'This conservatorship is abusive.' Read Britney Spears' 24-minute court testimony, in full.

On Wednesday, June 23, Britney Spears spoke publicly for the first time about the conservatorship she has lived under for 13 years.

In a near-half hour testimony, the 39-year-old broke her silence, describing the case as even worse than people had imagined. 

She recounted what she described as years of trauma under the "abusive" arrangement and at the hands of the people in charge, namely her father Jamie Spears.

Here is Spears' 24-minute speech transcript in full, lightly edited for clarity.

Britney Spears: I just got a new phone, and I have a lot to say, so bear with me. Basically, a lot has happened since two years ago, the last time — I wrote all this down — the last time I was in court.

I will be honest with you. I haven't been back to court in a long time, because I don't think I was heard on any level when I came to court the last time. I brought four sheets of paper in my hands and wrote in length what I had been through the last four months before I came there. The people who did that to me should not be able to walk away so easily. 

I'll recap. I was on tour in 2018 that I was forced to do. My management said if I don't do this tour, I will have to find an attorney and by contract my own management could sue me if I didn't follow through with the tour. He handed me a sheet of paper as I got off the stage in Vegas and said I had to sign it. It was very threatening and scary. And with the conservatorship, I couldn't even get my own attorney. So out of fear, I went ahead and I did the tour.

When I came off that tour, a new show in Las Vegas was supposed to take place. I started rehearsing early, but it was hard because I'd been doing Vegas for four years and I needed a break in between. 

But no, I was told 'this is the timeline and this is how it's going to go'. I rehearsed four days a week. Half of the time in the studio and half of the other time in a Westlake studio. I was basically directing most of the show. I actually did most of the choreography, meaning I taught my dancers my new choreography myself. I take everything I do very seriously. There're tonnes of video with me at rehearsals. 

I wasn't good — I was great. I lead a room of 16 new dancers in rehearsals.

It's funny to hear my managers' side of the story. They all said I wasn't participating in rehearsals and I never agreed to take my medication, which my medication is only taken in the mornings. It's never at rehearsals. They don't even see me so how are they even claiming that? 

When I said no to one dance move and to rehearsals, it was as if I planted a huge bomb somewhere. And I said 'no, I don't want to do it this way'.

After that, my manager and my assistant and the people that were supposed to do the new show went into a room, shut the door, and didn't come out for a least 45 minutes. 

Ma'am, I'm not here to be anyone's slave. I can say no to a dance move.

I was told by my at-the-time therapist, Dr Benson - who died [in 2019] - that my manager called him and told him I wasn't cooperating or following the guidelines in rehearsals. 

And he also said I wasn't taking my medication, which is so dumb, because I've had the same lady every morning for the past eight years give me my same medication and I'm nowhere near these stupid people. It made no sense at all.

There was a week period where they were nice to me, and I told them I don’t want to do the - They were nice to me, they said that if I don't want to do the new Vegas show that I don't have to because I was getting really nervous. I said, 'I can wait.'

They told me I could wait. It was like lifting literally 200 pounds off of me when they said I don't have to do the show anymore. Because I was really, really hard on myself and it was too much. I couldn't take it anymore. So I remember telling my assistant, 'But you know what? I feel weird if I say no, I feel like they are going to come back and be mean to me or punish me or something.'

Three days later, after I said no to Vegas my therapist sat me down in a room and said he had a million phone calls about how I was not cooperating in rehearsals and I haven't been taking my medication. All of this was false. He immediately, the next day, put me on lithium out of nowhere.

He took me off my normal meds I've been on for five years. And lithium is a very, very strong and completely different medication compared to what I was used to taking. You can go mentally impaired if you take too much, if you stay on it longer than five months. But he put me on that and I felt drunk. I really couldn't even take up for myself. I couldn't even have a conversation with my mum or dad really about anything. 

I told him I was scared, and my doctor had me on six different nurses with this new medication, come to my home, stay with me to monitor me on this new medication, which I never wanted to be on to begin with. There were six different nurses in my home and they wouldn't let me get in my car to go anywhere for a month.

Not only did my family not do a goddamn thing, my dad was all for it. Anything that happened to me had to be approved by my dad. And my dad acted like he didn't know that I was told I had to be tested over the Christmas holidays before they sent me away, when my kids went home to Louisiana. He was the one who approved all of it. My whole family did NOTHING.

Over the two-week holiday, a lady came into my home for four hours a day, sat me down and did a psych test on me. It took FOREVER. But I was told I had to. After I got a phone call from my dad, after I did the psych test with this lady, basically saying I had failed the test or whatever. 

