Who doesn’t know the famous Britney Jean Spears! If you’re wondering she’s a very renowned public figure, an amazing American singer, songwriter, dancer as well as actress. She created a very vast influence on the teen pop in the late 1990s and early 2000, for which she is known as the ‘princess of pop’. She appeared in stage production as well as television series, but two ultimate songs- baby one more time (1999) and ooops! I did it again (2000)- this particular song is very much trending everywhere at this time, became the two most best selling teenage album of all time, making her the best selling teenage artist of all time. She has also earned enormous number of awards in her lifetime, including Grammy award, fifteen Guinness world records and many more.
But she in her personal life is facing some major issues due to which her longtime fans are demanding to #FreeBritney. The hashtag is trending on all social media platforms recently. It’s very heartwarming to know that this powerful “womanizer” singer doesn’t have full control of her life. Britney has been under a conservatorship helmed by her father, James Spears, since her infamous breakdown twelve years ago, which majorly resulted in hospitalization and rehab.
Now what is conservatorship? Conservatorship under U.S law is the appointment of a guardian or a protector by a judge to manage the financial affairs or daily life of another person due to old age or physical or mental limitation. The same thing happened in Britney’s life with her father, where he took control over her finances due to her mental breakdown. Everything started in 2008 itself but in present time things came into limelight. Britney really haven’t done anything wrong to be put into conservatorship, she was doing her thing. Celebrities these days go through all kind of problematic things and are also sometimes not treated the right way and same way Britney life has also some dark stuff that are happening and her fans and general public weren’t aware of. She was suffering throughout the years but all of it came bubbling out in the surface with the movement called #FreeBritney.
Britney has suffered from mental breakdown throughout many years and has also been publicly slammed. Even through all of that she had a mind-blowing and successful career. Her father who is at hold for the conservatorship, is taking full control of her life, starting from her finance, health, business deals along with personal life due to which some things were never in her favor and completely went against her. As a human being her most valuable human rights and liberty has come to stake and question mark. But everything that the woman was suffering didn’t go unnoticed by her fans. Many believed the conservatorship was kind of a prison for Britney, which led to free Britney movement. A website was also launched called freebritney.net in 2009, which carried a long statement which talked about how Britney does not need conservatorship. Although she was making albums but legally she was not her own person, she needs permission before doing anything.
There happened many protests along with celebrities talking in support of her. She also responded to comments where her fans asked her to wear yellow, if she needed any help. The movement gained more momentum because of an episode of the Britney’s Gram podcast, where an anonymous lawyer, part of the firms the conservatorship, expressed concern about her and raised lots of questions of the people taking all control over her. She doesn’t want her father to be her conservator and in November 2020, she was in a court battle to remove her father from the post of conservator but the Los Angeles court rejected her proposal. Again in February 2021, released New York Times documentary ‘framing Britney spears’, which particularly showcased major behind the scenes of the talked about life. After all the ups and downs of her life, in June 23, 2021, she finally dared to open up and speak freely about her sufferings in her last years.
Overall, Britney deserves her own right as she is a human being and has worked hard to deserve the respect and fame from all over. Whatever is happening is not correct and she should definitely get justice. Her rights should be granted and she should live her life according to her will. She has suffered enough in her lifetime and now should be set free.
Visual by: Pallab Neog
Article by Plabita Chakraborty, The North-Eastern Chronicle
