Latest / DISGRACELAND / Britney Spears (Pt. 2): Lithium, Las Vegas, and a Long-Awaited Emancipation

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Britney Spears (Pt. 2): Lithium, Las Vegas, and a Long-Awaited Emancipation · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of double Elvis Britney Spears, her
0:12
Speaker 1: troubling family ties, her reign in tabloid hungry culture, and
0:16
Speaker 1: her thirteen years as a conservati under her father Jamie.
0:20
Speaker 1: Is a story that is so complex that we required
0:23
Speaker 1: two episodes to properly tell it. If you're just getting
0:26
Speaker 1: hip to this now, I suggest you hip pause and
0:29
Speaker 1: go back to the previous episode of Disgraceland, part one
0:32
Speaker 1: of the Britney Spears Saga, where we discuss Britney's unstable
0:36
Speaker 1: childhood in Louisiana, her father's reckless drinking and anger issues,
0:40
Speaker 1: and the media fueled meltdown that placed her under his
0:43
Speaker 1: thumb in two thousand and eight. In this episode, we
0:46
Speaker 1: get into the details of that conservatorship, an arrangement so
0:50
Speaker 1: strict and so unfeeling that it left her without any
0:53
Speaker 1: control of her career, loopy on lithium, and completely silenced
0:58
Speaker 1: for the sake of seeing her sol and boyfriend. But
1:02
Speaker 1: even during those thirteen years of submission and surveillance, Britney
1:06
Speaker 1: Spears refused to stop making great music. Unlike that music
1:11
Speaker 1: I played for you at the top of the show,
1:13
Speaker 1: which wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for
1:16
Speaker 1: my melotron called Neon Nightlife MK. One. I played you
1:21
Speaker 1: that loop because I can't afford the rights to butter
1:24
Speaker 1: by Bts. And why would I play you that specific
1:28
Speaker 1: slice of smooth sidestep in cheese? Could I afford it?
1:32
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:36
Speaker 1: June twenty third, twenty twenty one, And that was the Dave.
1:40
Speaker 1: Britney Spears was finally allowed to address the chord about
1:43
Speaker 1: our conservatorship after more than a dozen years of suffering
1:47
Speaker 1: in silence in this episode Lithium Submission, breaking the silence
1:53
Speaker 1: in the long awaited emancipation of Britney Spears. I'm Jake
1:58
Speaker 1: Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Britney Spears knew she would
2:28
Speaker 1: have to be fast if she wanted to get away
2:30
Speaker 1: with it. She thrust open the door to the local
2:33
Speaker 1: burger jointed and held it open for her security guard.
2:36
Speaker 1: Not one she hired. No, this was a stranger. A
2:40
Speaker 1: stranger hired a trailer at all times, hired by her father,
2:44
Speaker 1: her conservator. Six days into this conservative stick, and it
2:49
Speaker 1: was already old. February sixth, two thousand and eight, Britney
2:54
Speaker 1: flashed a smile as she held the door. You could
2:56
Speaker 1: call it Southern charm, but today it was a strategy.
3:00
Speaker 1: The guard entered the restaurant in front of her. Brittany
3:03
Speaker 1: cautiously followed. The scent of grease and sizzling patties hit
3:07
Speaker 1: her nose, her mouth watered after days in the hospital.
3:11
Speaker 1: All this hearty real food made her knees weak, and
3:15
Speaker 1: then the presence of the guard we we nearby yanked
3:17
Speaker 1: her back to reality. Remember what you're here to do? Focus? Oh,
3:22
Speaker 1: you're right, So Brittany spun on her heel. She flung
3:25
Speaker 1: the door back open and sprinted towards her car in
3:27
Speaker 1: the parking lot. She tossed herself into the front seat
3:30
Speaker 1: and threw that fucker in her verse, just like a
3:32
Speaker 1: woman caught in a paparazzi chase, which, of course, is
3:35
Speaker 1: inevitably what this little incident would turn into. She dialed
3:39
Speaker 1: with her thumb on her clunky cellphone as she peeled
3:41
Speaker 1: off towards the highway. Her former business manager, Howard Grossman,
3:45
Speaker 1: answered her call for help, meaning about the Beverly Hills Hotel.
3:49
Speaker 1: He said, asa. Brittany banged a U turn and steered
3:53
Speaker 1: straight for the hotel, set did a handful of paparazzi
3:56
Speaker 1: and spotted her flying solo on the road. She could
3:59
Speaker 1: escape from hers squescurity, but she couldn't escape the onslaught
4:02
Speaker 1: of snapshots. A few more perhaps piled onto the daisy
4:05
Speaker 1: chain behind Britney's black Mercedes Bends, and then another few,
4:08
Speaker 1: and then it was a dozen. By the time she
4:11
Speaker 1: turned onto Sunset Boulevard, between fifteen and seventy five paparazzi
4:15
Speaker 1: cars run on the hunt behind her. Brittany couldn't give
4:18
Speaker 1: a shit, snap away, publish what you want. She had
4:21
Speaker 1: business to tend to. Brittany was beyond caring about unflattering photos.
4:25
Speaker 1: Now inside the Beverly Hills Hotel, she and Howard reconnected
4:31
Speaker 1: over an urgent matter they could barely discuss earlier that week,
4:34
Speaker 1: when she was confined to a hospital room at the
4:36
Speaker 1: UCLA Medical Center. Damn that fifty one to fifty hold.
