Soon after Oprah’s cultural-reset interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Britney Spears’ fans began demanding that Oprah do a similar interview with Britney Spears. I honestly thought it was a good idea – Oprah is good at getting celebrities to open up, and we haven’t heard from Britney – in a sit-down, long-form interview – in many, many years. Now would be the moment for it for both Britney and Oprah. There were even some claims in recent weeks that Britney was all for it and that Oprah was down too. But here’s Us Weekly pouring cold water on all of it:
Not so fast. Britney Spears wants to speak out amid speculation about her life under her conservatorship but she’s not planning on doing a bombshell interview like Prince Harry and Meghan Markle did, sources close to the singer tell Us Weekly exclusively.
“The report about Britney considering a tell-all is greatly exaggerated and essentially giving false hope to the fans who tweeted calls for it after the Harry and Meghan interview,” an insider tells Us of the 39-year-old pop star. “Britney would like to tell her story and has always wanted to write a memoir, but the conservatorship makes that difficult and it’s not something on her immediate radar, anyway.”
A second source with knowledge of the situation says the Grammy winner wants to have her voice heard, but in another format.
“Britney hasn’t mentioned doing an interview. She wants to speak and could do so on social media with the assistance of [boyfriend Sam Asghari] on his platforms if it got to be this emergency situation for her,” the insider says, noting, “She doesn’t want to be filtered.”
Fans were excited when reports surfaced earlier this month that Spears was considering a sit-down interview. The Louisiana native has been stuck in a heated legal battle with her father, Jamie Spears, over her conservatorship, which she’s been under since 2008 after suffering a public breakdown amid her divorce from Kevin Federline, with whom she shares sons Preston, 15, and Jayden, 14. Her efforts to be freed from the restrictive terms of her conservatorship sparked the #FreeBritney movement in 2019, which gained traction following the release of the “Framing Britney Spears” episode of FX and Hulu’s The New York Times Presents series in February.
I get that Britney is probably tired of being filtered and she’s likely worried about probing follow-up questions from an interviewer if she did sit down with someone. Britney has more than earned the right to tell her own story in whatever way she chooses. But I do think someone like Oprah or Gayle King could really help her. I even think someone like Anderson Cooper might be a great interviewer for Britney. They would help create the chronology of events and what’s happened to her with her father and all of it. Whew.
Photos courtesy of social media, Backgrid.
So, by “sources” who say Britney doesn’t want to do a tell-all interview, they mean Jamie Spears, right?
What I was thinking too
oh 100%
I’m very positive that an interview is absolutely not possible while she remains under the conservatorship. She has done interviews since the conservatorship and numerous reporters have come out about how monitored and controlled the interviews were. She wasn’t alone. All questions pre-vetted, handlers watching to pull the plug depending on what she said. It wouldn’t be a real interview, and would probably be propaganda to support her dad, frankly. I do hope she does an interview once she’s free of this conservatorship and can speak honestly.
That’s what I was thinking.
And she is battling in court so I don’t think this is the right moment.
Matt Gaetz and Gym Jordan are apparently huge Britney fans and have asked the house judiciary to hold hearings on court appointed conservatorships. At this point, a legislative remedy may be Britney’s only option.
Have you watched the movie ‘I Care A Lot’? I have no doubt that there are sharks out there taking advantage of this system as per the movie. It needs a massive overhaul and a lot more oversight.
Her mother is worse than Jamie though. People seem to forget that because her father is her conservator.
Her mother sold her out without blinking an eye.
Remember when her mom was trying to shop around a book about parenting? Good lord.
I thought this would happen the second I heard about a possible sit down with Oprah. There’s no way Jamie would let that fly given what Britney has said in the court docs or what other family members have said about Jamie including Britney’s kids.
I follow news about Britney, but honestly I feel guilty doing so. I sense that the real story isn’t anywhere close to what we hear, and part of that is that I at least have no idea what the requirements would be in terms of her mental health to be under a conservatorship (sp?) for so long. It’s great that she gets something out of interacting with her fans via social media, but I wonder if she has actual real world friends. Idk, her story is so sad, she seems like she would benefit from stepping away from social media and living privately, but the way she was raised seems to make that an impossibility.
But she DOES seem to live privately, and she seems bored AF. She doesn’t have a job (whether by force or by choice), she doesn’t have her kids full time (I read 30% of the time), she doesn’t have friends (that weird boyfriend doesn’t count), and she doesn’t do anything all day besides taking the same picture in her front yard and bird dancing in low-rise shorts. She appears to travel occasionally and get papped from time to time, but her life looks barren and miserable.
My impression was that the instagram was a toy given to a bored kid to keep them occupied. (Speculation of who controls the content or whatever is a debate I don’t care to have, but taken at face value, she appears to have plenty of time on her hands with very little to do.)
Yeah, you make good points. Her Instagram content–I haven’t looked myself, but as described–weirds me out, as it seems to be the same thing over and over. By living privately I guess I meant without the world’s eye on her? But that ship has sailed.
