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      Amanda Bynes, Former Child Star, Is Released From Conservatorship

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      A judge in California freed the former Nickelodeon star from the arrangement that had governed her life after highly publicized struggles with substance abuse.A judge ruled on Tuesday to end the conservatorship that for the better part of a decade has governed the life of Amanda Bynes, who shot to fame as a child star on Nickelodeon and went on to have highly publicized struggles with substance abuse.A court in California first ordered that Ms. Bynes be put in a conservatorship — a legal arrangement typically reserved for people who are older, ailing or have disabilities — in 2013, after erratic public behavior and a series of arrests. Over the years, Ms. Bynes’s parents have overseen her life, taking control of medical and mental health decisions and, for a time, her finances.The conservatorship system has come under intense scrutiny in the last year, after Britney Spears condemned her own as abusive and accused her father and others of exploiting her and seeking to capitalize off her wealth and stardom. A judge agreed to terminate Spears’s conservatorship in November.But Ms. Bynes’s conservatorship appeared to reach a smoother ending. Her mother, Lynn Bynes, who had acted as her conservator, told the court that she agreed that her daughter was now ready to live without that level of oversight, and a psychiatrist signed off, writing that Ms. Bynes had “no apparent impairment in alertness and attention, information and processing, or ability to modulate mood and affect.” Ms. Bynes’s lawyer, David A. Esquibias, held her case up as an example of how a conservatorship could be effective in rehabilitating a person while allowing them a degree of autonomy.“For the most part, mom has allowed Amanda to live freely,” Mr. Esquibias said. “She never wanted to be conserved, but she understood why.”At Ventura County Superior Court on Tuesday, Judge Roger L. Lund granted Ms. Bynes’s request to terminate the conservatorship. “She’s done everything the court has asked over a long period of time,” Judge Lund said.Ms. Bynes, 35, gained prominence as a young cast member of “All That,” Nickelodeon’s “Saturday Night Live”-style show, before headlining her own sketch comedy program, “The Amanda Show,” which helped define the network’s goofy brand of non sequitur humor. Ms. Bynes then graduated to roles in mainstream romantic comedies including “She’s the Man” and “Easy A.”A series of run-ins with the law in 2012 and 2013 drew intense media coverage, as she was arrested and accused of driving under the influence, hit and run and possession of marijuana. Ms. Bynes was held involuntarily in a psychiatric hospital in 2013 after setting a small fire in a driveway, and was later ordered into a temporary conservatorship.In an interview with Paper Magazine in 2018, Ms. Bynes said, “I got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me.” She told the magazine that she had been sober for nearly four years.At a time of reassessment of how the media, the entertainment industry and the public have treated female celebrities going through mental health or substance abuse struggles — spurred in part by Ms. Spears’s case — Ms. Bynes offers another example of a young woman raised in the spotlight whose subsequent breakdown was breathlessly covered by tabloids.In recent years, Ms. Bynes’s life has stabilized, her lawyer said. She is now studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and lives in an apartment community for women “poised to transition into an autonomous lifestyle,” according to papers filed with the court last month that requested Ms. Bynes’s conservatorship be terminated.“Ms. Bynes desires to live free of any constraint,” the filing said.The former actress has said little publicly about the conservatorship, aside from a video posted to social media in which she took issue with the cost of her mental health treatment.Conservatorships, often called guardianships, have received a great deal of public interest as a result of Ms. Spears’s case, disability rights advocates say, and a bill in California making its way through the state legislature would make it easier for conservatorships to be terminated and would require courts and potential conservators to consider alternative options first.Judy Mark, the president of Disability Voices United, a nonprofit organization that is working to get the legislation passed, said that while she supports the termination of Ms. Spears’s and Ms. Bynes’s conservatorships, she is not seeing it getting easier for a more typical conservatee to assert their freedoms.“Not everyone has Instagram accounts with millions of followers and a fan base that cares about them,” Ms. Mark said. “Most people conserved are normal people with disabilities, and most courts are very paternalistic.”Ms. Bynes and her parents have long been preparing for the termination of the conservatorship to ensure a smooth transition, said Tamar Arminak, a lawyer for Ms. Bynes’s parents. (The conservatorship of Ms. Bynes’s estate was ended several years ago, leaving the conservatorship in charge of her person, which involved medical and basic life decisions.) The court’s ruling allows Ms. Bynes to make personal choices that she did not have before, such as getting married to her fiancé, Ms. Arminak said.“The moment that it was clear and apparent that Amanda would do well off this conservatorship we agreed to terminate this conservatorship,” she said. More

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      Stephen Sondheim Leaves Rights to His Works to a Trust

