Tag: Britney Spears

Beyond Britney: Abuse, Exploitation, And Death Inside America’s Guardianship Industry

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For people under guardianship, the system can be dehumanizing, dangerous, and even deadly. For the professionals — who can control hundreds of people at a time — it can be very profitable. A BuzzFeed News investigation. By Heidi Blake and Katie J.M. Baker Posted on September 17, 2021, at 1:02 p.m. ET Beyond Britney This is part 1 of a BuzzFeed News investigation Part 2: They Both Fought To Break Free From Guardianship. Only One Escaped. Part 3: “My Human Rights Are Being Violated”: Fighting A Family Conservatorship They can isolate you: A teenager with cerebral palsy was snatched from the school gates and hidden from his parents. They can bleed you dry: A successful rheumatologist was declared incapacitated after a bout of depression and lost her million-dollar waterfront home. And they can leave you to die: A 46-year-old man died under a do-not-resuscitate order that went against the desperate pleas of his wife. All three nightmares share a common cause: These people had been placed under the care — and control — of legal guardians. America’s guardianship system was designed as a last resort to be used only in the rare and drastic event that someone is totally incapacitated by mental or physical disability. In those cases, conscientious guardians can provide vital support, often in complex and distressing circumstances. But an investigation by BuzzFeed News has found that the system has grown into a vast, lucrative, and poorly regulated industry that has subsumed more than a million people, many of whom insist they are capable of making their own decisions, and placed them at risk of abuse, theft, and even death. The #FreeBritney movement has drawn international attention to the case of Britney Spears, and wrongdoing by individual guardians… Read More

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Britney Spears’s Conservatorship Nightmare

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How the pop star’s father and a team of lawyers seized control of her life—and have held on to it for thirteen years. By Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino July 3, 2021 On June 22nd, Britney Spears’s management team started getting nervous. Spears, who is thirty-nine, has spent the past thirteen years living under a conservatorship, a legal structure in which a person’s personal, economic, and legal decision-making power is ceded to others. Called a guardianship in most states, the arrangement is intended for people who cannot take care of themselves. Since the establishment of Spears’s conservatorship, she has released four albums, headlined a global tour that grossed a hundred and thirty-one million dollars, and performed for four years in a hit Las Vegas residency. Yet her conservators, who include her father, Jamie Spears, have controlled her spending, communications, and personal decisions. In April, Spears had requested a hearing, in open court, to discuss the terms of the arrangement. It was scheduled for June 23rd. Members of Spears’s team, most of whom have had little or no direct contact with her for years, didn’t expect drastic changes to result. Two years earlier, in the midst of health struggles and pressure from Spears, Jamie had stepped down from his duties overseeing her personal life, and now the team thought that perhaps she wanted to remove him as the conservator of her financial affairs. Some of the team told reporters that they believed Spears liked the conservatorship arrangement, as long as her father wasn’t involved. Running the business of Britney had become routine: every Thursday at noon, about ten people responsible for managing Spears’s legal and business affairs, public relations, and social media met to discuss merchandise deals, song-license requests, and Spears’s… Read More

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