by Marinel Mamac
Trigger warning: mentions of depression, substance abuse, and suicide below.
In this article:
- Celebrity conservatorships, especially that of recently-emancipated Britney Spears, have pushed the existence of conservatorships (and the issue in its broken systems) into the limelight.
- Across the U.S., an estimated 1.3 million people live under a conservatorship, though most don’t have a lot in common with the beloved pop star.
- Through the four celebrity cases explored below, we can see how conservatorships can do some good, but how they are, for the most part, a gray topic.
- The truth is that the legal arrangement is only one side of a complex set of issues that needs to have a deeper discussion for the benefit of the most marginalized.
Britney Spears has been a free woman for a few months now — making #FreeBritney no longer a rallying cry, but a fact after 13 long years of a conservatorship that Britney herself has described as abusive and traumatizing.
The conservatorship, which Judge Brenda Penny said was “no longer required, effective immediately” last November, made it so that Britney did not have control over her own finances, personal life, and medical decisions since 2008.
Though her team had insisted that the conservatorship was a positive arrangement over the past decade, the grueling details of Britney’s life under the control of other people have recently come to light.
In her heart-breaking testimony, the pop legend spoke about being forced to go on tour, taking medication she didn’t consent to, and going into rehab even when she didn’t drink. She was prohibited from going where she wanted.
Other sources reveal that her father and long-time conservator Jamie Spears was verbally abusive to Britney, and that she was forbidden to even change the color of her own kitchen cabinets.
If nothing else, the terrible reality of the last 13 years of Britney’s life, supposedly meant to protect her from herself after a mental breakdown that the media feasted over, has shed light on a little-understood legal concept.
First, What Is a Conservatorship?
For those of us who aren’t lawyers in the state of California,
conservatorships — also called “deputyship” in the UK and “guardianship
and administration” in Australia — are a legal ruling that allows judges
to appoint a guardian or protector for those deemed incapable of
managing their own life. (Click to continue reading)
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