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      Stephen Sondheim left the rights to all of his work — including his contribution to musicals such as “Sweeney Todd” and “Into the Woods,” as well as any unfinished shows — to a trust that will manage his estate.The trust will now determine what happens to the acclaimed composer and lyricist’s intellectual property, as well as all other property that he left behind when he died last fall.The plan for handling Sondheim’s assets is described in a probate petition signed last month and filed with Sondheim’s will in New York Surrogate’s Court. The filings were previously reported by The New York Post.The probate petition says that the estimated value of Sondheim’s personal property at the time of his death was between $500,000 and $75 million, but three estate lawyers advised caution in interpreting those numbers, which they said are often rough estimates, and which would not reflect the value of any property Sondheim had placed in a trust during his lifetime.“$75 million is the estimated ceiling of the value of the assets that were in his name, which pass under the will to the Stephen J. Sondheim Revocable Trust,” T. Randolph Harris, a partner in the law firm McLaughlin & Stern, said when asked to help interpret the filings. “Although it is possible that his estate contains other assets not passing under the will, it appears likely that the $75 million in the probate document filed with the court constitutes the bulk of his estate.”Sondheim, who had spent much of the pandemic at his country house in Roxbury, Conn., died in Connecticut on Nov. 26. The cause of death, according to a death certificate, was cardiovascular disease.The court filings include two documents — a will, written in 2017 with the estate lawyer Loretta A. Ippolito, that leaves all of his property to the revocable trust, and a probate petition, put together by Sondheim’s longtime friend and lawyer F. Richard Pappas, that lists beneficiaries of that trust.Alison Besunder, an estate lawyer at Arden Besunder, said reliance on a revocable trust was a common estate planning technique. “Among other benefits, a revocable trust affords privacy to public figures and celebrities in the administration of their affairs,” she said.The beneficiaries of the trust include a number of prominent organizations: the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Irish Repertory Theater and the Dramatists Guild Fund; the Museum of the City of New York is listed as a “contingent beneficiary,” but the filing does not specify what the contingency is. The trust will also benefit a Stephen Sondheim Foundation, once that is created.A dozen individuals are also listed as beneficiaries, including friends, neighbors and former assistants. Among them: Sondheim’s husband, Jeff Romley, and one of Sondheim’s best-known collaborators, James Lapine. (Sondheim and Lapine shared a Pulitzer for writing “Sunday in the Park With George”; their other collaborations included the musicals “Into the Woods” and “Passion.”) Also listed as beneficiaries: Peter Jones, a playwright who was once romantically involved with Sondheim; Steven Clar, who was Sondheim’s assistant; Peter Wooster, a designer who lived in a small house on Sondheim’s Connecticut property; and Rob Girard, who is Wooster’s gardener.“The probate papers tell you who the beneficiaries are, but not who gets what, and that’s the point here,” said Andrew S. Auchincloss, an estate lawyer with Schlesinger Lazetera & Auchincloss. “It’s being kept private.” Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting. More

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      Judge Rules to End Britney Spears's Conservatorship

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      The pop star had called the arrangement, which governed her life for nearly 14 years, exploitative. A judge ruled it was “no longer required.”Nearly 14 years after a Los Angeles court deemed the pop sensation Britney Spears unable to care for herself, stripping the singer of control in nearly every aspect of her life, a judge ruled on Friday to end the conservatorship that Ms. Spears said had long traumatized and exploited her.“The conservatorship of the person and estate of Britney Jean Spears is no longer required,” Judge Brenda Penny said, making her ruling less than half an hour into the brief hearing. “The conservatorship is hereby terminated.”The judge added that further psychological assessments of Ms. Spears were unnecessary, because the conservatorship was technically voluntary. But Judge Penny said that the current conservator of the singer’s estate would continue working to settle ongoing financial concerns related to the case.James P. Spears, Ms. Spears’s father, who is known as Jamie, first petitioned the court for authority over his adult daughter’s life and finances in early 2008, citing her very public mental health struggles and possible substance abuse amid a child custody battle. What began as a temporary conservatorship was made permanent by the end of the year.Since then, the conservatorship has governed both the big business of Britney Spears and the day-to-day reality of the woman at its center, covering her medical care and personal life while putting her back to work as a lucrative performer in Las Vegas and beyond.Once called a “hybrid business model” by the former estate conservator who worked alongside Ms. Spears’s father for years, the setup entered into professional contracts on behalf of the pop star; vetted her friends, visitors and boyfriends; dictated her travel; and logged her every purchase down to a drink from Starbucks.Hundreds of #FreeBritney supporters cheered and danced outside Los Angeles Superior Court.Chris Pizzello/Associated PressIt also drew questions from Ms. Spears’s increasingly invested fans and outside observers, who asked why an active global celebrity and working musician was in an arrangement typically reserved for people who cannot feed, clothe or shelter themselves.Ms. Spears, in her first extended public comments on the conservatorship at a court hearing this summer, said its authority went too far, claiming that those in charge forced her to take medication, work against her will and use a birth control device. She called for them to be investigated and jailed, pointing to Mr. Spears, 69, as “the one who approved all of it.”