Britney Spears, Free from the Conservatorship, but Not from the Public Eye

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Politics, Washington, News, Obama, Wnyc, President, Lizza, Barack, Wickenden

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This month, Britney Spears was released from the conservatorship that had overseen her finances, communications, and professional and personal life for more than thirteen years. The details of the arrangement were shrouded in mystery and poorly covered by the media. But over the past two years, things started to change, as the #FreeBritney movement, as it was known, increasingly advocated for her autonomy, publicizing such restrictions as Spears’s inability to choose her own lawyer. Journalists and documentarians began to look into such abuses, and chronicled Spears’s attempts to get out from under the conservatorship’s control. In September, Spears’s father, Jamie, was removed, and this month the conservatorship was dissolved. Jia Tolentino, a New Yorker staff writer, joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss how the media shaped Spears’s life and the role of online movements in effecting change.

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1:12.2	This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about
1:17.2	politics. It's Thursday, November 18th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker.
1:23.7	Oh! Yorker. On November 12th, Brittany Spears was released from the conservatorship that had
1:43.7	overseen her finances,
1:45.7	communications, and professional and personal life for more than 13 years.
1:51.9	Conservatorships are often put in place to manage the affairs of the elderly or infirm,
1:57.4	but Spears in that time has released albums, played a world tour, and headlined a four-year
2:03.3	residency in Las Vegas.
2:05.7	The details of the conservatorship were shrouded in mystery and poorly covered by the media,
2:11.9	the same media that had once documented Spears' every move.
	...

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