Britney Spears is entitled to choose her own attorney in the legal battle over her conservatorship, a Los Angeles judge ruled Wednesday.
After Spears said during testimony on June 23 she was prevented from selecting her own attorney to represent her in the proceedings, her lawyer Samuel Ingham III stepped away from the case. Spears selected Matthew Rosengart, a veteran entertainment lawyer who applauded Spears’s “courage, passion, and humanity,” to replace Ingham, and Spears’s decision was approved by Judge Brenda Penny on Wednesday.
“My firm and I will be taking a top-to-bottom look at what’s happened over the past decade,” Rosengart said.
MATT GAETZ SAYS HE’S ‘LEADING THE FREE BRITNEY MOVEMENT IN CONGRESS’
Bessemer Trust Co., established as the co-conservator of Spears’s finances last year, also asked to withdraw from its role in the conservatorship following her testimony, a request granted by a judge.
Spears ramped up her attacks on Wednesday against the conservatorship — particularly against her father, James Spears, who she said should be charged with conservator abuse.
“I thought they were trying to kill me,” the 39-year-old singer told the court. “If this is not abuse, I don’t know what is.”
James Spears has served as the conservator of his daughter’s estate since 2008. Britney Spears’s caregiver, Jodi Montgomery, temporarily took charge of the singer’s personal affairs in 2019 when the elder Spears stepped back due to health issues. Britney Spears later requested the change be made permanent.
During her June 23 testimony, Spears asked that her father be removed from his role as conservator, but her request was denied by the court.
Conservatorships are typically regarded as a protective measure for those who are severely mentally incapacitated. Still, Spears’s June 23 testimony portrayed a darker picture, with the singer claiming she was forced to perform even while sick during her Las Vegas residency to benefit the estate.
“I’m not here to be anyone’s slave,” she said during last month’s testimony. “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.”
The conditions of Spears’s conservatorship have been the subject of the “#FreeBritney” movement, which has attracted a following on Capitol Hill.
“What happened to Britney Spears is terrible. It shouldn’t happen to her. It shouldn’t happen to any American,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is “leading the Free Britney Movement in Congress,” he told Newsmax on July 3.
Gaetz — along with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs, and Burgess Owens — invited Spears to testify before Congress about her conservatorship after her explosive June 23 testimony.
Democrats also criticized the circumstances of Spears’s conservatorship, with Rep. Seth Moulton, who conceded he never heard the term “conservatorship” before her case, calling the arrangement “some of the craziest s*** I’ve seen in a long time.”
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On July 1, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, asking them to share data and statistics on conservatorship and guardianship legal arrangements that give another person legal responsibility over someone who is incapacitated.
“Ms. Spears’ case has shined a light on longstanding concerns from advocates who have underscored the potential for financial and civil rights abuses of individuals placed under guardianship or conservatorship,” they wrote, adding that “comprehensive data” on the arrangement is “substantially lacking.”
