Now, going forward, I’m not willing to meet or see anyone — I’ve met with enough people against my will. I’m done. All I want is to own my money, for this to end, and my boyfriend to drive me in his [expletive] car.
And I would honestly like to sue my family, to be totally honest with you. I also would like to be able to share my story with the world, and what they did to me, instead of it being a hush-hush secret to benefit all of them. I want to be able to be heard on what they did to me by making me keep this in for so long is not good for my heart. I’ve been so angry and I cry every day. It concerns me I’m told I’m not allowed to expose the people who did this to me.
For my sanity, I need you, judge, to approve me to do an interview where I can be heard on what they did to me. And actually, I have the right to use my voice and take up for myself. My attorney says I can’t, it’s not good, I can’t let the public know anything they did to me, and by not saying anything, is saying it’s OK. I don’t know what I said here. It’s not OK — actually, I don’t want to interview. I’d much rather just have an open call to you for the press to hear, which I didn’t know today we were doing, so thank you. Instead of having an interview, honestly, I need that to get it off my heart, the anger and all of it.
In 2020, Ms. Spears’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, filed court papers saying that the singer “is vehemently opposed to this effort by her father to keep her legal struggle hidden away in the closet as a family secret.” In court on Wednesday, Ms. Spears said she didn’t want to grant an interview, but she wanted the world to hear her story.
It’s not fair they’re telling me lies about me openly. Even my family, they do interviews to anyone they want on news stations. My own family doing interviews, and talking about the situation and making me feel so stupid, and I can’t say one thing. And my own people say I can’t say anything.
It’s been two years. I want a recorded call to you — actually, we’re doing this now, which I didn’t know that were doing this, and to the public knows what they did to me. I told my — I know my lawyer, Sam [Ingham], has been very scared for me to go forward because he’s saying if I speak up, I’m being overworked in that facility, of that rehab place, the rehab place will sue me. He told me I should keep it to myself, really. I would personally like to — actually, I know I’ve had, grown with a personal relationship with Sam, my lawyer. I’ve been talking to him, like, three times a week now, we’ve kind of built a relationship, but I haven’t really had the opportunity by my own self to actually handpick my own lawyer by myself, and I would like to be able to do that.
At the time the conservatorship was imposed, a judge deemed Ms. Spears incapable of hiring her own counsel and appointed Mr. Ingham. After Ms. Spears’s speech, Mr. Ingham told the judge that he would be willing to step aside if that was the court’s decision.
I would like to also — the main reason why I’m here is because I want to end the conservatorship without having to be evaluated. I’ve done a lot of research, ma’am, and there is a lot of judges who do end conservatorships for people without them having to be evaluated all the time. The only times they don’t is if a concerned family member says, “Something’s wrong with this person,” and consider otherwise.
And considering my family has lived off my conservatorship for 13 years, I won’t be surprised if one of them has something to say, go forward, and say, “We don’t think this should end, we have to help her.” Especially if I get my fair turn in exposing what they did to me.
Also I want to speak to you about, at the moment, my obligations, which, I personally don’t think at the very moment I owe anybody anything. I have three meetings a week I have to attend no matter what. I just don’t like feeling like I work for the people whom I pay. I don’t like being told I have to, no matter what, even if I’m sick, Jodi [Montgomery] the conservator says I have to see my coach Ken even when I’m sick. I would like to do one meeting a week with a therapist. I’ve never before, even before they sent me to that place, had two therapy sessions, a therapy session, and one therapy session with — I have a doctor and then a therapy person. What I’ve been forced to do illegal in my life. I shouldn’t be told I have to be available three times a week to these people I don’t know.
I’m talking to you today because I feel again, yes, even Jodi is starting to kind of take it too far with me. They have me going to therapy twice a week and a psychiatrist. I’ve never in the past had — wait, they have me going, yeah, twice a week, and Dr. [unclear] — so that’s three times a week. I’ve never in the past had to see a therapist more than once a week. It takes too much out of me going to this man I don’t know, number one.
The Jodi Ms. Spears referenced is Jodi Montgomery, a licensed professional conservator who stepped into the role of managing the singer’s personal life after her father stepped back from the role in 2019. Last year, Mr. Ingham said that Ms. Spears preferred to keep Ms. Montgomery as her personal conservator, saying that she was “strongly opposed” to her father returning to that role.
I’m scared of people, I don’t trust people with what I’ve been through. And the clever setup of being in Westlake, one of the most exposed places in Westlake, which today, yesterday, paparazzi showed me coming out of a place literally crying in therapy. It’s embarrassing and it’s demoralizing. I deserve privacy when I go. I deserve privacy when I go and have therapy either at my home, like I’ve done for eight years. They’ve always come to my home. Or when Dr. Benson — the guy, the man that died — I went to a place similar to what I went to in Westlake, which was very exposed and really bad. OK, so wait, where was I? It was identical to Dr. Benson, who died, the one who illegally, yes, 100 percent abused me by the treatment he gave me, too. And I’ll be totally honest with you I was —
JUDGE BRENDA PENNY: Ms. Spears, excuse me for interrupting you, but my reporter says if you could just slow down a little bit, because she’s trying to make sure she gets everything that you’re saying.
OK, cool. And to be totally honest with you, when he passed away, I got on my knees and thanked God. In other words, my team is pushing it with me again. I have trapped phobias being in small rooms because of the trauma. Locking me up for four months in that place. It’s not OK for them to send me — sorry, I’m going fast — to that small room like that twice a week with another new therapist I pay that I never even approved. I don’t like it. I don’t want to do that. And I haven’t done anything wrong to deserve this treatment.
Ms. Spears spoke of Dr. Timothy Benson, a psychiatrist who died in 2019 at age 47. His death came amid increasing scrutiny over the arrangement of Ms. Spears’s conservatorship.
It’s not OK to force me to do anything I don’t want to do. By law, Jodi and this so-called team should — honestly, I should be able to sue them for threatening me and saying if I don’t go and do these meetings twice a week, we can’t let you have your money and go to Maui on your vacations. You have to do what you’re told for this program and then you will be able to go. But it was very clever — they picked one of the most exposed places in Westlake, knowing I have the hot topic of the conservatorship that over five paparazzis are going to show up and get me crying coming out of that place. I begged them to make sure that they did this at my home so I would have privacy. I deserve privacy.
The whole conservatorship from the beginning was — the conservatorship from the beginning, once you see someone, whoever it is, in the conservatorship, making money, making them money and myself money and working — that whole statement right there, the conservatorship should end. There should be no — I shouldn’t be in a conservatorship if I can work and provide money and work for myself and pay other people. It makes no sense. The laws need to change. What state allows people to own another person’s money and account and threaten them in saying, “You can’t spend your money unless we do what we want you to do.” And I’m paying them.