“I shouldn’t be in a conservatorship if I can work. The laws need to change,” Ms. Spears, 39, said at the time, explaining that her previous silence had been the result of embarrassment and fear. “I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive. I don’t feel like I can live a full life.”The singer was not present in court on Friday. But ahead of the hearing, she was seen in a video posted to Instagram by her fiancé, Sam Asghari, wearing a T-shirt that read #FREEBRITNEY above the phrase “It’s a human rights movement,” while her song “Work Bitch” played in the background.A large number of Ms. Spears’s fans decried the conservatorship, and worked to rally public opinion to her side. Chloe Pang for The New York TimesA lawyer for Ms. Spears, Mathew S. Rosengart, repeated some of the singer’s recent comments about the conservatorship in court on Friday at her behest, he said.“I just want my life back,” Mr. Rosengart told the judge, quoting Ms. Spears.Ms. Spears responded to the ruling on social media Friday evening. “Good God I love my fans so much it’s crazy,” she wrote, adding some emojis. “I think I’m gonna cry the rest of the day !!!! Best day ever … praise the Lord … can I get an Amen.”Any notion that Ms. Spears was content to be in the conservatorship — her father and his representatives had routinely called it both necessary and voluntary — crumbled on June 23 when she spoke about it extensively in public for the first time.After requesting to address the judge directly, Ms. Spears made a shocking, emotional call into court, speaking for more than 20 minutes. And while the great majority of the hearings in the case had happened behind closed doors, with Ms. Spears appearing rarely and speaking only in private when she did, the June hearing was streamed live online because of Covid-19 protocols. Ms. Spears insisted that her remarks be heard by all who were tuning in.Already, Ms. Spears had begun seeking substantial changes to the conservatorship, starting in 2019, when she also announced “an indefinite work hiatus.” But the singer was at first required to use the same court-appointed lawyer she had since 2008, when she was found at the outset of the case to be mentally incapable of hiring her own counsel.Behind the scenes, Ms. Spears had routinely bristled at the strictures of the arrangement, according to reporting and confidential documents obtained by The New York Times. Having objected to her father’s role from the start because of his turbulent and intermittent presence in her life since childhood, she continued to question Mr. Spears’s fitness as conservator, citing his drinking and calling him “obsessed” with controlling her.But little would change for years.In 2016, Ms. Spears told a court investigator that the arrangement was oppressive and that she was “sick of being taken advantage of,” according to the investigator’s account of the conversation. Still, the investigator’s report concluded that the conservatorship remained in Ms. Spears’s best interest based on her complex finances, susceptibility to undue influence and “intermittent” drug issues, even as it called for “a pathway to independence” and eventually, termination.In 2019, Ms. Spears told the court that she had felt forced into a stay at a mental health facility and that she was made to perform while sick, according to a transcript of the closed-door hearing. She said later that she did not feel like she had been heard.In her comments at the June hearing, Ms. Spears said she did not know that she could file to end the arrangement altogether. Her lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, soon resigned, as did a wealth management firm that was set to take over as the co-conservator of the estate. Outside the conservatorship, the singer’s longtime manager, Larry Rudolph, also stepped down. Judge Penny allowed Ms. Spears to select a new lawyer the next month..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor who has worked extensively in Hollywood, took over the case, calling for an extensive re-examination of the entire arrangement and pushing for Mr. Spears’s immediate suspension as estate conservator; that was granted in September. Ms. Spears had said previously that she was afraid of her estranged father, even as he remained the steward of her nearly $60 million fortune, and would not return to performing with him in charge.In an abrupt about-face in September, ahead of his own suspension, Mr. Spears moved to end the conservatorship entirely. Mr. Rosengart argued that the turnaround was designed so that Mr. Spears, who earned a salary as conservator and commissions from his daughter’s career, could avoid legal discovery and being deposed under oath about his earnings and financial management of her estate.Mathew Rosengart said that “what’s next for Britney — and this is the first time that this could be said for about a decade — is up to one person: Britney” after a judge in Los Angeles ended her