4:40
Speaker 1: Brittany needed a lawyer, a good lawyer, someone who would
4:43
Speaker 1: help her navigate a term she didn't even know existed
4:45
Speaker 1: roughly a week ago. Brittany didn't want to end this
4:48
Speaker 1: new conservatorship she had already accepted the situation. Instead, she
4:53
Speaker 1: just wanted someone other than her father to be in charge.
4:57
Speaker 1: Does this sound like the idea of someone with dementia symptoms?
5:00
Speaker 1: As Brittany's father, Jamie Spears, had claimed in his conservatorship
5:04
Speaker 1: paperwork only a few days prior, this is a mature,
5:07
Speaker 1: respectful request. Brittany wasn't asking for the conservatorship to end.
5:12
Speaker 1: She just wanted someone else to be your metaphorical boss,
5:15
Speaker 1: someone she wasn't afraid of. She craved a little humanity.
5:19
Speaker 1: She knew at this point a different conservator was her
5:22
Speaker 1: last chance at a decent life. The timeline for her
5:26
Speaker 1: new legal arrangement had been hurried along on purpose, and
5:28
Speaker 1: Brittany never even got the chance to balk. Under normal circumstances,
5:32
Speaker 1: potential conservatis had five days notice before conservatorship begins, allowing
5:37
Speaker 1: them time to contest the arrangement or find their own lawyer,
5:41
Speaker 1: but Brittany hadn't been granted any such time. Instead, Jamie Spears,
5:46
Speaker 1: her dad, claimed the influence of Britney's quote unquote life
5:49
Speaker 1: coach Sam Lutfi was such a threat that he needed
5:53
Speaker 1: to take over immediately. Jamie didn't just file for the
5:57
Speaker 1: temporary conservatorship over Brittany. He took it one one step further.
6:01
Speaker 1: That same day, Jamie requested a restraining order against Sam.
6:05
Speaker 1: He didn't want to see that creep within two hundred
6:07
Speaker 1: and fifty yards of Brittany or her homes, her children,
6:10
Speaker 1: or her cars, even her parents' homes. Brittany's mother, Lynn
6:14
Speaker 1: laid out the explanation in a lengthy breakdown of Sam's
6:17
Speaker 1: alleged sins. She claimed he drugged Brittany, cut her home
6:21
Speaker 1: phone lines, and disabled her cars, disposed of her phone chargers,
6:25
Speaker 1: and basically Sam Leffy isolated in gas lit the hell
6:29
Speaker 1: out of Brittany. And Lynn even stated that Sam had
6:32
Speaker 1: a plan to have Britney slip into a sleep induced
6:34
Speaker 1: coma so a doctor could give her drugs to heal
6:37
Speaker 1: her brain. That's a quote, heal her brain for real.
6:41
Speaker 1: Sam already had two other strikes against them too. Prior
6:44
Speaker 1: to infecting Britney's life, courts granted two other people restraining
6:47
Speaker 1: orders against Sam. One was from an ex neighbor in
6:50
Speaker 1: two thousand and four who Sam harassed and threatened, and
6:53
Speaker 1: the other came from a former business associated who claimed
6:56
Speaker 1: Sam off and harassed her with offensive facts as and emails,
6:59
Speaker 1: plus fifteen to thirty telephone calls and hang ups every day.
7:03
Speaker 1: All the claims suggested that Sam was indeed a bad,
7:06
Speaker 1: bad man. The threat to Britney's sanity, even to her
7:11
Speaker 1: life left from the pages of Jamie's court paperwork. The
7:15
Speaker 1: judge granted the restraining order and the conservatorship on February first,
7:19
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, waving Britney's right to a five
7:21
Speaker 1: day notice. First they threw out her warning, and then
7:25
Speaker 1: they threw out Britney's legal representative. One she chose because
7:29
Speaker 1: once someone becomes a conservative, they don't have much choice
7:32
Speaker 1: in anything, even if you're Britney spears now. While Brittany
7:36
Speaker 1: completed her stay at the UCLA Medical Center earlier that week,
7:39
Speaker 1: Poward connected her with an attorney named Adam streisand as
7:43
Speaker 1: a cousin of Barbara. Adam spoke with Brittany about her
7:46
Speaker 1: a strange relationship with her father and her desire to
7:49
Speaker 1: have Jamie removed his conservator of her person and her estate.
7:53
Speaker 1: He heard her plead, he understood her, and he agreed
7:56
Speaker 1: to speak to the court on her behalf. In their conversation,
8:00
Speaker 1: it didn't matter the court didn't care. Adam tried to
8:03
Speaker 1: explain he had information demonstrating that Jamie wasn't a healthy
8:06
Speaker 1: fit as Britney's conservative, and the court turned around and
8:09
Speaker 1: told him they possessed special information too, a medical report
8:13
Speaker 1: stating that Brittany didn't have the capacity to retain counsel
8:16
Speaker 1: and have an attorney client relationship. Instead, Incredibly, the court
8:20
Speaker 1: appointed a lawyer on Britney's behalf, a man named Sam Ingham.
8:25
Speaker 1: Sam said that he chatted with Brittany over the weekend too.
8:28
Speaker 1: He claimed she didn't understand this conservatorship arrangement one bit,
8:32
Speaker 1: And then again, maybe that's because his visit with Brittany
8:34
Speaker 1: at the hospital was unannounced and only lasted fifteen minutes.
8:39
Speaker 1: The court rejected Adam's request and rejected him as Britney's lawyer.
8:43
Speaker 1: Then they ejected him from the courtroom. Adam Streisan never
8:47
Speaker 1: saw that medical report. If anything, the meeting had the
8:52
Speaker 1: opposite effect on Britney's feet. The judge extended the temporary
8:56
Speaker 1: conservatorship for an additional week through February fourteenth, pending another hearing.
