Britney Spears

[El Pollo Diablo]

The situation with Britney Spears has obviously been concerning for ages, but her testimony yesterday was pretty amazing. For instance, she has an IUD fitted (I'm not sure if she was forced to or chose to) and the conservatorship she's under has prevented her from having it removed in order to have a baby. f.cking horrific.

[Woodchopper]

Yes, and also her claim to have been forced to take lithium.

[Bird on a Fire]

I suspect this case is going to expose a lot of uncomfortable truths about how mental illness is treated.

Alongside the other uncomfortable stuff about misogyny and power and exploitation.

It's pretty grim.

[plodder]

It is dreadful, if she's a reliable witness (I honestly don't know, she sounds it to me).

Also, I mourn for the greengrocer's who have'nt thought to name themselves Britneys' Pears.

[FlammableFlower]

It's very grim. Particularly the process that generated such a conservatorship in the first place, putting in place her father in control even though when she was being forced to enter into it her one condition was "anyone but him".

There was a Netflix series based around real-life events showing predatory practices in this area in old/infirm people whereby unscrupulous "professional guardians" get control of elderly people's assets and essentially bleed them dry and their families find it practically impossible to fight as it's been court ordained.

Even, if in Britney's case, this was court ordained (and attempting to give them the biggest benefit of doubt) and needed as she was in crisis - surely they should have put in place conditions for ending the conservatorship. All of this seems to show that the system and people within it were only concerned with profiting from her, without any actual consideration for her well being, beyond being "fit" to make money.

[IvanV]

There's a BBC documentary available on i-player. It's presented by the typical "I'm completely ignorant about this" tele-journalist, mostly inteviewing lots of other people wihout any definitive information to give, but with plenty of opinion and enthusiasm. He stood around outside courtrooms where procedures were underway, predicting we would learn nothing from it, and indeed we didn't. Facts, who needs 'em, kind of journalism.

But he did think to speak to a US lawyer with expertise in conservatorship, so we learnt something definitive for a few minutes. That lawyer suggested, that although definitive court documents are not publicly available, on the basis of what is said about the level of control she suffers, and the occasionally leaked page from the documents, it looks like the type of conservatorship applied is one used for people with dementia, and others who have permanently lost all capacity to make decisions. There are other, lighter forms of conservatorship, for those whose capacity is less reduced. But it seems someone managed to persuade the courts to grant this extreme conservatorship. The lawyer also suggested that reversing or limiting a conservatorship is legally extremely difficult and rarely happens, even for those who suffered only temporary incapacity.

More broadly the scandal is that it is a legal process with insufficient safeguards and oversight, and a very nice earner for those who can get the appointments.

It's odd. I have no interest in Britney Spears in general. But I found this flawed documentary oddly compelling viewing.

[Woodchopper]

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