Britney Spears’ mother, Lynne Spears, filed a petition with the Los Angeles Superior Court demanding that the American pop singer’s estate pay her legal fees for getting involved in the singer’s ongoing conservatorship battle with her father, Jamie Spears, reports USA Today.
Citing an attorney-client agreement between Lynne Spears and her lawyers allowing for their payment to come from the “conservatee’s estate pursuant to court order,” the petition filed by Spear’s mother on Monday requests that her daughter cover fees of more than $6, 50,000.
As per the petition, a copy of which was recently obtained by the publication, the pop singer had “enthusiastically agreed” for her mother to hire legal counsel and get involved in her battle to free herself from the conservatorship under her father. Following this, Spears’ mother hired two lawyers who joined the case as interested parties in order to get access to the conservatorship’s history.
“It is because Lynne’s counsel questioned the adequacy of Jamie’s competence to remain as conservator of the person and identified the lack of checks and balances over his service … that in mid-2019, for the first time in the eleven-year conservatorship, real discussions began about limiting Jamie’s involvement in the conservatorship,” the petition read.
The petition further stated that Spears’ mother was “motivated by the altruistic goal of helping her daughter” and added that the litigation was also beneficial to the public by “turning attention to conservators who are not serving their conservatees.”
A day after Lynne Spears’ petition was filed, Britney slammed her mother in a now-deleted Instagram post for her role in bringing about the conservatorship.
Though her father has been the face of the controversial conservatorship, in her post, the singer claimed that it was her mother’ idea. Blaming Lynne Spears for “ruining her life,” Britney had written, “What people don’t know is that my mom is the one who gave him the idea. I will never get those years back… she secretly ruined my life.”
“You know exactly what you did. My dad is not smart enough to ever think of a conservatorship, but tonight I will smile knowing I have a new life ahead of me,” she had further written.
As per the USA Today report, Lynne Spears had stepped into her daughter’s 13-year long conservatorship battle earlier this year when the court allowed the singer to hire her own attorney.
The 39-year-old American pop singer has been in what she has termed an “abusive” conservatorship with her father that began in 2008 following Britney Spears’ public meltdowns during her divorce and custodial battle with Kevin Federline. The arrangement gave her father control over her financial affairs, estate, and her personal life, and the singer has been fighting a lengthy court battle to end it.
After opposing all his daughter’s attempts to remove him from the conservatorship for a long time, on September 7, Jamie Spears filed a petition to end the conservatorship in a surprise move.
But, he did not step down immediately and Britney Spears’ attorney Mathew Rosengart called the move an effort by Jamie Spears to delay his ousting long enough to obtain a settlement under which his legal fees would be paid out of his daughter’s estate.
Rosengart then filed a petition to suspend him from the conservatorship based on the surveillance allegations in the documentary Controlling Britney Spears, and on September 29, Jamie Spears was suspended from the conservatorship with immediate effect.
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In new court documents cited in a report in The Guardian, Spears’ father has requested the “immediate termination” of the conservatorship. “Britney’s recent testimony and requests to take personal control of her estate and affairs have made clear that continuing the conservatorship is contrary to her desires. Jamie sees no reason why the conservatorship should continue for any amount of time and asserts he has no interest in the conservatorship continuing,” the documents state.
Urging complete transparency, his filing further states, “Jamie believes that every aspect of the conservatorship should be made available for public examination – not the targeted leaks and misinformation that have resulted in such tabloid fodder.”
The next hearing in the case, scheduled for November 9, will determine if and when Britney Spears’ conservatorship will end.