9:01
Speaker 1: Britney's life and her forty million dollar estate remained in
9:03
Speaker 1: Jamie's control for the indefinite future. She was trapped caged
9:08
Speaker 1: in plain sight, one hundred percent on display like a
9:11
Speaker 1: sideshow freak. But Brittany didn't do side shows. She took
9:16
Speaker 1: center stage. She played the role of the ringleader. Jamie
9:21
Speaker 1: might have the power to approve who she worked with,
9:23
Speaker 1: but Brittany still called the shots as a lyricist, a singer,
9:26
Speaker 1: and a creator. The world still wanted a spectacle, and
9:29
Speaker 1: Brittany would give them a spectacle all right. As the
9:32
Speaker 1: tedium of life under the Conservative ship wore away at
9:35
Speaker 1: her spirit in two thousand and eight, Britney colored her
9:37
Speaker 1: world with dashes of dazzling yellows, blues and reds. She
9:41
Speaker 1: moved her remaining musical freedom into the big top. Ballooning
9:43
Speaker 1: inside her head. Britney Spears was about to bring the
9:47
Speaker 1: circus to town. Circus. Her sixth studio album dropped in
9:52
Speaker 1: late November two thousand and eight and raked in more
9:55
Speaker 1: than half a million US album sales in one week.
9:58
Speaker 1: Her eye popping pop Bizarre went platinum in just two months,
10:01
Speaker 1: and the hype around the record was so huge that
10:03
Speaker 1: the lead single, Womanizers, shot from number ninety six to
10:06
Speaker 1: number one on the Billboard Hot one hundred in just
10:08
Speaker 1: one week, and maybe Brittany was a hot mess at times,
10:11
Speaker 1: but she was still Brittany. She tipped her top hat
10:15
Speaker 1: to the absurdity of her long list of scandals with
10:17
Speaker 1: a dirty little ditty called if You Seek Amy. The
10:20
Speaker 1: single casually explained how all the boys and girls in
10:23
Speaker 1: the club were begging to if You Seek Amy a
10:25
Speaker 1: grammatical nightmare if you read it literally, a parental nightmare
10:29
Speaker 1: if you read between the lines and heard Britney spelling
10:31
Speaker 1: fuck me on the radio. And when such vulgar verses
10:35
Speaker 1: went to number nineteen on the Billboard Hot one hundred
10:38
Speaker 1: and remained on the chart for twenty weeks, it was
10:40
Speaker 1: Brittany who had the lusty last laugh. She transformed tabloid
10:45
Speaker 1: gossip into a veritable gold mine. The success of Circus
10:49
Speaker 1: eventually carried Brittany from country to country on a world tour,
10:53
Speaker 1: proving not even Jamie could suppress her pop prowess. But
10:56
Speaker 1: suppressing Britney's superstardom was never what Jamie wanted. Jamie wanted
11:00
Speaker 1: Brittany to gain all the success in the world, and
11:03
Speaker 1: he wanted his cut of it. Britney Spears pressed her
11:28
Speaker 1: palms to either side of the road case and hung
11:30
Speaker 1: on for dear life. The case tilted, fumbled over bumps
11:35
Speaker 1: and probably cables taped to the floor, and the vibration
11:38
Speaker 1: made her stage heels clicked together. There's no place like home,
11:41
Speaker 1: she muttered to herself in the darkness. Sometimes Brittany reached
11:46
Speaker 1: for the top of the box. Other times she gripped
11:49
Speaker 1: the chair her crew provided for her. But today she
11:52
Speaker 1: blindly held her balance with her arms held out like
11:55
Speaker 1: she was ready to flap her wings and rock it
11:57
Speaker 1: out of the case. In two thousand and nine, Britney
12:02
Speaker 1: spears remained in high demand, such high demand that a
12:05
Speaker 1: large road case was required to safely escort her from
12:08
Speaker 1: backstage to beneath the stage inside arenas during her circus tour.
12:13
Speaker 1: Before every show, Britney climbed into the case and perched
12:16
Speaker 1: atop the small chair inside, held that pose for however
12:20
Speaker 1: long it took the wheeler into the belly of the venue.
12:23
Speaker 1: Limberg d answered that she was Britney could stay in the
12:26
Speaker 1: cramped position for a while as staff whisked away. The
12:30
Speaker 1: fans that were wired into the road case provided some
12:33
Speaker 1: much needed ventilation every night. Forty thousand audience members never
12:39
Speaker 1: suspected a thing. Britney practiced this awkward to act for
12:43
Speaker 1: months in a row. She wasn't claustrophobic. She knew that
12:46
Speaker 1: showbiz meant frequent discomfort for the sake of a few
12:49
Speaker 1: seconds of magic on stage. But tonight was different. Tonight
12:54
Speaker 1: fear seized every nerve in Britney's body. The air that
12:57
Speaker 1: filtered into the case smelt pungent, earthy, trashy, even like
13:02
Speaker 1: a skunk out spooked in the backyard and sprayed the
13:04
Speaker 1: family dog just like pot. The walls of the roadcase
13:11
Speaker 1: closed in on her and her hands went clammy. Brittany
13:14
Speaker 1: exhaled and clamped her mouth shut, pinched her nose between
13:17
Speaker 1: her fingers for as long as she could. She frantically
13:20
Speaker 1: tried to watch fresh air inside of her free hand,
13:23
Speaker 1: and the case sank deeper under the stage as Britney's
13:25
Speaker 1: lungs pleaded for oxygen. The case had a row of
13:29
Speaker 1: cables and shuddered. Britney gasped a big, old inhale of
13:32
Speaker 1: fresh air shit. Finally, the case halted. Britney stylus opened
13:38
Speaker 1: the door, and Brittany flew out like a bat out
13:40
Speaker 1: of hell. It smells like pot. It smells like pot,
13:43
Speaker 1: Britney repeated herself for emphasis. The stage grew blinked at her.