conservatorship.Mike Blake/ReutersMr. Rosengart has sought to investigate Mr. Spears’s dealings with the estate’s former business manager, Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group, along with a security firm that monitored the singer, including secretly capturing audio recordings from her bedroom and accessing material from her phone, according to a documentary on the subject by The Times.Mr. Spears’s new legal team, hired after his removal, has said he stands by his record as conservator and “supports, indeed encourages, a full and transparent examination.”Lawyers for Tri Star denied in court filings that the company’s employees had any control over Ms. Spears’s security protocols, including hidden electronic surveillance, and said that its financial dealings with the estate were approved by the court before the firm’s resignation from the conservatorship last year.But even as the battle continues in court — with subsequent hearings scheduled to address the outstanding financial issues and investigations tied to the conservatorship — both sides came to agree that the arrangement should end.In addition to Ms. Spears and her father, the singer’s personal conservator, Jodi Montgomery, also consented, according to court filings, and worked with Mr. Rosengart on a “termination care plan” that was filed with the court under seal. (Ms. Montgomery took over those duties from Mr. Spears on an ongoing temporary basis in September 2019, when he resigned citing health issues.)Still, Mr. Rosengart said in court on Friday that Ms. Spears wanted a financial and personal “safety net” even after the conservatorship was terminated.John Zabel, the certified public accountant who took over the estate in September, would retain “limited administrative powers,” the lawyer said, including the ability to execute estate planning and transfer outside assets into an existing trust for Ms. Spears. Ms. Montgomery, too, would be there for Ms. Spears if she needed help, her lawyer, Lauriann Wright, said.The parties, Mr. Rosengart said, had “engaged in an orderly transfer of power.”Ms. Spears had insisted that the arrangement end without her having to undergo further psychological assessments, which judges typically rely on when considering whether to restore independence to someone under a conservatorship.“I don’t think I owe anyone to be evaluated,” Ms. Spears told the court in June. Mr. Spears later agreed in his own court filings, and Judge Penny ultimately concurred.But several experts said they had expected the judge to require a mental health evaluation, and that it was highly unusual for her to end the conservatorship without one.“Based upon the information on the public record, and the history of alleged mental health issues, I am shocked that the conservatorship was terminated without a current mental health evaluation,” said Victoria J. Haneman, a trusts and estates law professor at Creighton University. “I had no doubt that a clear path to termination would be agreed upon, but I did not think in a million years that it would all end today.”In this case, the singer’s extensive résumé as a conservatee seemed to be enough.One of the best-selling artists of all time, Ms. Spears released four of her nine studio albums while under the conservatorship, including, most recently, “Glory” in 2016. She appeared on television, serving as a judge on “The X Factor” in 2012, and even toured internationally, though most of her performances were part of a strictly controlled Las Vegas residency.Beginning in 2013, “Britney: Piece of Me” ran for four years at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, grossing a reported $138 million across nearly 250 shows. A follow-up Vegas show, “Britney: Domination,” was canceled in 2019.The millions Ms. Spears amassed in her career will continue to be pored over in minute detail as the many lawyers and other professionals who have been involved in the conservatorship proceedings seek approval by the court to be paid.Up to this point, all expenses incurred in the case — including the legal fees of those fighting against Ms. Spears’s wishes — have been billed to the singer’s estate. Mr. Rosengart has made a formal objection to a request for fees by former lawyers for Mr. Spears, calling the totals — some related to “media matters” in defense of the conservatorship — “outrageous and exorbitant.”Others seeking payment include Mr. Rosengart; Mr. Ingham, Ms. Spears’s former court-appointed lawyer; another firm he brought on board for litigation assistance; Ms. Montgomery and her lawyers; and lawyers for Lynne Spears, the singer’s mother and an “interested party” in the conservatorship since 2019. Additional hearings in the case are scheduled for Dec. 8 and Jan. 19.Outside the courthouse, amid cheering fans, Mr. Rosengart said that Ms. Spears’s conservatorship had shined a light on potential abuses in the wider system. “If this happened to Britney, it can happen to anybody,” he said.When asked whether Ms. Spears would ever perform again, the lawyer added that, for the first time in years, “it’s up to her.”Joe Coscarelli reported from New York, and Julia Jacobs from Los Angeles. Lauren Herstik, Douglas Morino and Graham Bowley contributed reporting. More

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      Britney Spears's Lawyer Wants Her Father Investigated