'I'm sorry, Britney, you have to listen to your doctors, they are planning to send you to a small home in Beverly Hills to do a small rehab program that we are going to make up for you. You are going to pay $60,000 a month for this.'

I cried on the phone for an hour and he LOVED every minute of it.

The control he had over someone as powerful as me - he loved the control to hurt his own daughter one thousand per cent. He loved it.

I packed my bags and went to that place. I worked seven days a week, no days off, which in California, the only similar thing to this is called sex trafficking. Making anyone work against their will, taking all their possessions away - credit card, cash, phone, passport - and placing them in a home where they work with the people who live with them. 

They all lived in the house with me - the nurses, the 24/7 security. There was one chef that came there and cooked for me daily during the weekdays. They watched me change every day - naked - morning, noon and night. My body, I had no privacy. No door for my room. I gave eight vials of blood each week. 

If I didn't do any of my meetings, from eight to six at night, which is 10 hours a day, seven days a week, no days off, I wouldn't be able to see my kids or my boyfriend. 

I never had a say in my schedule. They always told me I had to do this. And ma'am, I will tell you, sitting in a chair 10 hours a day, seven days a week, it ain't fun, and especially when you can't walk out the front door.

And that is why I am telling you this again, two years later, after I have lied and told the whole world, 'I am okay and I'm happy.' It's a lie.

I thought maybe if I said that enough maybe I might become happy, because I've been in denial. I've been in shock. I am traumatised. You know, fake it till you make it? But now I'm telling you the truth, okay. I'm not happy. I can't sleep. I'm so angry it's insane. And I'm depressed. I cry every day and the reason I am telling you this is that I don't think how the state of California can have all this written in the court documents from the time I showed up and do absolutely nothing - and just hire another person, with my money, and keep my dad on board. 

Ma'am, my dad and anyone involved in this conservatorship and my management who played a huge role in punishing me when I said no - ma'am, they should be in jail. Their cruel tactics working for Miley Cyrus as she smokes on joints onstage at the VMAs; nothing is ever done to this generation for doing wrong things.

But my precious body, who has worked for my dad for the past f***ing 13 years, trying to be so good and pretty, so perfect when he works me so hard, when I do everything I’m told and the state of California allowed my father - ignorant father - to take his own daughter, who only has a role with me if I work with him, they've sat back, the whole courts and allowed him to do that to me. 

That's given these people I've worked for WAY too much control. They also threaten me and said if I don't go, then I have to go to court. And it will be more embarrassing to me if the judge makes public the evidence that they have.

'You have to go.'

I was advised for my image that I need to go ahead [to rehab] and just go and get it over with. They said that to me. I don't even drink alcohol but I should drink alcohol, considering what they put my heart through.

Also the Bridges facility they sent me to, none of the kids - I was doing this program for four months, so the last two months I went to a Bridges facility. None of the kids there did the program. They never showed up for any of them. You didn't have to do anything if you didn’t want to. How come they always made me go? 

How come I was always threatened by my dad and anybody that participated in this conservatorship that if I don't do this, what they tell me to enslave me to do, they're gonna punish me?

The last time I spoke to you, by just keeping the conservatorship going, and also keeping my dad in the loop, made me feel like I was dead — like I didn't matter, like nothing had been done to me, like you thought I was lying or something.

I'm telling you again, because I'm not lying. I want to feel heard. And I'm telling you this again, so maybe you can understand the depth and the degree and the damage that they did to me back then.

I want changes and I want changes going forward. I deserve changes. I was told I have to sit down and be evaluated, AGAIN, if I want to end the conservatorship. 

Ma'am, I didn't know that I could petition the conservatorship to end it. I'm sorry for my ignorance but I honestly didn't know that. But, honestly, I don't think that I owe anyone to be evaluated. I've done more than enough that I don't feel like I should even be in a room with anyone to offend me to try to question my capacity of intelligence, whether I need to be in this stupid conservatorship or not. I've done MORE than enough.

I don't owe these people anything — especially me, the one that has roofed and fed tonnes of people on tour on the road. It's embarrassing and demoralising what I have been through. And that is the main reason I've never said it openly. And mainly I didn't wanna say it openly because I honestly didn't think anyone would believe me. To be honest with you, that Paris Hilton story and what they did to her at that school, I didn't believe any of it. I'm sorry, I'm an outsider and I'll just be honest, I didn't believe it. 

And maybe I'm wrong, and that's why I didn't want to say any of this to anybody, to the public, because I thought people would make fun of me or laugh at me and say, 'She’s lying, she's got everything, she's Britney Spears.'

I'm not lying. I just want my life back. And it's been 13 years. And it's enough.