Once someone is in a conservatorship, it is nearly impossible to get out. People with mental illnesses are treated like complete and utter garbage in this country. I hope Britney’s situation brings light to this.
I agree. This comment section shows it too with people basically saying she’s clearly mentally ill so she should be in one. Disappointing how people don’t see that conservatorships are a disability rights issue.
S is wrong do you have prove at all
I yell about this every time, but there is absolutely no way Britney Spear could have a lucid, coherent, linear interview with anyone about anything these days. Scroll through her instagram for three minutes and tell me that person with the inconsistent hygiene, rocking baby voice rambling, and entryway “dancing” could sit for three hours and talk about anything.
There’s a story about her life and her conservatorship that she deserves to tell, but I don’t know that we’ll ever get it from her directly. Certainly not the Britney she’s chosen to show us for the last several years.
I really wonder about this… because she really is all over the shop in those Instagram videos and it is painful to watch. But there are people with severe bipolar, with pasts full of psychotic episodes, who have found the right mix of meds and live full, happy and healthy lives with successful careers and relationships. One of my best mates is one of them. He has a big job at a huge tech company. I wonder if Britney is being medicated to get her to her best self possible (everyone responds differently, so you have to try different combos until you find the right one), or if a pet doctor is keeping her in a state that keeps her under a conservatorship? It honestly would not surprise me if the latter were true.
@SKF I think this is an important point. Is she currently on the right medication for her needs? Plus, honestly, if she’s got other things going on (like depression), mixing that in can make it harder to treat, and we don’t know that her father or the conservators are necessarily interested in finding the right treatment for her, just in making sure she can still generate an income.
Molly, you are absolutely right. You can tell by her instagram that she’s not well, and I think people would be very sad if they saw her try to get through an hour long interview without vetted questions and supervision. I don’t think it would be good for her.
I think a lot of people are in denial about her medical condition. She doesn’t owe anyone an explanation or details, so people cling to this fantasy that she is just having minor set backs that would resolve if only she could get away from her parents. That’s not what is happening. Courts have reviewed her case many, many times and they keep determining that she needs the upmost care. There’s a reason for that.
she’s just dancing on instagram and having fun because she doesn’t have a lot to do since they don’t let her hang out with friends, why are you diagnosing someone through ig videos?
also acting like courts aren’t corrupt as fuck? especially when it comes to conservatorship and conservatorship abuse (happens ALL the time). what???
No S prove it
I AGREE with your analysis 100%. I don’t know what would be best for her in terms of legal arrangements, but she is not capable of doing a long form thoughtful interview.
I still can’t shake the memory of Sam Lufti controlling a mentally vulnerable (and possibly drugged) Britney in the aughts. I think that both these things can be/are true: She needs a conservatorship, but that it shouldn’t be her father.
A conservatorship isn’t for someone like her… She needs people who care about her around her, not to have all her human rights taken away because she shaved her head once. She is worse now than she was in 2008, that’s because they didn’t put her in a conservatorship because they wanted to help her with her mental health, they just wanted to make money using her and making her work against her will. you CAN’T need a conservatorship and be fine enough to tour and make albums at the same time.
Can a conservatorship ensure that someone takes their meds? Because that’s what might be happening here – on her meds (under the conservatorship), she is able to function. Once she stops taking them, she can’t. As Kanye has shown, having people around you who look after you doesn’t mean much if no-one can keep you medicated.
@Emma right, staying on the meds allowed her to see her kids too, at least at that time. If I remember correctly, it was the event where she held one of her son’s “hostage” that was the breaking point, not the shaved head. That was some serious sh*t that likely has caused major trauma to her kids. I know that was years ago, but the point is she has kids and a LOT of money that can be p*ssed away if she’s calling the shots on her own. She needs good people around her, and it’s sad that her family can’t be trusted to be there for her.
“A conservatorship isn’t for someone like her”
You can’t make that determination, you don’t have enough information. The courts DO have access to that information, and the have upheld the conservatorship over and over and over. A court would not allow this if it was because “she shaved her head once”.
They put her in a conservatorship claiming she has dementia and isn’t even functioning enough to have her own lawyer ( she tried to fight it there is a voice recording of her saying her father is threatening to take her kids away) but less then a month later had her in studio working on an album and then the circus tour. Does this sound like how you should treat someone in a conservatorship?!?
@Tiffany if you don’t see how corrupt this system is and how they’ve used the publics opinion of britney being crazy to their own advantage to take her human rights away but still make her work for money then i can’t help you.
the judge of the case literally went to see britney in Vegas. Imagine taking someone’s human rights away and allow an alcoholic who britney never wanted in control of her life to take over and then going to see this “unstable” woman perform? the whole thing is corrupt and people in a conservatorship like britney’s do NOT work like she does. she tried to hire lawyers to fight for her and they stopped it every time. Even a murderer can hire a lawyer.
conservatorships like britney’s are a disability rights issue. either you think those with disabilities deserve their human rights or you don’t. I can see where you stand though.
Prove it