13:47
Speaker 1: Of course it smelled like pot. It was a concert venue,
13:50
Speaker 1: and who said pot anyways? Its grass weed. Marijuana fans
13:53
Speaker 1: snuck joints inside every night, and hell, catching a second
13:56
Speaker 1: hand high was part of most traditional concert experiences. Britney
14:01
Speaker 1: paced in a panic circle. Her mind and heart jittered
14:03
Speaker 1: in unison while she contemplated the consequences. She couldn't breathe
14:07
Speaker 1: in pot smoke, she'd fail her drug test and they
14:09
Speaker 1: wouldn't let her see her boys. Her fearful voice cracked
14:13
Speaker 1: as the tears started spilling, and the smell was down
14:15
Speaker 1: here too. It wasn't safe, She wasn't safe. Brittany's face
14:19
Speaker 1: crumpled in despair, and then she bolted. She tumbled under
14:24
Speaker 1: the innards of the stage, skidded around corners in her
14:27
Speaker 1: stage heels, raced towards the sober safety of her dressing room,
14:31
Speaker 1: and her stylus followed and out pursuit or she caught
14:33
Speaker 1: up to Brittany. She spun her around and got serious.
14:37
Speaker 1: There are forty thousand people out there waiting for you.
14:39
Speaker 1: She explained, chanting her name, ready to trip away when
14:43
Speaker 1: she cracked her prop whip to see her prance, to
14:46
Speaker 1: see her strut around that stage, the show had to
14:49
Speaker 1: go on. Brittany didn't care about the adoration of those
14:53
Speaker 1: forty thousand people. She cared about two boys, Sean and Jaden,
14:57
Speaker 1: her sons. And if Britney failed to test from so
15:01
Speaker 1: much as eating a poppy seed muffin or inhaling secondhand smoke,
15:04
Speaker 1: her time with her boys would be reduced from limited
15:07
Speaker 1: to zero. Then again, if Brittany didn't qute unquote behave
15:11
Speaker 1: herself and act like a gracious little conservati, then that
15:15
Speaker 1: caused trouble for her custody arrangement too. The public had
15:18
Speaker 1: already forgotten about her conservators ship, let alone what that
15:21
Speaker 1: word even meant. That was last year's news. But in
15:25
Speaker 1: Britney's world, the conservatorship was nearly all she could think about.
15:28
Speaker 1: It ruled her mind because it ruled her life for good.
15:32
Speaker 1: As of October two thousand and eight, the conservatorship of
15:35
Speaker 1: her person in her estate were legally permanent, permanent control,
15:39
Speaker 1: permanent paranoia, a permanent nightmare. Brittany wasn't the ringleader of
15:45
Speaker 1: this circus after all, She led out a shaky sigh
15:48
Speaker 1: and surrendered. Members of her row crew escorted Brittany back
15:52
Speaker 1: to her designated spot under the stage, and then they
15:55
Speaker 1: dismissed her wardrobe assistant. She had seen too much. She
15:59
Speaker 1: always saw too much, Like the way Brittany picked like
16:02
Speaker 1: a teenager with her father Jamie, over how often she
16:04
Speaker 1: could use her cell phone, how she couldn't have sushi
16:07
Speaker 1: for dinner too nets in a row because it was
16:09
Speaker 1: deemed too expensive. How she has denied new shoes at
16:12
Speaker 1: the mall for the same reason. For the record, they
16:14
Speaker 1: were a pair of sketchers. As Britney's permanent conservator, Jamie
16:18
Speaker 1: now exercised more power than ever, the power to cancel
16:22
Speaker 1: all her credit cards to pursue new professional opportunities for
16:25
Speaker 1: Britney as long as Britney's medical team approved. Brittany, on
16:29
Speaker 1: the other hand, didn't have the right to approve Jack
16:32
Speaker 1: if her medical team Okaya considered the contract signed. Brittany
16:36
Speaker 1: never bought Jamie that boat, but she did buy him
16:38
Speaker 1: a new car under lease with her money against her will,
16:42
Speaker 1: of course, because Brittany no longer had any direct access
16:45
Speaker 1: to her finances, If Brittany desired anything, it had to
16:48
Speaker 1: be approved first, clothes, food, anything, everything that she so
16:53
Speaker 1: much as wanted one hundred dollars to purchase new books
16:55
Speaker 1: for her sons, she had a call and asked for it.
16:58
Speaker 1: It could be days before she heard back with an answer.
17:00
Speaker 1: The days for a mere one hundred dollars for books.
