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Is she doing the right thing for her daughter?
By Alice Kelly — Written on Nov 03, 2021
Britney Spears is speaking out about her mother, Lynne Spears, and her involvement in the conservatorship that Britney says "ruined my life."
In a scathing Instagram post that the pop star has since detailed, she blamed her mom for the conservatorship that has controlled her finances and daily life for 13 years.
Lynne has been a sideline character in Britney’s court battle for years and her role in the conservatorship has remained somewhat ambiguous.
Followers of the #FreeBritney movement have often been confused about whether Lynne is complicit in alleged abuse against her daughter and now, it looks like they might have their answer.
What is Lynne Spears’s role in Britney’s conservatorship?
Lynne's role in the conservatorship has varied over the years as she has fluctuated between being one of the earliest advocate for the restrictive court order to being an apparent supporter of the #FreeBritney movement.
However, it seems as if Lynne's efforts to end the conservatorship are too little too late for Britney.
Here's a look back at Lynne's role in Britney's life from 2008 onwards.
Britney claims the conservatorship was Lynne's idea.
In her recent Instagram post, the singer states that while her father — Jamie Spears — sought the conservatorship, it was her mother who "gave him the idea."
"My dad is not smart enough to ever think of a conservatorship," she writes while also calling out Lou Taylor, her former business manager who has also been accused of exploiting the singer's conservatorship.
Lynne and those close to her daughter have previously acknowleged the mother of three's role in the beginning of the conservatorship which arose as she became increasingly concerned about Britney's relationship with Sam Lufti, her manager at the time.
Lynne and Britney’s father, Jamie, were reportedly concerned that Lufti was taking money from their daughter.
Lynne did agree with Jamie’s plans to seek a conservatorship in 2008. In her memoir, she wrote that the conservatorship “seemed like an impossible dream at that point, with Sam still so entrenched in her life.”
A family friend, Jacqueline Butcher, told The New Yorker that Lynne was present on the day a Los Angeles court granted the conservatorship and says the singer's mother told her, “It’s taken care of,” after the brief hearing.
Butcher recalls Lynne telling her that she thought the conservatorship would only last for a few months until Britney was able to regain control of her life.
Lynne Spears has said she blamed herself for Britney’s mental health struggles.
As seen in the “Framing Britney Spears” documentary, a series of troubling incidents in 2007 and 2008 led Britney’s father to seek a conservatorship over the singer’s person and estate.
At the time, Lynne revealed she felt personally responsible for Britney’s issues.
“I blame myself,” she said. “What mother wouldn’t? I wish I’d been there more while she was touring, but I couldn’t be. I had the other kids to look after.”
Lynne’s concern imply she may have struggled to help her daughter as she became increasingly erratic.
“I didn’t raise my children to have Hollywood careers. This all just exploded in my face, and big dreams became big headaches,” she added.
Lynne and her ex-husband Jamie Spears have a strained relationship.
Lynne and Jamie divorced in 2002 in a move that Britney called “the best thing that’s ever happened to my family.”
In her memoir, Lynne wrote that, “years and years of verbal abuse, abandonment, erratic behavior, and his simply not being there for me had taken their toll.”
This fraught relationship appears to have made it difficult for the parents to be united in helping Britney.
Butcher claims that when the conservatorship was initially granted, Lynne told Jamie her hopes about how the conservatorship would be run only to be shouted down by her ex.
Butcher claims Jamie would often say, “I am Britney Spears,” as a means of asserting his power in the conservatorship.
According to Butcher, Lynne opted to stay out of the conservatorship so Britney would not resent her.
Britney reportedly asked her mother to be part of the conservatorship.
In 2020, Lynne reportedly asked a judge to make her part of the conservatorship due to concerns over her daughter’s health.
However, as Lynne lives in Louisiana, it was unlikely that she would be given a full-time role in Britney’s California-based estate.
Sources claimed Britney was the one who urged her mother to petition the judge, while other reports state that Lynne hoped to be able to transition her daughter out of the conservatorship.
Lynne appears to support the #FreeBritney movement.
As far back as 2019, Lynne reportedly “liked” posts relating to the #FreeBritney movement.
In 2021, sources claimed Lynne was concerned that Jamie had not been transparent about their daughter’s conservatorship.
That same year, she gave a phone interview to The New Yorker, hinting that she was not entirely satisfied with her daughter’s care.
“I got mixed feelings about everything,” she said. “I don’t know what to think... It’s a lot of pain, a lot of worry.”
Lynne petitioned a court to allow Britney to choose her own lawyer.
In July 2021, after Britney’s revealing testimony about life under the conservatorship, Lynne requested that a court allow her daughter to choose her own lawyer — a request that has since been granted.
“Her capacity is certainly different today than it was in 2008, and Conservatee should no longer be held to the 2008 standard, whereby she was found to ‘not have the capacity to retain counsel,’” Lynne’s petition urged.
Lynne has filed for Britney's estate to pay her legal fees.
However, Lynne's supposed efforts to end the conservatorship has come at a price.
Lynne has never had an official role within the conservatorship but laid out more than $660,000 in legal fees and incurred costs that her lawyers want to come “out of the conservatorship estate or assets on hand,” per court documents.
She claims that the costs have come from her efforts to “help end [Britney’s] nightmare and the crisis she was enduring” and adds that Britney "enthusiastically agreed" to her joining the case.
Her claims, however, are at odds with her daughter's post from just one day earlier in which Britney said of her mother and the conservatorship:
"I will never get those years back …. she secretly ruined my life.”
Alice Kelly is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Catch her covering all things social justice, news, and entertainment. Keep up with her Twitter for more.