Pop star Britney Spears, 39, has broken her silence about her “abusive” conservatorship during a court hearing on Wednesday. This marks the first time since May 10, 2019, that the singer has spoken in court.
The last time, the courtroom was sealed and none of what she said became public.
Also Read: ‘Shackles of conservatorship’: Britney Spears and her legal battle with father
The star addressed the court herself Wednesday for the first known time in more than two years following the increased interest in her conservatorship after the release of The New York Times’ “Framing Britney Spears” documentary and the #FreeBritney movement organized by her fans, reports usatoday.
“I’m not here to be anyone’s slave,” Spears said while appearing in Los Angeles court remotely via telephone.
“I’ve lied and told the whole world I’m OK and I’m happy. It’s a lie. I thought that maybe if I said it enough, I would maybe become happy because I’ve been in denial. I’ve been in shock. I am traumatized … I’m so angry it’s insane. And I’m depressed,” she added.
During the hearing, Spears said that she wants to be “able to get married and have a baby.”
“I was told right now in the conservatorship, I’m not able to get married or have a baby. I have (an) IUD inside of (me) right now so I don’t get pregnant.”
“I wanted to take the IUD out so I can start trying to have another baby but this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don’t want me to have any more children,” she said.
Spears said she was forced to take lithium against her will after cancelling her Las Vegas residency.
“(My therapist) immediately, the next day, put me on lithium out of nowhere. He took me off my normal meds I’d been on for five years,” Spears said, referring to a medication typically used for treating bipolar disorder that she “never wanted to be on to begin with.”
The singer hasn’t performed since she postponed her residency in January 2019.
She continued: “You can go mentally impaired if you take too much … but he put me on (lithium) and I felt drunk. I really couldn’t even (stand up) for myself. I couldn’t even have a conversation with my mom or dad.”
Spears said “six different nurses” came to her home for a month to administer the medication and she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere: “Not only did my family not do a goddamn thing, my dad was all for it.”
She said conservators ‘made up’ rehab, stripped her of all possessions.
“I cried on the phone for an hour and (James Spears, her father) loved every minute of it. The control he had over someone as powerful as me. He loved the control to hurt his own daughter,” she said.
Spears equated her experience at the rehab program to “sex trafficking,” saying she was stripped of all her possessions, including her credit card, cash, phone, passport, and car, forced to work seven days a week, lived with nurses, and was subjected to security 24/7.
“They watched me change every day naked, morning, noon and night. I had no privacy door for my room,” Spears said, adding she had to get blood withdrawn weekly. “If I didn’t (go to) any of my meetings or work … I wouldn’t get to see my kids or my boyfriend.”
She added, “I never had a say in my schedule. They also told me I had to do this.”
Spears said her conservators, including her “ignorant dad,” have “way too much control” over her life, adding that she feels “enslaved.”
Spears said the judge refusing to remove her father from the conservatorship “made me feel like I was dead. Like I didn’t matter, like nothing had been done to me, like I was lying or something.”
Spears closed out her speech by saying that her conservatorship is “doing way more harm than good.”