17:05
Speaker 1: For all this taxing work, Jamie Brittany's dad had Brittany
17:09
Speaker 1: caught him a sixteen thousand dollars paycheck every month straight
17:13
Speaker 1: from Britney's bank account. He named his own price, of course,
17:17
Speaker 1: and in return, he limited Britney's allowance of her own
17:20
Speaker 1: money to eight thousand dollars a month, half of what
17:23
Speaker 1: he paid himself. If anything was causing the Spears estate
17:26
Speaker 1: to dwindle, it was Jamie's pricey paydays, not California rolls
17:30
Speaker 1: two nights in a row. But the circus tour kept
17:33
Speaker 1: the cash flow consistent. After Jamie milk Britney's stamina for
17:37
Speaker 1: seventy tour dates worldwide, she returned home to California for
17:41
Speaker 1: so much needed R and R, which would be easy
17:44
Speaker 1: since Brittany was allowed to do little more than sing,
17:46
Speaker 1: dance and earn revenue. No more days of Sam Lefty
17:50
Speaker 1: inviting paparazzi inside of the house. If anyone visited her home,
17:54
Speaker 1: Jamie knew about it. If Brittany wanted to take a
17:57
Speaker 1: spin around the gated community on a golf cart with
17:59
Speaker 1: her boyfriend friend, Jamie knew about that too. Even leaving
18:02
Speaker 1: the neighborhood for a quick bite to eat required a
18:04
Speaker 1: phone call for permission. It could be minutes until Brittany
18:07
Speaker 1: got a call back. It could be hours. And if
18:10
Speaker 1: you were craving that Hamburger right now, well, tough shit.
18:13
Speaker 1: You probably couldn't afford it anyways, right. Brittany was used
18:16
Speaker 1: to life under a microscope on the street, at least
18:19
Speaker 1: not in her own house. Her reality had flipped inside
18:22
Speaker 1: out before the conservators ship. Her home was the only
18:25
Speaker 1: place where she could safely slip under the radar. Now,
18:28
Speaker 1: Brittany never left Jamie's radar. He hired a security team
18:32
Speaker 1: that made sure of it. Brittany knew that when security
18:35
Speaker 1: showed up every day with pills and an envelope, she
18:37
Speaker 1: had to take them immediately, right then and there, with
18:40
Speaker 1: the guard watching same routine every day. What she didn't
18:44
Speaker 1: know was that the same guards could view her texts, photos,
18:47
Speaker 1: and phone call history. All they had to do is
18:50
Speaker 1: log into an iPad with the same eye Cloud name
18:52
Speaker 1: and password as Britney's phone, and boom, they had a
18:55
Speaker 1: replica of her digital life in real time. She didn't
18:58
Speaker 1: know they were ordered to encrypt certain text messages and
19:00
Speaker 1: passed them along to Jamie in secret. Either. The grossest
19:04
Speaker 1: surveillance sin of them all came when the security team
19:07
Speaker 1: hit a recording device and used it to capture more
19:10
Speaker 1: than one hundred and eighty hours of audio without her
19:13
Speaker 1: knowledge in her bedroom. Not all that different from someone
19:17
Speaker 1: asking if your a version or if your breasts are real? Visit.
19:22
Speaker 1: When Brittany was a child and things got rough at home,
19:24
Speaker 1: at least she could run to her on trailer. Now
19:26
Speaker 1: she couldn't even leave the house without her father knowing
19:29
Speaker 1: precisely where she was headed. With extensive means of keeping
19:32
Speaker 1: tabs on, her circus had enticed the masses once again,
19:37
Speaker 1: and so at feed Fatal for twenty eleven album that
19:40
Speaker 1: produced Holded It Against Me, Britney's fourth career number one
19:43
Speaker 1: single on the Hot one hundred. It also marked a
19:46
Speaker 1: momentous occasion in her career Brittany now had number one
19:50
Speaker 1: singles in three different decades. Her fame was on a
19:53
Speaker 1: rebound ricocheting offered tabloid rock Bottom earrow of two thousand
19:57
Speaker 1: and six to two thousand and eight. But Brittany now
20:00
Speaker 1: dwelled in a different rock Bottom, and this one didn't
20:03
Speaker 1: allow her any room to mess up so much as
20:05
Speaker 1: Inhalo with We by Accident. Painfully ironic considering her dad
20:09
Speaker 1: Jamie's liquor laiden past, but Brittany endurted begrudgingly strictly as
20:15
Speaker 1: a mother who loved her sons. She knew they were
20:17
Speaker 1: the only things still worth fighting for. But she also
20:21
Speaker 1: knew they'd given the choice between living like this or
20:23
Speaker 1: a life inside or a special road case, She'd pick
20:27
Speaker 1: the road case. We'll be right back after this word
20:34
Speaker 1: were were. Britney Spears couldn't believe what she was hearing
20:43
Speaker 1: from her spot on her therapist plush sofa. It sounded
20:47
Speaker 1: like a dream, like nothing was real, because nothing Doctor
20:51
Speaker 1: Benson was saying was real. It was all eyes rotten
20:55
Speaker 1: bullshit piped in from wildly unreliable sources who loved to
21:00
Speaker 1: stack the odds against her. Doctor Benson gobbled it up.
21:04
Speaker 1: He received quite a few calls in the past few days,
21:07
Speaker 1: He explained, agitated ones. Calls from folks claiming that Brittany
21:11
Speaker 1: wasn't taking her medication, that she wasn't cooperating to everyone's
21:14
Speaker 1: level of satisfaction during dance rehearsals. Bullshit. She cooperated just fine.
21:19
Speaker 1: She led those rehearsals, for fock's sake, led all sixteen dancers. Actually,
21:24
Speaker 1: the dance studio was the one room in her life
21:26
Speaker 1: where she could lead. Brittany knew what this was really about.
21:30
Speaker 1: This was about Las Vegas, about saying no to a
21:33
Speaker 1: second residency, because somehow two hundred and forty eight shows
21:37
Speaker 1: that the Axis Theater just hadn't been enough for Jamie Spears.
