How did the Free Britney movement help end Spears’s conservatorship?

Britney Spears has used her Instagram & Twitter accounts to thank her fans who were involved in the #FreeBritney movement. She credited them for helping her battle with her conservatorship get to where it is today. As of a court hearing last week, Spears’s father, James Spears, is no longer one of her conservators. In Spears’s heartfelt post, she said she cried for hours the night before out of gratitude. 

Since making a statement in a court hearing this summer, Spears has been much more open in addressing her conservatorship. For years, fans involved with the #FreeBritney movement watched her Instagram posts carefully, leaving messages of support & love for the singer. It wasn’t until she finally spoke out in court that Spears started to really open up about her unhappiness under the conservatorship. 

Even before Spears had spoken publicly about her situation, fans had begun to suspect that something wasn’t right. They put the pieces together behind what wasn’t being said, and began campaigning to free Britney from her conservatorship & her father’s control. Since she started speaking out, Spears has expressed gratitude towards her fans who have stood up for her, but never quite like she did on Monday. 

Conservatorship battle

All the way back in 2008, Spears was placed under a conservatorship with no end date in sight. For the last thirteen years, Spears’s father has been her conservator, giving him control over her estate & her person. Over the years, Spears hasn’t said much about the conservatorship or how she feels about it. 

When promoting albums Circus & Glory, Spears alluded to the lack of freedoms she had under the conservatorship, but didn’t go into specifics. A red flag to fans was that throughout the conservatorship, Spears has continued to work. Typically, a person who can support themselves & others financially doesn’t qualify for a conservatorship. We now know that Spears was being forced to work to pay others. 

In 2020, Spears told the court that she had no wish to perform until she was free of her father’s control. On June 23 of this year, Spears addressed the court in a lengthy statement. She detailed the abuses she experienced under the conservatorship, and the ways in which she was coerced & controlled. She spoke about being forced to work against her will & being put on lithium when she refused. 

Soon after, Spears hired Matthew Rosengart as her attorney. Rosengart was more aggressive in his filings to have Spears’s father removed as a conservator, which many believe is the first step to having the conservatorship dissolved altogether. Spears seemed to acknowledge this in her post, saying that her life is now headed in the direction of being free from conservatorship altogether. 

The #FreeBritney movement

The #FreeBritney movement is made up of fans who did their research long before the rest of the world caught up on the Britney Spears conservatorship saga. Many have cited concerns due to Spears being a working mother & yet still being under the control of others who profit from their position of power over her life. The love & concern from these fans launched a movement that has gone on almost as long as the conservatorship.

With how much Spears has worked over the past thirteen years, the #FreeBritney movement was also concerned with how much choice she had in the matter. This led to many podcasts, blogs, and social media posts raising awareness of their concerns & publicly investigating the situation themselves. 

The #FreeBritney movement has applied pressure that may have influenced the results Spears is seeing in court today. With organized protests outside of court hearings & online, Spears’s fans have been extremely diligent in their efforts to make their voices (and Spears’s) heard. 

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Do you think Spears’s battle with her conservatorship would be where it is today without the public support? Let us know!