In a new court ruling on Wednesday (July 14), Britney Spears has been granted the ability to hire her own lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, to help end the 13-year conservatorship that has controlled her life.
Once again Spears demanded that her father, Jamie Spears, be removed from the legal agreement. “You’re allowing my dad to ruin my life. I have to get rid of my dad and charge him with conservatorship abuse,” she said, speaking to the court over a lawyer’s phone.
She added that she wanted an investigation into her father and a restraining order issued against him. “I was always extremely scared of my dad,” she said during an emotional testimony.
A tearful Spears also told the court that under the conservatorship, her hair vitamins and coffee had been confiscated. “Ma’am, that’s not abuse, that’s just fucking cruelty,” she told the judge. “Excuse my language, but it’s the truth.”
She celebrated her court victory by doing cartwheels and riding a horse in a new Instagram post. “Coming along, folks... coming along,” she wrote, before adding the #FreeBritney hashtag that was so instrumental in sparking her legal battle.
Rosengart replaces Samuel Ingham, the lawyer appointed by the court in 2008, and has previously represented Steven Spielberg, Sean Penn, and director Kenneth Lonergan.
Last month (June 23), Britney Spears voiced an emotional testimony to the Los Angeles court handling her conservatorship case, asking for the arrangement to be ended after enduring years of abuse. Following the testimony, more information emerged about the conservatorship, including a NYT report that revealed that her social media is vetted by a ten-person management team and that Spears called 911 to report herself as a victim of conservatorship abuse.
Since then Spears’ long-time manager Larry Rudolph resigned from his position, while also saying that the singer was planning to “officially retire”.
Among a wealth of celebrity supporters including Miley Cyrus and Courtney Love, Ariana Grande added her voice to the mix, writing to tell Britney that she was “loved and supported”.
