Britney Spears Testifies Her Conservators Won’t Let Her Remove Her IUD As She Begs To Be Freed
“I don’t feel like I can live a full life.”
Tinseltown / Shutterstock During her heartbreaking testimony today, Britney Spears told a courtroom her conservators have refused to allow her to get married and try to have a baby.
The pop star spoke about her ongoing conservatorship for the first time at a status hearing.
Her testimony revealed that since the conservatorship was put in place in 2008, she has been unable to gain autonomy over her healthcare and reproductive rights.
This is despite having been made to perform for thousands in lucrative shows she did not want any part of, all while feeling like a “slave” to her father, Jamie Spears.
Britney Spears revealed she is not currently allowed to remove her IUD.
“I have an IUD in my body right now that won’t let me have a baby and my conservators won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out,” she told the court.
Spears expressed her desire to get married and have a third child, but said she feels her conservators have denied her the right to make choices about her life.
“I feel ganged up on. I feel bullied and I feel left out and alone.”
The conservatorship restricts Spears from making decisions about her own healthcare and appears to exert an unwarranted level of control over her body.
Hearing Spears’s own words for the first time, it is clear that the conservatorship has caused deep personal trauma in her life.
“I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive,” the singer said. “I don’t feel like I can live a full life.”
For 13 years, the singer’s life has been stunted and unable to progress without approval from her father who she says “loved the control he had over me.”
Spears says she was drugged with lithium and forced to perform.
Any argument to suggest that Spears’s conservators had her best interests at heart by refusing to allow her to remove her IUD is undermined by the conditions under which she has been working.
"I’ve lied and told the whole world I’m OK and I’m happy,” Spears said. “If I said that enough, maybe I’d become happy... I’m in shock. I’m traumatized... I’m so angry it’s insane.”
Spears says she felt “forced” to work, earning wealth for her $60 million estate that is controlled by her father and a team of guardians.
“I shouldn’t be in a conservatorship if I can work. The laws need to change,” she said.
Spears continuing to work and earn millions up until recently into question the necessity of a conservatorship that is designed as a last resort to protect those with serious disabilities or dementia.
Spears feels has been silenced by her conservatorship.
Stripping her of her ability to control her own body, the conservatorship has also indirectly stripped Spears of her voice.
The testimony was a rare opportunity to hear the singer in her own words and she expressed rage and frustration with a system that has oppressed her for so long.
Spears spoke of how she continues to tell the world she’s ok, despite feeling alone and traumatized behind closed doors.
The singer has been spoken for and about in documentaries, statements from her father, and an entire #FreeBritney movement.
But for the first time we understand the full depths of how her voice has been quashed by a system claiming to have her best interests at heart.
“It’s embarrassing and demoralizing what I’ve been through, and that’s the main reason I didn’t say it openly,” she said, “I didn’t think anybody would believe me.”
Alice Kelly is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Catch her covering all things social justice, news, and entertainment. Keep up with her on Twitter for more.