Britney Spears, who last November celebrated the end of a 13 year conservatorship under the control of her father, posted an audio clip on YouTube yesterday (Aug. 28) addressing the plights this arrangement brought into her personal and professional life.
The 22-minute video has since been deleted from Spears’ account, but in reposted clips, she can be heard explaining the alleged abuse she endured by her family prior to and during the conservatorship. The last time she spoke out in such detail was during her court testimony back in June.
“I was scared broken,” Spears says, “I’m sharing this because I want people to know I’m only human. I do feel victimized after these experiences … And how can I mend this if I don’t talk about it?”
Spears reiterates at the beginning and end of the clip that she has received various offers to be interviewed about the subject, and that she has turned them down because her situation is “beyond a sit-down proper interview.”
Following her notorious car chases with paparazzi that preceded the conservatorship, Spears claims her parents pre-meditated the arrival of ambulances, a SWAT team, and over 200 paparazzi to her home, who videotaped her “through a window of an ambulance holding me down” on a gurney. Spears claims she did not have alcohol or drugs in her system at the time.
After being randomly hospitalized for two weeks, “All I do remember is I had to do what I was told,” Spears sadly recounts when talking of how her family put her to work straight away, including making the album Circus and filming an appearance on How I Met Your Mother. “I went along with it because I was scared and fearful,” Spears says. “I didn’t really do anything … none of it made sense to me.”
Her sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, recently spoke on the Call Her Daddy podcast, where she had a similar caution in her voice when discussing the Spears family. Both sisters have referenced vague memories of conversations with their parents about “people coming over” and having to keep most of their personal life quiet throughout the rise of Britney’s fame.
“I was told I was fat everyday, I had to go to the gym … and I never remember feeling so demoralized … and they made me feel like nothing,” Spears says.
In her June court testimony, Spears touched on being forced into a Las Vegas residency for over four years shortly following her hospitalization in her early thirties. In the new video, her voice cracks when speaking of having to wear wigs lathered in conditioner onstage: “My performances, I know, were horrible. … All the dancers were doing all these nice, sexy head flip turns, and I had conditioner treatment in my hair and these little caps over my head, and during the whole show … I was like a robot. I didn’t give a f–k anymore.”
“I was, kind of like, in this conspiracy thing of people claiming and treating me like a superstar, but yet, they treated me like nothing,” she added.
Also in her court testimony, Spears explained that she was sent to a treatment facility against her will in the middle of a tour. In the video, she recalls calling her father to ask why, and she claims he responded, “Now, you don’t have to go, but if you don’t go, we’re going to go to court and there will be a big trial and you’re gonna lose. How the f–k did they get away with it? How is there a God? Is there a God?”
Lynne Spears, her mother, responded to the audio recording on Instagram the night it was posted, writing: “Britney, your whole life I have tried my best to support your dreams and wishes! And also I have tried my best to help you out of hardships! I have never and will never turn my back on you! Your rejections to the countless times I have flown out and calls make me feel hopeless! I have tried everything. I love you so much, but this talk is for you and me only, eye to eye, in private.”
Spears unveiled her first single in six years, “Hold Me Closer,” in collaboration with Elton John, on Friday (Aug. 26).
“I have an amazing song right now with one of the most brilliant men of our time and I’m so grateful,” Spears says at the end of the video. “But if you’re a weird, introvert oddball like me, who feels alone a lot of time … notice my life has been far from easy and you’re not alone.”