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      When Britney Spears addressed the court in June, she said she had been drugged, forced to work and prevented from removing her birth control device in recent years while under the conservatorship. She called for those overseeing it to be investigated and jailed, pointing to her father, James P. Spears, as “the one who approved all of it.”“Controlling Britney Spears,” a documentary on the subject by The New York Times, also revealed that a surveillance apparatus monitored the singer’s communications and secretly captured audio recordings from her bedroom, according to a former employee of the security firm that was hired to protect her.Ms. Spears’s lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, has since added to those accusations the prospect of financial mismanagement by Mr. Spears and the estate’s former business manager, Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group, issuing subpoenas for sworn depositions and extensive records, including payments and communication between the parties, as well as the security firm behind the monitoring of Ms. Spears.Mr. Rosengart has argued that Mr. Spears’s sudden desire to end the conservatorship after years of defending its necessity was tied to hopes that he could avoid legal discovery and being deposed under oath.In the latest filings, Mr. Spears’s lawyers wrote that their client “has nothing to hide regarding his administration of Britney’s estate and will therefore hide nothing.”They added that Mr. Spears “supports, indeed encourages, a full and transparent examination of the Conservatorship and has every confidence that said review will put to rest the outlandish, scurrilous and irresponsible speculation that has accompanied the media circus surrounding these proceedings.” The filings called Mr. Spears’s desire to immediately end the conservatorship “unconditional,” arguing that the transferring of records and his cooperation with Ms. Spears and her lawyers “will occur regardless.”Lawyers for Tri Star, in their own filing, denied that the company’s employees had any control over Ms. Spears’s medical treatment or security protocols, including hidden electronic surveillance. They argued that the company’s financial dealings with the estate were approved by the court before the firm’s resignation from the conservatorship last year.Even though Judge Brenda Penny decided to end the conservatorship on Friday, it is likely that these issues will remain to be addressed at subsequent hearings. More

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      ‘Britney vs Spears’ Review: When the Intervention Is the Problem

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      A Netflix documentary directed by Erin Lee Carr offers a timely if vexing primer on the pop star’s legal battle, which may finally be coming to an end.If the makers of “Britney vs Spears” could add one more update to the end of the documentary’s already lengthy text crawl of developments following the film’s completion, they’d have fresh material. On Wednesday, a judge agreed to the suspension of the pop star’s father, James P. Spears, as her conservator.If you have managed to ignore the unfolding story of the conservatorship and the solidarity movement #freebritney, the director Erin Lee Carr’s documentary may serve as a timely if vexing primer. The conservatorship, a legal arrangement that gave the star’s father and others a kind of absolute guardianship over her, was put into place 13 years ago. At the time, it was temporary. The pop music phenom is now 39 years old. In the summer, the battle over the situation hit warp speed.“Britney vs Spears” quickly establishes the magnitude of the performer’s reach with images of packed concerts and rapt fans (so many screaming teenage girls), and clips from her music videos, including the one that put her on the map: “… Baby One More Time” (1998), in which she appeared famously in schoolgirl garb.Relying on a great deal of pickup footage — some from news coverage, some seemingly from hounding paparazzi — “Britney vs Spears” can be dizzying and dismaying. More often, the documentary provides an apt example of what it must be like to be a celebrity surrounded by intimates whose agendas appear murky at best. Throughout, the viewer must factor in a good measure of suspicion. Which declarations are accurate? Which are biased? When are they both? Why did this person agree to an interview?Among those who speak on Spears’s behalf but also have their own freighted relationship with her fame and wealth are her sometime manager and friend Sam Lutfi, who rates high on the ick-scale, and an ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib, who met Spears when he was part of the pack of paparazzi chasing her. Even the superfan Jordan Miller, who helped start the #freebritney movement, seems a little too pumped for his adjacent fame.A welcome exception to the iffier interviewees is Tony Chicotel, a lawyer and expert on long-term-care rights and California law. The filmmakers call on him to help navigate the ins and outs of the conservatorship. Like guardianship, the court-appointed conservator role exists to protect people who aren’t able — physically, mentally — to make decisions. (The recent comedy “I Care a Lot” made dark sport of the potential for abuse, with Rosamund Pike playing a court-appointed conservator who preyed on older people.)The journalist Jenny Eliscu, who wrote about Spears for Rolling Stone, plays a significant role in the film (she’s an executive producer). In 2020, the film’s makers received a load of leaked documents about the conservatorship. In a framing device that tries a little too hard to put some distance between “Britney vs Spears” and more exploitative celebrity coverage, Eliscu and the director sit in front of those documents, a Woodward and Bernstein for an Instagram age. (In February, “Framing Britney Spears,” a documentary produced by The New York Times, was released, which I haven’t seen. The same goes for a follow-up, “Controlling Britney Spears.”)To her credit, Carr is transparent about where her sympathies lie. Early on, the camera peruses a girl’s bedroom, focusing in on a pink boombox. The director confesses in voice-over that at 10, she was obsessed with Spears and “… Baby One More Time.” So much so her father, David Carr, asked, “Why are you listening to that song over and over?” Later in the film, Eliscu tears up as she tells the story of secreting a legal document to Spears at a hotel.