It's been a long time since I've owned my money. And it’s my wish and my dream for all of this to end without being tested, again. It makes no sense for the state of California to sit back and literally watch me with their own two eyes make a living for SO many people, and pay SO many people, trucks and buses on the road with me and be told that I'm not good enough. But I'm great at what I do and I allow these people to control what I do, ma'am. And it's enough. It makes no sense at all.

Now, going forward, I'm not willing to meet or see anyone. I've met with enough people against my will. I'm done. All I want is to own my money, for this to end, and my boyfriend to drive me in his f***ing car.

And I would honestly like to sue my family, to be totally honest with you. I also would like to be able to share my story with the world, and what they did to me, instead of it being a hush-hush secret to benefit all of them. I want to be able to be heard on what they did to me by making me keep this in for so long; it is not good for my heart. I've been so angry and I cry every day. It concerns me, I'm told I'm not allowed to expose the people who did this to me.

For my sanity, I need you, the judge, to approve for me to do an interview where I can be heard on what they did to me. And, actually, I have the right to use my voice and take up for myself. My attorney says I can't. It's not good. I can't let the public know anything they did to me and by not saying anything, is saying it was okay what they did to me. It's not okay. 

Actually, I don't want an interview — I would much rather have an open call for the press to hear, which I didn't know today we were doing, so thank you. Instead of having an interview, honestly, I needed to get this off my heart, the anger and all of it. It's not fair that they tell lies openly. Even my own family, they do interviews talking about the situation and I can't say one thing and making me feel so stupid. And my own people say I can't say one thing. 

It's been two years. I want a recorded call to you, which we are doing now, so the public knows what they did to me. I know my lawyer Sam [Ingham] has been very scared for me to come forward because he is saying that if I speak up that I'm being overworked in that facility that the rehab place would sue me. He told me I should keep it to myself. I've grown a close personal relationship with Sam, my lawyer, I've been talking to him like three times a week now, and we have kind of built a relationship but I haven't had the opportunity to handpick my own lawyer by myself. And I would like to be able to do that. 

The main reason I am here is that I want to end the conservatorship without having to be evaluated. I've done a lot of research, ma'am, and there are a lot of judges who do end conservatorships for people without them having to be evaluated all the time. The only time they don't is if a concerned family member says something is wrong with this person. 

And considering my family has lived off my conservatorship for 13 years, I won't be surprised if one of them has something to say going forward, and say, 'We don't think this should end, we have to help her.' Especially if I get my fair turn exposing what they did to me.

Also I want to speak to you about my obligations, which I personally don't think at the very moment I owe anybody anything. I have three meetings a week I have to attend no matter what. I just don't like feeling like I work for the people whom I pay. 

I don't like being told I have to, no matter what, even if I'm sick. 

Jodi the conservator says I have to see my coach Ken even when I'm sick. I would like to do one meeting a week with a therapist. I've never before, even before they sent me to that place, had two therapy sessions. I had a doctor and then a therapy person. What I've been forced to do in my life is illegal. I shouldn't be told I have to be available three times a week to these people I don't know.

I'm talking to you today because I feel, again, yes, even Jodi [Montgomery, acting conservator] is starting to kind of take it too far with me. They had been going to therapy twice a week and a psychiatrist. I've never in the past – wait, they had me going, yeah, twice a week and Dr Gold, so that's three times a week. I've never in the past had to see a therapist more than once a week. It takes too much out of me going to this man I don't know.

Number one, I'm scared of people. I don't trust people with what I've been through. And the clever setup of being in Westlake, one of the most exposed places in Westlake, which, yesterday, paparazzi showed me coming out of the place literally crying in therapy. It's embarrassing, and it's demoralising. I deserve privacy when I go and have therapy, either at my home, like I've done for eight years. They've always came to my home. Or when Dr Benson - the man that died - I went to a place similar to what I went to in Westlake which was very exposed and really bad. Okay, so where was I? It was like, it was identical to Dr Benson, who illegally, yes 100 per cent abused me by the treatment he gave me, to be totally honest with you, I was so... when he passed away, I got on my knees and thanked God. In other words, my team is pushing it with me again.

To be honest, I have trapped phobias being in small rooms from the trauma, locking me up for four months in that place. It is not okay to send me - sorry, I'm going fast - to that small room like that, twice a week, with another new therapist that I pay and I never even approved. I don't like it. I don't want to do that. I haven't done anything wrong to deserve this treatment. It's not okay to force me to do anything that I don't want to do. By law, Jodi and this so-called team should honestly - I should be able to sue them for threatening me that if I don't go to these meetings twice a week, we can't let you have your money and go to Maui on your vacations. 