21:41
Speaker 1: Britney's Fame Piece of Me review deposited three hundred and
21:45
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars in the bank, and for each concert
21:47
Speaker 1: almost a million dollars a week for five years straight,
21:51
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty seven point seven million dollars in
21:53
Speaker 1: box office sales total. Jamie took home one point five
21:56
Speaker 1: percent of that fortune, along with a cut of Britney's
21:59
Speaker 1: merchandise sales. That's two point one million dollars. If you're
22:03
Speaker 1: counting in addition to his monthly salary of sixteen grand.
22:06
Speaker 1: Crunched the numbers, and over those five years, Jamie Spears
22:09
Speaker 1: raked in more than three million dollars skimmed off the
22:12
Speaker 1: top of Britney's payday. Of course, but Jamie wanted more.
22:16
Speaker 1: His entire team wanted more, and they had the legal
22:19
Speaker 1: weaponry to insure it. Britney's co conservator, Andrew Wallatt again
22:23
Speaker 1: that's the guy's real name, submitted a document praising Britney's
22:26
Speaker 1: lucrative career under the conservatorship and called their arrangement a
22:29
Speaker 1: quote unquote hybrid business model. In that same paperwork, he
22:33
Speaker 1: also happened to sneak in a request for a raise.
22:36
Speaker 1: Convenient Conservative ships were supposed to work for the Conservative
22:40
Speaker 1: for the vulnerable party, but these days it seemed like
22:43
Speaker 1: Britney was working for Jamie. And because Jamie could agree
22:47
Speaker 1: to business opportunities on Britney's behalf, he kept that sweet,
22:50
Speaker 1: sweet cash coming in. Regardless of what Brittany had to say,
22:54
Speaker 1: not that she ever got the chance to say it.
22:57
Speaker 1: No one asked her if she needed to rehearse and
22:59
Speaker 1: perform on her birthday. Too bad if she had a
23:02
Speaker 1: fever of one hundred and two directly before performance, too bad,
23:05
Speaker 1: And if she was forced to perform a mini tour
23:07
Speaker 1: directly after two hundred and forty eight shows and she
23:10
Speaker 1: was tired, well, tough darts pout tart uranity. They called
23:17
Speaker 1: it the Piece of Me Tour, a hastily branded extension
23:20
Speaker 1: of Britney's residency. The tour was set to jet from
23:23
Speaker 1: the US to Europe over thirty dates, bringing some Vegas
23:26
Speaker 1: vava vun to the fat wallets who couldn't make it
23:28
Speaker 1: to Nevada. Legally, Brittany couldn't even shoot the dates down.
23:33
Speaker 1: Her current management contract locked in her performance obligations. If
23:37
Speaker 1: Brittany were to back out, her own management team could
23:39
Speaker 1: sue her. So she took the Pice of Me Residency
23:42
Speaker 1: on the road and performed until there were no more
23:44
Speaker 1: pieces of herself left to give away. The tour ended
23:47
Speaker 1: on October twenty first, twenty eighteen. The second Las Vegas
23:51
Speaker 1: residency was announced October twelfth, nine days earlier. They literally
23:56
Speaker 1: announced it before Brittany could wrap up her first set
23:58
Speaker 1: of shows for rest in between residencies or family time
24:03
Speaker 1: or health time of Grower family. By twenty nineteen. Britain
24:07
Speaker 1: was eager to bring more children into the Spear's household,
24:09
Speaker 1: but Jamie refused to let her see a doctor who
24:12
Speaker 1: could remove her iud. Jamie's control went that deep it
24:17
Speaker 1: spread to the most intimate parts of her body. The
24:20
Speaker 1: only thing drowning out the maternal tic tick boom in
24:22
Speaker 1: her mind was the rhythm of her razor sharp dance moves.
24:26
Speaker 1: Britney's body was long past the brink of exhaustion. She
24:30
Speaker 1: needed a breather, a fucking break to get out of
24:33
Speaker 1: the zone for a while before her limbs straight up
24:35
Speaker 1: fell off her body. But Vegas was heating up again.
24:39
Speaker 1: Lady Gaga relocated her ludicrous pop to the strip. Bruno
24:43
Speaker 1: mars A swath singing broad in the Big Bucks with
24:45
Speaker 1: his residency over at the Park Theater, Calvin Harris and
24:48
Speaker 1: the Chainsmoker's DJ through evenings of debauchery under million dollar
24:52
Speaker 1: contracts with nightclubs. The Las Vegas residencies weren't just a
24:56
Speaker 1: sad cash grab for has been so were too old
24:58
Speaker 1: to tour anymore longer a gig where old stars rot
25:02
Speaker 1: alongside the outdated hotels, paint peeling from their facade of
25:05
Speaker 1: old grandeur wants, the gleaming highlights of American pop culture,
25:09
Speaker 1: and now unkempt and underwhelming. No, Las Vegas was new again,
25:15
Speaker 1: and the desert was hot, so Britney's presence there had
25:18
Speaker 1: to stay hot too. News of her second residency rock
25:22
Speaker 1: the pop community. Flashy new billboards graced the sleeves of
25:25
Speaker 1: the strip. Another concept came into focus, Brittany domination. Maybe
25:31
Speaker 1: the name was the final straw domination more like dominated.
25:36
Speaker 1: Britney was sick of the submission. Brittany said no to
25:39
Speaker 1: the name, to the residency, to the endless work without
25:42
Speaker 1: adequate rest. She said no to all of it. One
25:45
Speaker 1: little word, two little letters, one massive source of trouble.
25:51
Speaker 1: Someone or something had to quiet that trouble. Britney's therapists
25:56
Speaker 1: chose lithium. Then things in Britney's world to a halt,
26:04
Speaker 1: and her legs hurt like hell. She stretched them from
26:08
Speaker 1: the discomfort of the feign bed she was tucked into.
