No investigative story ever really ends.
If you don’t believe me, here’s an example from my own reporting days.
In 2005, when I was at the Los Angeles Times, I was part of a team that investigated what California calls probate conservatorship.
Our stories explained that
the system was designed to help families protect enfeebled relatives
from predators and self-neglect. In such cases, courts took basic
freedoms from grown men and women and gave conservators sweeping power
over their money and the smallest details of their lives.
California had better
mechanisms than most states to ensure people didn’t become needlessly
ensnared in the system — on paper. Yet in reality, those protections
turned out to be either ineffective or easy to circumvent, our stories
showed. As a result, so-called professional conservators were able to
swiftly take control of strangers’ lives and estates. In the worst
cases, conservators victimized their wards, charging them exorbitant
fees, neglecting their needs and sometimes looting their assets.
After the series ran, there
was a gratifying push to address many of the systemic weaknesses our
journalism exposed. At that point, my job seemingly done, I moved on to
other reporting assignments and eventually editing.
Then, in 2008, pop star
Britney Spears was placed under conservatorship in Los Angeles County,
in the very courthouse where I had spent innumerable hours excavating
records. I remember reading about the case and thinking, that’s odd.
Virtually none of the people whose cases I’d encountered were healthy
enough to navigate the supermarket, let alone a world tour.
Over the last several
months, there’s been an upsurge of reporting on the Spears
conservatorship, including The New York Times’ documentary “Framing
Britney Spears.” What’s been uncovered about her case suggests that not
much of what we exposed was ever fixed. I know Liz Day — the co-creator
of the documentary and a senior story editor at the Times — from the
days when she was ProPublica’s head of research.
I emailed and asked if
she’d be kind enough to discuss her work on the Spears story with a
fellow conservatorship nerd. She agreed, and we spoke on July 2. Here
are the highlights of our conversation, which has been edited and
condensed:
What drew you to the subject of Britney Spears’ conservatorship for your reporting, and ultimately for a documentary?
I had long wanted to do a
documentary about Britney Spears because we're in a similar age group,
and I feel like I grew up with her. When I was in high school, she was
kind of America’s golden girl pop princess. And then when I was in
college, she was just completely battered by the paparazzi and the
tabloids. So it felt like her arc alone was very rich to explore. And
then, obviously, I’d been aware of the conservatorship and kind of
attracted by the mystery and paradox that it presents. Conservatorships
are supposed to be reserved for seriously infirm or elderly people with
dementia. Yet this person, Britney, was able to work and make millions
of dollars performing and be a huge superstar. So how can those two
things be true? It was a story in which you could concentrate on this
specific person, but [also] zoom out and understand power and money and
family dynamics and the legal system.
What aspects of the story did you find the most interesting or the most surprising?
I’m surprised, even to
this day, that there are basic questions about this conservatorship and
guardianship standards at large. For example, Britney’s court-appointed
counsel, does he have to do what she tells him that she wants done? Or
does he have to do what he thinks is in her best interest? I’ve talked
to multiple experts, and each one gives a different shade of nuance to
that answer. I’m just endlessly surprised by the lack of clear standards
and agreed-upon rules in this world.
Give us some insight into how you pursued the reporting on this story. How did you start? What were the steps after that?
We started with the
premise of just reexamining Britney in the way that “O.J.: Made in
America” examined that story, with a new lens two decades on. We tried
to read and watch everything that has ever been done on Britney or that
she’s appeared in. And from there we built a gigantic spreadsheet with
every possible source that we could contact and just started making
calls and talking to people. There were a lot of reasons for people to
be hesitant, because this is an ongoing legal case. People felt very
burned by the press in the past. There’s a lot of NDAs, a lot of
barriers.
We used a pretty simple
pitch, which was: We want to correct misperceptions about Britney and/or
the conservatorship. I think a lot of people felt that there were
things they wanted the public to understand. We started to get people to
talk off the record or on background, and then we’d get them to go on
the record, get them to go on camera.
Shortly after we started,
for the first time in the decade-long conservatorship, public filings
started being filed saying Britney wants changes, she wants her dad out,
she wants more transparency. We just parked ourselves at the courthouse
and tried to capture that unfolding drama.
How limiting was
it that this is a case in which a lot of the court records are
confidential, and Britney herself and a lot of members of her family
have been unwilling to talk?
It’s been very difficult
because many, if not most, of the court records are sealed. As Adam
Streisand, a lawyer in the documentary, says, “We don't know what we
don’t know.” But I will say that we have actually opened a lot of doors
and seen many of the things that we couldn't know. And the closer we
got, only more questions were raised as to whether this conservatorship
is appropriate or in Britney’s best interest. We made a lot of effort
every which way to try to reach [Britney], but we don’t know whether she
got the requests. One of the powers that her conservators have is to
restrict any and all visitors to Britney.
