Britney Spears has posted — and deleted — an unsettling video to her YouTube account about her 13-year-long conservatorship.
The singer very unexpectedly uploaded the 22-minute-long clip on Sunday afternoon, detailing some of the emotional revelations from her time under the long, challenging legal guidance. It wasn’t up for long, though; she quickly removed it hours later. USA TODAY reported she also briefly posted a teaser of the video to her Twitter account, where she has been more active since scrapping Instagram days ago.
Related: OMG You Have To Hear Britney Spears’ Impression Of Elton John!
In the YT clip, Britney explained she’s been consumed with thoughts of the aggressive oversight that controlled her career and life for years. She said:
“I woke up this morning and I realized that there’s a lot going on in my head that I haven’t really shared with anyone really. I’m here honestly just to open myself to others and try to shed a light on — if anyone out there has ever gone through hardships — just to put a light on it so that person doesn’t feel alone because I really know what that feels like.”
And she recalled some of the lowest lows of her experience in the public eye, too. Although, she did claim running from paparazzi at the height of her fame was “one of the most fun things” about being a star:
“None of it made sense to me. I literally spoke in a British accent to a doctor to prescribe my medication, and three days later there was a SWAT team at my home (and) three helicopters. The extent of my madness was playing chase with paparazzi, which is still to this day one of the most fun things I ever did about being famous, so I don’t know what was so harmful about that.”
Interesting…
As for the conservatorship itself, Spears alleged it was “premeditated” by her family. Referencing her father, Jamie Spears, the Baby One More Time singer claimed he made it happen with the help of her mother Lynne Spears after a suggestion from an unnamed woman:
“A woman introduced the idea to my dad, and my mom actually helped him follow through and made it all happen. There (were) no drugs in my system, no alcohol, nothing — it was pure abuse.”
She recalled her father’s aggressive authority over her life in her young career:
“The main thing I do remember when I first started was my dad’s control. He loved to control every thing I did. I remember the first day he said, ‘I’m Britney Spears and I’m calling the shots’ and I’m like, ‘Alrighty then.’ My brother [Bryan] was a football player and my dad was really, really hard on him when he was younger, really abusive. I think when my mom gave him the idea for the conservatorship and his friend, I think he just really like regrouped it and made such a really, really overhauling big deal out of it and it was just really too much. I remember him always being in the office and my girlfriend was his assistant, and they would just stay in there all day with the door shut and I was never, ever able to leave her go anywhere.”
Of course, Spears released four studio albums throughout her time under conservatorship. She also helmed a residency in Las Vegas from late 2013 to late 2017. Recalling that period in her musical life as being “horrible,” Spears said:
“All I do remember is I had to do what I was told. I never remember feeling so demoralized, and they made me feel like nothing. And I went along with it because I was scared and fearful.”
She also shuddered at the quality of her performances and shows during that time:
“I was just like a robot honestly. I just didn’t give a f**k anymore because I couldn’t go where I wanted to go, I couldn’t have the nannies that I wanted to have, I couldn’t have cash, and it was just demoralizing. So, I was kind of in this conspiracy of people claiming and treating you like a superstar, but yet they treated me like nothing.”
Wow…
The Toxic singer remembered the end of her residency, too. She explained how things came to a head when she turned down a dance move suggested by a producer for a tour:
“So the last show in Vegas ended 20, I think, 17. I went on tour which is a tour I was forced to do but I was supposed to do a new show. So the new show came along, I think maybe four days a week. I don’t really remember. But I went to one rehearsal and I said no to a dance and it was like ‘No can we do that? I want to do this.’ And then I just remember everything got really weird and quiet and all the directors and producers went in the back room and just spoke. And that was it. And I was like well, I don’t know what’s going on.”
The very next day, Britney alleged, she was locked away against her will:
“The next day, I was told that I was had to be sent away to a facility and that I was supposed to say on my Instagram the reason why is because my dad is sick, and I need treatment which was, I didn’t want to go ever go there. I remember my dad calling me on the phone and I was crying. And I was like, ‘Why are you guys doing this? Like what?’ And I just remember him saying ‘It’s, you have to listen to the doctors, the doctors are going to tell you what to do, I can’t help you now.’ And I remember his last words were, ‘Now you don’t have to go. But if you don’t go, we’re going to go to court, and they’ll be a big trial, and you’re going to lose, I have way more people on my side than you. You don’t even have a lawyer. So they don’t even think.’ So I did it, I went to the place, I was scared out of my mind. And none of it again made any sense of what they were doing to me. And again, I haven’t wanted to share this because it’s unbelievably offensive, sad, abusive. And honestly, would anybody believe me?”