26:11
Speaker 1: She couldn't dance anymore, not here, and they wouldn't let her.
26:15
Speaker 1: For Brittany. They once met her father and the legal
26:17
Speaker 1: team beyond the conservatorship, but in recent weeks they had
26:21
Speaker 1: swelled to include even more people, specifically the nurses of
26:24
Speaker 1: the mental health facility where she was currently living. But
26:27
Speaker 1: despite their constant presence, no one at the facility could
26:30
Speaker 1: adequately explain why she was here. Britney traced the events
26:34
Speaker 1: again in her mind. She said no to the residency,
26:37
Speaker 1: and the doctor put her on lithium and ripped her
26:39
Speaker 1: from the comfort of her regular medications. She devolved into
26:42
Speaker 1: a sleepy, slurring mess. She apparently failed a mental health
26:46
Speaker 1: test that she didn't even understand, and now she was
26:49
Speaker 1: here in a small facility in Beverly Hills for rehab.
26:53
Speaker 1: Rehab for what exactly. She was squeaky clean in every way,
26:57
Speaker 1: as she looked drunk all at the time. It was
26:58
Speaker 1: only because they were pumpeder full of lithium every day
27:01
Speaker 1: that kept her in a stupor, and the only benefit
27:04
Speaker 1: of the lithium loopiness was that it took the edge
27:06
Speaker 1: off her extreme lack of privacy. Nurses watched Brittany just
27:09
Speaker 1: like the paparazzi used to, except they were by her
27:12
Speaker 1: side at her new home twenty four hours a day.
27:15
Speaker 1: They watched her change fuck naked every morning. They peered
27:18
Speaker 1: at her from the hallways right through the empty doorframe
27:20
Speaker 1: to Britney's room where the doors should have been stretching
27:23
Speaker 1: her limbs in a rehearsal studio is obviously off the table.
27:27
Speaker 1: Brittany couldn't dance, but she could sure work long days
27:31
Speaker 1: eight am to six pm every day, no weekends off.
27:35
Speaker 1: Brittany didn't even know how that was legal. She might
27:38
Speaker 1: not have been performing anymore, but her body slumped into
27:41
Speaker 1: a new kind of exhaustion, her joints ached from sitting
27:44
Speaker 1: through meetings ten hours a day, seven days a week.
27:47
Speaker 1: Her schedule was new, but her dad Jamie, in the
27:49
Speaker 1: rehab facility, dangled the same damn carrot in front of her.
27:53
Speaker 1: Misbehave and you'll be missing your children, your honky boyfriend too.
27:57
Speaker 1: So Britney obeyed Miss American dreams since she was seventeen.
28:01
Speaker 1: Now lived a nine to five nightmare. And for this
28:07
Speaker 1: grand luxury of working ten hour days, seven days a week,
28:11
Speaker 1: Britney paid sixty thousand dollars every month, sixty thousand dollars
28:15
Speaker 1: to be in a rehabilitation program when there was nothing
28:18
Speaker 1: to rehabilitate except perhaps or perceived disobedience. As one final
28:23
Speaker 1: blow to Britney's freedom, Britty didn't even have a phone.
28:27
Speaker 1: That's where Jamie Spears and the rest of the Unnecessary
28:30
Speaker 1: team messed up. Because if Britney didn't ever phone, she
28:34
Speaker 1: couldn't post to social media, and her Instagram and Twitter
28:37
Speaker 1: accounts went radio silent for months. Fans noticed, and they talked, posted,
28:44
Speaker 1: stirred up new conversations about the conservatorship, relearned what the
28:48
Speaker 1: hell of conservatorship was. They learned a little empathy too,
28:52
Speaker 1: something that was lacking in the ravenous tabloid culture of
28:55
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. In two thousand and eight, the
28:57
Speaker 1: news exploded. Wait, servertorship was still a thing. Fans retweeted
29:03
Speaker 1: every article, they theorized, started podcasts, made YouTube videos, They
29:07
Speaker 1: made a hashtag too free Brittany, and then they started
29:12
Speaker 1: a movement. The Private Investigator was lucky. The chant was
29:35
Speaker 1: so simple, What do we want free Brittany? When do
29:39
Speaker 1: we want it now? The p I yelled, along with
29:43
Speaker 1: the small circus of fans gathered on the street. She
29:46
Speaker 1: marched in step with the real protesters, who carried signs
29:49
Speaker 1: that read Brittany is not your slave and free Brittany, bitch.
29:53
Speaker 1: The mole might not have had a pithy slogan to
29:55
Speaker 1: parade around, but she had the fangirl look down to
29:58
Speaker 1: a science pink sunglass, an old Circus tour T shirt
30:02
Speaker 1: and fishnets layered under short shorts. She wasn't there to
30:05
Speaker 1: spread awareness. She was there to collect information and chat
30:09
Speaker 1: it up with the fans. Hear what they were saying.
30:11
Speaker 1: Which aspects of the conservatives ship they were bringing up
30:14
Speaker 1: id them, which was easy if you swapped a few
30:17
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter follows. She played the role of advocate
30:21
Speaker 1: for hours, but when the megaphone finally went silent, the
30:24
Speaker 1: PI went home and fed all the information directly to
30:27
Speaker 1: Britney Spears's dad, Jamie. Jamie claimed the secret research was
30:31
Speaker 1: conducted for Britney's own protection against the so called conspiracy theorists.