'You have to do what you're told for this program and then you will be able to go.' But it was a very clever thing, that they picked one of the most exposed places in Westlake, knowing I have the hot topic of the conservatorship, that over five paparazzi are going to show up and get me crying coming out of that place. I BEGGED them to make sure that they did this at my home, so I would have privacy. I deserve privacy.

The conservatorship, from the beginning, once you see someone, whoever it is, in the conservatorship making money, making them money, and myself money and working - that whole statement right there... the conservatorship should end. I shouldn't be in a conservatorship if I can work and provide money and work for myself and pay other people - it makes no sense. The laws need to change. What state allows people to own another person's money and account and threaten them and saying, 'You can't spend your money unless you do what we want you to do' and I'm paying THEM?

Ma'am, I've worked since I was 17 years old. You have to understand how THIN that is, for me every morning I wake up to know I can't go somewhere unless I meet people I don't know every week in an office identical to the one where the therapist was very abusive to me. 

I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive, and that we can sit here all day and say 'oh, conservatorships are here to help people'. But ma'am, there are 1000 conservatorships that are abusive as well.

I don't feel like I can live a full life. I don't owe them to see a man I don't know and share my personal problems. I don't even believe in therapy; I always think you take it to God.

I want to end the conservatorship without being evaluated. In the meantime, I want this therapist once a week. I want him to come to my home. I'm not willing to go to Westlake and be embarrassed by all of these paparazzi, these scummy paparazzi, laughing at my face while I'm crying and taking my pictures. All these nice dinners with people drinking wine at restaurants, watching me in these places. They set me up by taking me to the most exposed places and I told them I didn't wanna go there because I knew paparazzi would show up there.

They only gave me two options for therapists and I'm not sure how you make your decisions, ma'am, but this is the only chance for me to talk to you for a while. I need your help, so if you can just kind of let me know where your head is. I don't really honestly know what to say but my requests are just to end the conservatorship without being evaluated. I want to petition basically to end the conservatorship, but I don't want to be evaluated, and be sat in a room with people four hours a day, like they did me before. And they made it even worse for me after that happened.

I'm honestly new to all this and I'm doing research and I DO know common sense and the method that things can end. For people, it has ended without them being evaluated, so I just want you to take that into consideration. I've also done research… wait.

It also took a year during COVID to get me any self-care methods. She said there were no services available. She's lying, ma'am. My mum went to the spa twice in Louisiana during COVID. For a year I didn't have my nails done, no hairstyling, and no massages. No acupuncture, nothing, for a year. I saw the maids in my home with their nails done different each time. She [Jodi] made me feel like my dad does, very similar behaviour, but just a different dynamic.

Team wants me to work and stay home instead of having longer vacations. They are used to me sort of doing a weekly routine for them. And I'm over it. I don't feel like I owe them anything at this point. They need to be reminded they actually work for me.

Also, I have a friend that I used to do AA meetings with for two years. I did three meetings a week and I met a bunch of women there and I'm not able to see my friends that live eight minutes away from me, which I find extremely strange.

They're making me feel like I live in a rehab program. This is my home. I'd like for my boyfriend [Sam Asghari] to be able to drive me in his car. And I wanna meet with a therapist once a week, not twice, and I want him to come to my home. Cause I know I actually do need a little therapy [laughs].

I would like to progressively move forward and I want to have the real deal, I want to be able to get married and have a baby. I was told right now in the conservatorship, I'm not able to get married or have a baby, I have an [IUD] inside of myself right now so I don't get pregnant. I wanted to take the [IUD] out so I could start trying to have another baby. But this so-called team won't let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don't want me to have children — any more children. So basically, this conservatorship is doing me WAY more harm than good.

I deserve to have a life. I've worked my whole life. I deserve to have a two to three-year break and just, you know, do what I want to do. But I do feel like there is a crutch here. And I feel open and I'm okay to talk to you today about it. But I wish I could stay with you on the phone forever, because when I get off the phone with you, all of a sudden all I hear all these 'nos' - 'no, no, no.' And then all of a sudden I get I feel ganged up on and I feel bullied and I feel LEFT OUT and alone. And I'm tired of feeling alone. I deserve to have the same rights as anybody does, by having a child, a family, any of those things, and more so.

And that’s all I wanted to say to you. Thank you again for letting me speak today.

Read more:

• Britney Spears is ready to talk: 5 key moments from her landmark court appearance.
• A video has resurfaced of Britney Spears on stage in 2018. Here's what it tells us.
• Two sons and dreams of another: Everything we know about Britney Spears' kids.
• From Justin Timberlake to Jamie Lynn: How the world reacted to Britney Spears' court testimony.

Feature image: Getty.

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