“Britney vs Spears” underscores how tricky it is to make a credible documentary about a celebrity under duress without repeating many of the gestures that treat fame as the sine qua non of American culture. Even the Oscar-winning documentary “Amy,” a far more elegant dive into a tough pop-music story, could not elude fully the sense that the way it told Amy Winehouse’s story also replicated at times a suspect fascination.This documentary doesn’t dodge the fact that at the time the conservatorship was put in place, there was a great deal unspooling in Spears’s life that had her family concerned about her emotional — and financial — welfare. The year before the court granted James Spears control of his daughter, Britney had divorced Kevin Federline. The couple had two very young sons, who were the subject of custody skirmishes. Amid those tensions, Britney Spears’s behavior was erratic.But what happens when the intervention becomes the problem? The Britney Spears factory — and its myriad subsidiaries — remained robust, golden-goosed by her output. There was a cottage industry of lawyers employed by the conservatorship. The concert footage, the music videos and the clips of Spears rehearsing dance steps all appear to attest to a hard-working ethos and seem to challenge the notion that she could not conduct her affairs. The greatest lesson of “Britney vs Spears” might be how exploitable the role of conservator can become.Still, something remarkable happens at the end of the film. In a deft move, Carr uses excerpts from a recording made at a court hearing in June. After all those talking heads speaking about her, speaking for her, Britney speaks. And what she says has a sorrow and a fury, but also a clarity and defiance.Lisa Kennedy writes on popular culture, race and gender. She lives in Denver, Colo.Britney vs SpearsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      At Britney Spears’s Hearing, This Twitter Feed Scooped the World

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      With a deft plan, @BritneyLawArmy kept everyone outside the courtroom abreast of developments in a crucial moment in the singer’s conservatorship.LOS ANGELES — More than 50 members of the media took their seats Wednesday afternoon in Courtroom 217 of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse here, all agreeing to abide by restrictions set by the court to govern a highly anticipated hearing regarding the conservatorship that controls Britney Spears’s life.No laptops in the courtroom. No phones visible during the proceedings. No attempts in real time to communicate with others outside the courtroom. Violators would be swiftly ejected.For those anxious to witness and understand whether Ms. Spears’s father would be removed as her conservator, as the singer had asked, it appeared the afternoon would be a frustratingly long wait to hear what had happened inside.But, then, just minutes after the Los Angeles Superior Court clerk finished his roll call, snippets, seemingly from inside the room, began trickling out on the @BritneyLawArmy Twitter account.For the next hour, the Twitter feed became a source of real-time information during the pivotal hearing, tracked both by mystified media outlets unable to talk to their own reporters inside and hundreds of Free Britney fans outside.How did they manage to pull it off?In interviews Thursday, members of the Britney Law Army described how the group, five friends all committed to seeing Ms. Spears enjoy freedom, plotted their judicial Ocean’s 11: a well-orchestrated “buddy system” that allowed them to disseminate as much information as quickly as possible without running afoul of the court’s very strict rules.“It definitely would not have worked without all five of us,” said Marilyn Shrewsbury, 32, a lawyer who focuses on civil rights cases in Louisville, Ky.The army, consisting of Ms. Shrewsbury; two other lawyers, Angela Rojas, 30, and Samuel Nicholson, 30; a legal assistant, Raven Koontz, 23; and Emily Lagarenne, a 34-year-old recruiting consultant, all from in and about Louisville, had flown into Los Angeles on Tuesday. That evening they sat outside, planning final logistics as they ate street tacos, drank beer and chain smoked.Britney’s Law Army, from left: Raven Koontz, Angela Rojas, Marilyn Linsey Shrewsbury, Samuel Nicholson and Emily Lagarenne.Laura Partain for The New York Times“We are from Kentucky,” Ms. Shrewsbury said.All four women identify as lifelong Britney fans, but Mr. Nicholson was the driving force.“From a civil rights litigation perspective, Sam really sparked my interest,” Ms. Shrewsbury said.The New York Times documentary “Framing Britney Spears” galvanized the group to rectify what they saw as a lack of consistent information available to the public about what they described as Ms. Spears’s “horrific treatment” inside the conservatorship.On Wednesday, they arrived at the entrance to the courtroom at 7:30 a.m. in hopes of securing five of the 11 seats allotted to members of the public on a first come first served basis. Another 54 seats had been reserved for members of the media. Only one person, a New York Times reporter, arrived before them.At 11 a.m. they were given red raffle tickets that ensured them spots in the courtroom when the hearing began at 1:30 p.m. Members of the public were told they would have to turn off their phones in front of deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and then put them in magnetic locked bags, which could be opened when they left.