30:36
Speaker 1: It was, of course, for his own protection instead, what
30:40
Speaker 1: do these people want? Anyways? As far as Jamie was concerned,
30:43
Speaker 1: fans had won their battle. Jamie stepped down as the
30:46
Speaker 1: conservatorship of Britney's person in twenty nineteen. Problem solved, except
30:52
Speaker 1: he remained a conservator of her estate. Problem not solved.
30:56
Speaker 1: The conspiracy theorist, Jamie bitched about, weren't onto a conspiracy
30:59
Speaker 1: at all. They just called together the Truth in Detail,
31:02
Speaker 1: and Britney's silence on social media in twenty nineteen was
31:06
Speaker 1: their tip off. Just over a year later, a petition
31:08
Speaker 1: to release Brittany for the Conservatorship and netted over one
31:11
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty four thousand signatures. The media was throwing
31:15
Speaker 1: around the word crazy and Britney spears in the same
31:17
Speaker 1: sentence again, But unlike two thousand and eight, it wasn't
31:20
Speaker 1: that Brittany was crazy. It was that Brittany had been
31:23
Speaker 1: locked in a troubling situation for more than a decade now,
31:26
Speaker 1: and that was bona fide, bad shit crazy. Jamie resorted
31:32
Speaker 1: to costly damage control and hired lawyers to advocate for
31:35
Speaker 1: the Conservatorship to news channels. Through on air interviews. They
31:39
Speaker 1: casually told newscasters about the supposedly great help the Conservatorship
31:43
Speaker 1: offered Brittany. The combined cost of all those lawyers good
31:46
Speaker 1: faith was five hundred and thirty thousand dollars, and they
31:49
Speaker 1: sent the build of Brittany. Of course, she literally forked
31:52
Speaker 1: over half a million dollars for attorneys to work against
31:55
Speaker 1: her best interests. Jamie even arranged a special natural photo
32:00
Speaker 1: opportunity for the paparazzi. He made Brittany leave a public
32:03
Speaker 1: building without security alongside her boyfriend to show just how
32:06
Speaker 1: free and normal her life was. Jamie could call the news,
32:10
Speaker 1: and he could call the courts, but for once, what
32:13
Speaker 1: he couldn't control was his daughter's own voice, because in
32:17
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, the court granted her permission to speak
32:20
Speaker 1: the next hearing. That's right, up until this point, Britney
32:25
Speaker 1: Spears herself was never a part of any of these conversations.
32:29
Speaker 1: An attorney had a request that she'd be able to speak.
32:34
Speaker 1: June twenty third, twenty twenty one, Brittany dialed in to
32:38
Speaker 1: make the phone call that would change her life. Everyone
32:42
Speaker 1: in the courtroom held their breath, and no papers rustled,
32:45
Speaker 1: no pens clicked, and the news outlets swarming outside and
32:48
Speaker 1: patiently pressed their earpieces waiting for the scoop. Fans gathered
32:52
Speaker 1: around phones waiting for their Twitter update. For once, the
32:55
Speaker 1: world paused their pop playlists and listened to what Brittany
32:58
Speaker 1: had to say about her well being, a courtesy offered
33:00
Speaker 1: over a decade too late, but better late than never.
33:04
Speaker 1: Brittany found her written speech, and then she spilled it
33:08
Speaker 1: all the lithium, the lack of privacy, the IUD stuck
33:12
Speaker 1: inside her, the ten hour workdays, the carrot dangling in
33:16
Speaker 1: front of her children, and her maternal will to do
33:18
Speaker 1: anything to see them used to manipulate her into submission.
33:22
Speaker 1: Every detail sounded another alarm, raised another red flag about
33:26
Speaker 1: her arrangement. But what shocked the court the most was
33:30
Speaker 1: Britney's polished presentation. She was lucid, just as lucid as
33:34
Speaker 1: she had been in two thousand and eight, thirteen years ago,
33:37
Speaker 1: when she politely requested a different conservator from her father
33:40
Speaker 1: audit afternoon. When Brittany had every right to scream and shout,
33:43
Speaker 1: she calmly stated her case. This was a person who
33:47
Speaker 1: was capable of speaking for herself, of understanding just what
33:50
Speaker 1: she was being subject to. Within a month of the hearing,
33:54
Speaker 1: the court finally permitted Brittany to choose her own lawyer.
33:57
Speaker 1: She hired Matthew Rosengard, Hollywood's litigated of choice for celebrities
34:01
Speaker 1: and major corporations. Matthew came to court with guns blazing.
34:06
Speaker 1: He brought a petition to remove Jamie from the Conservative ship.
34:09
Speaker 1: He brought documented proof that Britney's medical team supported a
34:12
Speaker 1: removal of Jamie. The most or least surprising of all,
34:16
Speaker 1: he brought paperwork accusing Jamie of extortion, claiming Jamie straight
34:20
Speaker 1: up asked Brittany for an additional two million dollars for
34:23
Speaker 1: him to leave the Conservative Ship. It was over. Jamie
34:28
Speaker 1: raised his white flag and packed the last of his
34:30
Speaker 1: monthly sixteen thousand dollars paychecks into his suitcase. On September
34:35
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, twenty twenty one, a judge suspended Jamie for
34:38
Speaker 1: the Conservatorship. Two months later, they suspended the Conservative Ship entirely.
34:44
Speaker 1: On November twelve, twenty twenty one, the court stated that
34:47
Speaker 1: after thirteen years, the Conservative Ship was no longer required
34:52
Speaker 1: funny phrasing when you considered that such a disgraceful order
34:56
Speaker 1: was probably never required in the first place. I'm Jake Brennan,
35:02
Speaker 1: and this is Disgraceland.
35:23
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35:26
Speaker 2: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
35:30
Speaker 2: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
35:33
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