Britney Spears, the American pop singer, will finally see an end to her conservatorship under her father Jamie Spears, after the latter agreed on Thursday to step aside and work with the court to assure “an orderly transition to a new conservator,” The New York Times reported.
However, his lawyers have not provided a precise timeline for the change.
“It is highly debatable whether a change in conservator at this time would be in Ms Spears’ best interests,” his lawyers said in the new filing on Thursday. “Nevertheless, even as Mr Spears is the unremitting target of unjustified attacks, he does not believe that a public battle with his daughter over his continuing service as her conservator would be in her best interests.”
The 39-year-old pop singer has been in an “abusive,” as she describes it, conservatorship under her father for 13 years.
In 2008, at the age of 26, Spears entered into a temporary conservatorship or guardianship with her father following several media meltdowns. It gave her father, Jamie Spears, control over her financial affairs, estate, and her personal life.
In 2019, she filed a petition to detach herself from her father and entered into a legal battle against the conservatorship, accusing him of several issues such as mismanaging her finances and alcohol problems. She claimed that she had no financial independence and her mental health was severely affected as well.
“It’s my wish and my dream for all of this to end without being tested,” said Spears in a 24-minute long testimony to the court in June.
After multiple denials of her request to have her father removed from the conservatorship, in July, she was finally allowed to choose her own attorney to fight the case.
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Though Jamie Spears had been objecting his daughter’s requests and denying her claims all this while, in the new filing on Thursday, he said that while there were “no actual grounds for suspending or removing” him, he intended to work with the court to assure “an orderly transition to a new conservator.”
However, he stood by his claims of having “saved Ms Spears from disaster, supported her when she needed it the most, protected her and her reputation from harm, and facilitated the restoration of her career.”
Claiming there was “no urgent circumstances justifying Mr Spears’ immediate suspension,” his lawyers added that he would step aside from the conservatorship after resolving outstanding matters, including financial accounting for the conservatorship in recent years.
Jamie Spears’ lawyers also mentioned that he had previously been working on such a transition with the singer’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D Ingham III, who stepped down in July.