“I’ve never been so nervous for a court hearing I wasn’t an attorney on,” Mr. Nicholson said.The plan: Each of the five would take copious notes, leave the hearing one at a time, in 15-minute intervals, get their phones out of the bags and tweet out as much as possible, as quickly as possible.The one hiccup:“We were in the worst spot in the courtroom,” Mr. Nicholson recalled. “Far right corner, not anywhere near the aisle at all. The clerk obscured our view.”Some of them couldn’t see the judge or the screen for remote appearances. It didn’t matter. The doors closed, and the plan went into action.Mr. Nicholson, measuring time on his watch, cued the others one at a time to run out of the courtroom. Information flowed, and followers hung on every word.After an hour or so, Mr. Nicholson was the only Army member in the room. Judge Brenda Penny announced her ruling: Mr. Spears would be suspended as conservator of the estate, effective immediately. Reporters tried to leave the room to report the news to the outside world, but Judge Penny stopped them, saying she would let everyone out for a recess shortly.Mr. Nicholson couldn’t leave either. His phone stayed locked up. The feed went dark. Out on the street, over one hundred #FreeBritney protesters waited in near silence. Ms. Shrewsbury and Ms. Rojas joined Ms. Koontz and Ms. Lagarenne outside.When Judge Penny released the courtroom, the tweets started flying.“Judge Penny: My order suspending Jamie Spears shall remain in full force and effect until a hearing on removal,” Mr. Nicholson wrote.The other four members of the Army were with the crowd as it erupted.“Literally the moment Sam tweeted Jamie was suspended, everyone started screaming about it,” Ms. Shrewsbury said. “We were in shock for a full 45 seconds.”Julia Jacobs contributed reporting. More

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      What's Next? Britney Spears's Next Hearing Is in November

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      The court set a hearing for Nov. 12 to decide whether to terminate altogether the conservatorship that has dominated Britney Spears’s life for 13 years.The hearing was set after Judge Brenda Penny suspended Ms. Spears’s father, James P. Spears, as her conservator. A lawyer for Ms. Spears, Mathew S. Rosengart, had sought Mr. Spears’s immediate suspension, and asked for the next hearing to discuss terminating the conservatorship.Mr. Rosengart told the court he would be submitting a termination plan so there could be an orderly transition. “My client wants, my client needs, my client deserves an orderly transition,” he said.A lawyer for Mr. Spears, Vivian Lee Thoreen, had sought to terminate the conservatorship right away instead of suspending Mr. Spears, while Mr. Rosengart had asked the judge to wait so he could further investigate Mr. Spears’s conduct.It is unclear whether Ms. Spears will appear at the termination hearing.The Nov. 12 hearing is also expected to resolve any formalities around Mr. Spears’s suspension. Ms. Thoreen had asked questions about the possibility of an appeal.The judge set a second hearing date for Dec. 8 to resolve outstanding financial matters, including over a million dollars in legal fees billed to the estate. More

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      Britney Spears Conservatorship Hearing: What’s at Stake Now?

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      A judge may take up whether her father should be ousted as her conservator, and whether the arrangement should be ended entirely.[Follow live updates on Britney Spears’s conservatorship hearing.]Some changes have come quickly in the three months since Britney Spears spoke up publicly for the first time about the conservatorship that has overseen her life for more than 13 years, calling the arrangement abusive and exploitative at a hearing on June 23.For the first time in the case, Ms. Spears, 39, was allowed to hire her own lawyer, replacing a court-appointed one. A bank that was set to begin managing the singer’s money, alongside her father, resigned, as did her longtime manager. And Ms. Spears, who said she believed the conservatorship would prevent her from getting married or having a baby, got engaged to her boyfriend, Sam Asghari.But other changes Ms. Spears has been seeking to the conservatorship — in some cases for many years — remain open questions as the case returns to a Los Angeles courtroom for its latest status hearing.Ms. Spears’s new lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, doubled down in recent weeks on his attempts to remove the singer’s father, James P. Spears, as the conservator of her estate, calling him actively harmful to her well-being and asking for further investigation into Mr. Spears’s conduct. Mr. Rosengart has said in court documents that he will move to terminate the conservatorship entirely this fall.Yet even as Mr. Spears, 69, reversed course this summer, agreeing to step aside eventually before filing to end the conservatorship altogether earlier this month, he has continued to push back against his immediate suspension or removal.These are some of the questions that could be decided by the probate judge in the case, Brenda Penny, on Wednesday. The hearing is set to begin at 4:30 p.m. ET.Will the Conservatorship Be Terminated Altogether?At this point, Ms. Spears has not