Amid her conservatorship battle and the ongoing #FreeBritney movement, Britney Spears has been offered assistance by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an individual rights organisation who said they are “here to help her”.
“People with disabilities have a right to lead self-directed lives and retain their civil rights,” the ACLU said in a tweet this week. “If Britney Spears wants to regain her civil liberties and get out of her conservatorship, we are here to help her.”
“We don’t know whether Spears identifies herself as disabled,” Zoe Brennan-Krohn, a staff attorney at the ACLU Disability Rights Project, told HuffPost. “But we know that, by placing her under conservatorship, the court is de facto identifying her as disabled.”
“It is up to the court to decide who her conservator or conservators will be. Many people get into conservatorships not realising that the court – not the family, the conservator, or the person under conservatorship – is in charge.”
“Conservatorships are much easier to get into than to get out of,” Brennan-Krohn said.
After seeking to have her father Jamie Spears removed as her sole conservator – a role which has seen the 68-year-old control her many aspects of her life since 2008 – a judge instead extended the conservatorship a further six months, after it was due to end on August 22nd.
It was also ruled the records would be sealed from the public, much to the disappointment of supporters of the #FreeBritney movement.
According to the LA Times last week, “Judge Brenda Penny was set to evaluate the role of Spears’ temporary conservator, Jodi Montgomery, and her request to curb James ‘Jamie” Spears’ broad authority over his daughter’s life. Penny granted the motion to seal and cleared the courtroom.”
Britney, 38, had also been seeing Jodi Montgomery, the temporary state-appointed conservator of her person for the past year, to oversee her financial affairs.
In an interview with The Post earlier this month, Jamie rejected fan conspiracies that he was using the conservatorship to profit off his daughter’s fortune.
“I have to report every nickel and dime spent to the court every year,” he said. “How the hell would I steal something?”
Jamie said that “it’s up to the court” to decide what’s best for the pop star and “no one else’s business.”
“All these conspiracy theorists don’t know anything. The world don’t have a clue,” he added.
