Jamie Lynn Spears broke her silence after her sister, Britney Spears, testified last week, saying she loves and supports her older sister.
The younger Spears, who became the trustee of Britney Spears’s assets in August 2020, said she kept quiet until her sister — whom Jamie Lynn Spears said she has only “loved, adored, and supported” — could publicly share her story during testimony on Wednesday.
“If ending the conservatorship [makes her happy] … I support that 100% because I support my sister,” Spears said. “I love my sister. Always have, always will.”
Spears, who said she “made a very conscious choice in my life to only participate in her life as her sister,” noted she had “nothing to gain or lose either way” because “this situation does not affect [her] either way.”
“I’ve worked since I was 9 years old. I’ve paid my own freaking bills since I was 10 years old,” she said, apparently referencing claims Jamie Lynn Spears benefited financially from her sister’s conservatorship.
The younger sister distanced herself from the rest of the Spears family, some of whom have attracted criticism for allegedly abusing Britney Spears.
“I’m not my family. I am my own person. I am speaking for myself,” she continued. “I’m so proud of her for using her voice. I’m so proud of her for requesting new counsel like I told her to do many years ago.”
During her remarks, Britney Spears said she wanted to select her own lawyer.
“I would personally like to — actually, I’ve 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,” Britney Spears told a judge by phone on Wednesday.
The singer’s other stunning claims — including that she is forced to remain on birth control, prohibited from marrying, and coerced into performances to benefit the conservatorship even while sick — led to heightened scrutiny of Spears’s family members, including her sister.
“Maybe I didn’t support her the way the public would like me to, with a hashtag on a public platform, but I can assure you that I’ve supported my sister long before there was a hashtag, and I’ll support her long after,” Jamie Lynn Spears said about the #FreeBritney movement.
Britney Spears also called for an end to the conservatorship that has dictated her day-to-day life and estimated $60 million estate for 13 years.
The court-ordered arrangement, which has been under the control of her father and others since Spears underwent a mental health crisis in 2008, has done “way more harm than good,” she said during the Los Angeles hearing.
Conservatorships are generally viewed as a protection measure for those who are severely mentally incapacitated. But many have argued Spears’s ability to perform over the last decade revealed mental competence.
James Spears, Britney Spears’s father, has served as conservator of his daughter’s estate since 2008. Britney Spear’s caregiver, Jodi Montgomery, temporarily took charge of the singer’s personal affairs in 2019, with the elder Spears stepping back, citing health issues. Britney Spears later requested the change be made permanent.
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A judge may require a cognitive test as a prerequisite to ending the conservatorship, a condition Spears requested be waived in her case.
“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’s a lot of judges who do end conservatorships for people without them having to be evaluated all the time,” she told the judge.