officially filed to end the conservatorship. In a twist this month, lawyers for Mr. Spears, who had long maintained that the conservatorship was voluntary and necessary, did file to end it, citing the singer’s stated wishes and recent shows of independence. But experts have said that terminating a conservatorship without a medical evaluation — as Ms. Spears and now her father have asked for — is unlikely, and there is no public record of the judge calling for a psychiatric evaluation recently. (In 2016, according to confidential documents obtained by The New York Times, a court investigator said the conservatorship remained in Ms. Spears’s best interest despite her requests to end it, but called for a path to independence.)Mr. Rosengart has called Mr. Spears’s attempt to terminate the arrangement “vindication” for Ms. Spears, but suggested that the singer’s father was attempting to “avoid accountability and justice, including sitting for a sworn deposition and answering other discovery under oath” by filing to end it.In a filing last week, Mr. Rosengart said that Ms. Spears “fully consents” to terminating the conservatorship and said that Ms. Spears’s personal conservator since 2019, Jodi Montgomery, backed it as well, “subject to proper transition and asset protection.” But he called for “a temporary, short-term conservator to replace Mr. Spears’s until the conservatorship is completely and inevitably terminated this fall.”Will Jamie Spears Be Removed as Conservator?“While the entire conservatorship is promptly wound down and formally terminated, it is clear that Mr. Spears cannot be permitted to hold a position of control over his daughter for another day,” Mr. Rosengart wrote in his filing last week. “Every day Mr. Spears clings to his post is another day of anguish and harm to his daughter.”Ms. Spears’s lawyer has moved to replace her father on a temporary basis with John Zabel, a certified public accountant in California who has worked in Hollywood.Yet Mr. Spears maintained in filings this week that while there is “no adequate basis” for his suspension or removal as conservator of the estate, the court should instead focus on terminating the conservatorship — something that is “opposed by no one” and should take priority. (Lawyers for Mr. Spears contend that in 13 years, “not a single medical professional nor the report of a single probate investigator has recommended that Mr. Spears’ presence as Conservator was harming Ms. Spears.”) Ending the conservatorship, Mr. Spears’s lawyers wrote, “would render some of the other pending matters moot” and “would provide an incentive for the resolution of all other matters.”At the same time, Mr. Spears’s lawyers also argued that Mr. Zabel “does not appear to have the background and experience required to take over a complex, $60 million” estate immediately, pointing to Mr. Zabel’s personal losses in a real estate investment. Mr. Rosengart countered on Tuesday that Mr. Spears has “zero financial background,” a previous bankruptcy and faces allegations of abuse.Will Mr. Spears and Others Be Investigated Further?Following Ms. Spears’s comments in June — in which she said she had been forced to take medication and was unable to remove a birth-control device — her father asked the court to investigate the claims, denying his own culpability and instead calling into question the actions of Ms. Montgomery, the singer’s current personal conservator, and others.Mr. Rosengart has since asked for a future hearing on outstanding financial issues involving the conservatorship, calling mismanagement of Ms. Spears’s estate by her father “evident and ongoing.” He said that Mr. Spears had been served a request for discovery and a sworn deposition in August, before he filed to end the conservatorship.So far, the judge has not addressed potential investigations, and additional financial matters — including disputed fees for various lawyers in the case and accounting for the conservatorship covering 2019 — remain outstanding. In their filing this week, lawyers for Mr. Spears said that “all pending issues could be resolved” if the judge called for a mandatory settlement conference of private mediation.“The last thing this Court or this Conservatee needs or wants would be extended and expensive litigation over pending or final accounts and fee petitions,” they wrote.Will Recent Revelations Be Addressed?Since the last hearing in July, three documentaries about the Spears conservatorship have been released, in addition to related reporting on the case. “Controlling Britney Spears,” the second documentary on the subject by The New York Times, revealed that an intense surveillance apparatus monitored the singer, including secretly capturing audio recordings from her bedroom and accessing material from her phone.Recording conversations in a private place and mirroring text messages without the consent of both parties can be a violation of the law. It is unclear if the court overseeing Ms. Spears’s conservatorship approved the surveillance or knew of its existence. Ms. Spears’s lawyer called for an investigation, writing in a court filing on Tuesday that Mr. Spears “crossed unfathomable lines,” further supporting the need to suspend him immediately.A Netflix film, “Britney Vs. Spears,” reported that Ms. Spears sought to end the conservatorship beginning in 2008 and 2009, raising concerns about her father’s fitness for the role, the money she was making for others and threats involving custody of her children. Documents obtained by the filmmakers also showed that Ms. Spears’s access to medication she liked increased when she worked, including during a stint as a judge on “The X-Factor” in 2012. More