So awful!!
She then detailed how closely she was monitored while her family enjoyed a carefree beach life far away:
“I remember the main thing of when I was in that place that my heart felt like it was frozen, like it was stuck inside. I wanted to scream and I wanted to get out. And I think by a needle and thread, it was the breathing peacefully inward that I missed the most. I felt like I was in a state of shock. Almost like when an old person feels helpless, and they’re literally going through some sort of shock treatment and they can’t relax the body because they don’t have the answers of why they can’t have the own keys to their car and put it in the ignition and walk outside and their own security guards at every door saying they can’t go. Sitting down, drawing six galls of blood every week. Weak as hell. And then my family is in Destin, [Florida] at my beach house. It didn’t make sense.”
BTW, Britney later took to Twitter to clarify the “six galls” of blood comment, explaining she actually meant it was “6 small vials” of blood:
A reminder to some of you who may have gotten what I said confused … it was 6 small vials of blood not 6 gallons !!!
— Britney Spears ???????? (@britneyspears) August 29, 2022
Still…
Finally, the #FreeBritney movement’s success in the media forced the facility owner to release her, Britney claimed:
“He had to let me go because the #FreeBritney campaign came out with all the pink t-shirts. I saw it on a lot of the morning shows and people [spreading it] by word-of-mouth and just by my fans knowing by heart that something was up.”
The worst thing about the conservatorship for Britney, though, was her family’s complicity. Recalling her mother Lynne and little sis Jamie Lynn Spears‘ supposed ignorance to her plight, Britney stated:
“The whole thing that made it really confusing for me was these people are on the street fighting for me, but my sister and my mother aren’t doing anything. It was like they secretly honestly liked me being the bad one, like I was messed up. … Otherwise why weren’t they outside my doorstep saying, ‘Baby girl, get in the car, let’s go’? I couldn’t process how my family went along with it for so long, and their only response was, ‘We didn’t know.’ I’m like, ‘I’m on the phone telling you right now. I’m here. Please.'”
She went on:
“They threw me away. That’s what I felt like my family threw me away. I was performing for like thousands of people at night in Vegas, the rush of being a performer, the laughter the joy, the respect. I was shaking over 40 people’s hands every night before show, training weekly. Three training sessions a week, AA meetings, therapy sessions. My dad literally, I was a machine. I was a f**king machine. Not even human, almost. It was insane how hard I worked. And the one time I speak up and say no in rehearsals, to a f**king dance move, they got pissed.”
Circling back to Lynne, Britney spoke again about the anger she has for her mother’s role — or, lack of role — in the conservatorship situation. The pop star said:
“I’m honestly more angry at my mom because I heard when reporters would call her at the time and ask questions of what was going on. She would go innocently, innocently hide in the house and she wouldn’t speak up. It was always like ‘I don’t know what to say. I just don’t want to say the wrong thing. We’re praying for her.’ I feel like she could have gotten me a lawyer in literally two seconds, my friend helped me get one in the end. But I truly I every time I made contact with a firm, my phone was tapped, and they would take my phone away away from me.”
Britney also alluded to being offered to do tell-all interviews about her life with people like Oprah Winfrey. However, the singer says she’s not interested in revealing things that way — which makes sense considering Britney’s massive book deal on this very subject. She said:
“I get nothing out of sharing all of this I have offers to do interviews with Oprah and so many people, lots of lots of money, but it’s insane. I don’t want any of it. For me, it’s beyond a sit down proper interview. I had no contact in that place for so long and my heart would just want to stand up in my family’s faces and scream and cry and throw a tantrum and go back in time and do exactly what I wanted to do with those times. Yeah, and might even spit in their f**king faces. Why? Because the pain my family gave me, sitting me there all day and not being able to use my feet as they watch their grandchildren run bases to base in a famous family neighborhood, as if I’m dead, or I don’t exist, honestly makes me look up and say, ‘How the f*** did they get away with it? How is there a God? Is there a God?”
Ultimately, she tried to put a positive spin on at the end of the video. Spears referenced her new single with Elton John, saying:
“I was so so weak and my family’s at my beach house, I was scared broken. I’m sharing this because I want people to know I’m only human. I do feel victimized after these experiences and how can I mend this if I don’t talk about it? I have an amazing song right now with one of the most brilliant men of our time and I’m so grateful.”
Jeez. It’s a LOT. Reactions, Perezcious readers?
[Image via Britney Spears/Instagram/WENN/Avalon]
Related Posts
