported that Britney began having "massive anxieties" in the middle of the night while she was on tour in 2000. She was also reportedly prescribed Prozac to manage her condition.
"She had trouble sleeping and crying fits. She was restless and agitated. Nights were the only times she was alone and she struggled with that… When nothing was happening, it drove her crazy. Only exhaustion would knock her out," a source previously told The Mirror.
Her reported struggles with her mental health and her ups and downs were documented in tabloids including the events that took place in 2007 and 2007. This was followed by her being placed in a conservatorship under her father for nearly 14 years.
The struggles reportedly began after she and her husband, Kevin Federline, filed for divorce in November 2006, after being married for two years. They had two sons, Sean Preston, aged one, and Jayden James, 2 months at the time.
A few months later, in February 2007, the Toxic singer was photographed in a salon in Tarzana, California, saving her head with a razor. That same day, the then 25-year-old singer was seen hitting a paparazzi car that was following her, with an umbrella.
Soon after these incidents, Britney Spears entered rehab for the first time in her career. This was followed by her losing the custody of her two sons when she reportedly barricaded herself and her younger son in the bathroom for three hours before she was arrested.
In February 2008, a Superior Court commissioner placed Britney Spears under temporary conservatorship with her father. This happened a day after she was taken to a psychiatric hospital. The conservatorship saw her father, James “Jamie” Spears, and a lawyer, Andrew M Wallet, in control of her personal life, schedule, finances, career, and estate.
However, the conservatorship was terminated in 2021 after 13 years. In October 2023, Britney Spears released her memoir titled A Woman In Me which detailed the incidents that led to her being placed in a conservatorship. She wrote that at the time, she was dealing with multiple things that left her thinking "in some ways like a child."
“I am willing to admit that in the throes of severe postpartum depression, abandonment by my husband, the torture of being separated from my two babies, the death of my adored aunt Sandra and the constant drumbeat of pressure from paparazzi, I’d begin to think in some ways like a child,” Britney wrote.
In the memoir, she also described herself as "out of my mind with grief" during that period, saying that her mother was scared of her with her head shaved. Britney also wrote that she agreed to the conservatorship as a trade-off to spend time with her sons.
Britney Spears opened up about her alleged drug use in her memoir. She criticized the tabloids' highly sensationalized headlines about her, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan on nights out together.
According to The Guardian, the singer wrote that she was "never addicted" to hard drugs or alcohol. She noted that she did use ADHD medication Adderall as it gave her "a few hours of feeling less depressed."
Britney Spears settled the legal dispute over conservatorship with her estranged father
According to The Guardian, Britney Spears and her father have settled the legal dispute surrounding her conservatorship. Her attorney, Matthew Rosengart, said that the settlement would give the singer the freedom that she desired.
“She will no longer need to be involved with court or entangled with legal proceedings in this matter,” the attorney added.
After more than a decade, Britney Spears's conservatorship was terminated in November 2021, bolstered by the #FreeBritney movement in 2020. Speaking about her 13-year struggle, in her memoir, Spears highlighted that her family will never understand the real damage they did to her.
Britney Spears also accused her father of using her for money and called out the conservatorship's controlling terms. She wrote that her father saw her as someone who was "put on the earth for no other reason than to help their cash flow."
“I began to think that he [her father] saw me as put on the earth for no other reason than to help their cash flow. I know I had been acting wild, but there was nothing I’d done that justified their treating me like I was a bank robber,” Spears wrote.
The 41-year-old Womanizer singer also disclosed in her memoir that she had no desire to return to music, saying it was time for her to find herself.
