‘Genius’ Britney Spears is treated ‘like a toddler who has no rights’, says former collaborator
Singer Britney Spears arrives at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. (Allen Berezovsky/WireImage)
Britney Spears is treated like a “toddler who has no rights”, a songwriter who worked with the star has said.
Hulu documentary Framing Britney Spears has stoked fresh scrutiny over the hitmaker’s conservatorship, which sees her life and finances controlled vastly by her father, Jamie Spears.
Songwriter Claude Kelly, who worked on Britney’s 2008 ht “Circus”, slammed Jamie in a fiery interview with The Sun.
“She’s 39 and she’s been doing this a long time, it doesn’t make sense that she’s being handled like a toddler who has no rights,” four-time Grammy Award nominee Kelly fumed.
“The whole thing brings up a bigger issue of human rights and it doesn’t make sense to remove the right for people to live the way they want to live.
“There’s hundreds of other celebrities that have had pretty tough times like public breakdowns, public divorces or embarrassments and they haven’t needed to lose all of their rights.
“If that’s the case then we should all be worried because we are all going to f**k up, fall short and make mistakes.
“God forbid that someone can come in, whether it’s your father or your mother, your husband or your wife or whatever and decide: ‘You no longer have the right to decide how you live your life.'”
After Britney vowed never to perform again with Jamie in control of her career, fans have worried whether the singer will ever release new music.
But Kelly claimed he recorded demo tracks with her which are among the “thousands” of unreleased material she has made.
Britney Spears. (Gabe Ginsberg/FilmMagic)
“Anyone is capable of putting out a great new body of work from her at any time,” he explained. “We’re talking about a megastar.
“She’s not a has-been. She’s a genius at it and you can never, ever, ever count out a brilliant musician like that. She’s always a hit away.”
Following her public breakdown in 2007, Britney Spears was placed into a conservatorship the following year.
It means that certain aspects of her life, such as her financial affairs and estate, are managed by others. A conservatorship, also called a guardianship, is often used for the elderly, infirm or disabled.
The arrangement has long alarmed civil liberties activists, who argue that: “People with disabilities have a right to lead self-directed lives and retain their civil rights.”
For around 12 years, one of Britney’s top conservators has been Jamie. After he briefly stepped down from the post due to ill health, Britney attempted last year to stop him from being re-installed only for courts to smack down her bid.
Throughout the legal proceedings, members of the grassroots movement #FreeBritney packed the streets outside the California court in Britney’s defence, demanding an end to the “toxic” conservatorship.