I should also note we made
a lot of effort for her father to participate in the documentary and
our follow-up reporting, going to his representatives and lawyer saying,
if not him, please provide someone who can present his point of view.
But they ultimately declined repeated requests.
Were there particular facts or elements you found that just made the hairs on the back of your neck tingle?
A systemic issue that I
think is shocking is that Britney has to pay for everyone. In this case,
she not only pays for her own court-appointed counsel, she pays for her
dad’s lawyers — he has multiple sets of lawyers who are actively
fighting against her wishes in court. Recently, one set of her dad’s
lawyers billed $890,000 for roughly four months of work, which is about
$10,000 a day. And that includes PR specialists that were defending the
conservatorship to the media.
Yeah, that brings me back. That was a big theme of the reporting we did as well.
Yeah, I think Britney’s
case is both extremely unique, but also universal in some ways to the
guardianship or conservatorship system. Britney’s is very unusual [in]
that she’s actively going out and performing and making money. So she’s a
very unusual conservatee. Her own lawyer has called her a
high-functioning conservatee, which conservatorship experts have noted
is an oxymoron in the conservatorship system. If you’re
high-functioning, how are you a conservatee?
The other thing that’s
very interesting about Britney performing is that the conservators of
the estate have the ability to enter into contracts for her. She’s the
one doing the work, yet she’s not the one legally who is even able to
consent and sign the deal. That raises all sorts of questions when her
father, as conservator of the estate, is being paid not only a salary,
but also was approved by the court to get a percentage of various deals
that are multimillion-dollar deals. If he makes a decision for Britney
to do a second Las Vegas residency, is that because it’s in her best
interest? Or because he could make a percentage of that deal?
Why do you think this particular case and your reporting on it has lit such a fuse among so many people?
I think for a few reasons.
My colleague, Samantha Stark, the director of the documentary, didn’t
know much about Britney when we started the project, but she was really
attracted to why Britney has such a rabid fan base. She really wanted to
understand, like, why do people love her so much? I think she found a
lot of emotion in their stories. A lot of Britney’s fans identify as
outsiders and thus they emotionally really connect with her arc and the
various trials that she’s been through.
I think also it shines
light on this very little understood corner of the legal system that is
very important. You know, we don’t even know how many conservatorships
there are in America. It’s estimated at a million, but any of us could
one day potentially be forced into a conservatorship. So I think it’s
important to understand it’s an extreme last resort that can take away
so many basic rights. It’s really important that the system works
properly, as it should.
Do you think that
another element woven through here is that this is a grown woman who’s
been entrusted to the care of her father? There seems to be a powerful
strand of misogyny in this case.
Yes, I think that’s a very
fair observation. A lot of cultural observers note there are a lot of
male rock stars and celebrities who are allowed to do whatever they want
with the money that they’ve earned whether or not their parents or
outsiders approve. So I think that’s a valid question. We know that
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was under a conservatorship, so it’s not as if there’s never been a male celebrity under one. But I think that’s very fair.
Where do things stand in the case as of today and where do things go from here?
Britney spoke last week in
court and made some really explosive allegations against the
conservatorship and her management and her father. She’s also very
blatantly said, I don’t want to be in this, I want this over with, I
want my life back. This is abusive.
A few days ago, Britney’s
father, Jamie, filed two court filings, one of which was calling for an
investigation into the various claims Britney made. We know that
yesterday, Bessemer Trust, which is the professional wealth management
firm that had been approved to join as co-conservator of the estate
alongside Jamie, asked the court for permission to resign. They said in
their court filing, we were told that this was a voluntary
conservatorship, and last week Britney said she doesn’t want to be in
this. We’ll have to see if the court approves their application to
resign.
The other thing that’s
important to note about where we stand is that Britney’s court-appointed
counsel, Sam Ingham, has not yet filed a petition to terminate the
conservatorship, which is what Britney said she wanted, to end it
without having a medical evaluation. And he has not yet done that.
[Note: On July 6, a few days after this conversation, Samuel Ingham III
filed a motion to resign as Spears’ court-appointed attorney.] So will
someone involved in the case file an official petition to terminate it?
Will a medical evaluation be required? Will Jamie oppose a petition to
terminate? There’s also a question of whether Britney will try to hire a
new lawyer of her choosing. She pointed out in her speech that while
she’s grown closer to her court-appointed lawyer, she never had the
opportunity to choose her own lawyer and she would like to do that. So
that’s also a potential next step.
