The discourse about Britney Spears’ highly publicized conservatorship continues, and a new development in the pop star’s fight for freedom hints to a light in the tunnel. After battling to push her father Jamie Spears out of the driver’s seat of her personal and professional life, Britney is actively seeking to permanently install one Jodi Montgomery as her sole conservator.
For more than a decade now, Britney has famously been placed under a conservatorship that has dictated everything from her finances to her relationships to her own mental health treatment. The complicated legal circumstance caught the world’s attention thanks to the passionate #FreeBritney movement, leading to a widespread conservation about a disturbing culture of misogyny and control that has impacted the singer’s career since her early days in the spotlight. Since then, the public has been made aware of the terse relationship between Britney and her father, who formerly served as her sole conservator until stepping down in 2019 due to health issues.
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In recent days, the logistics of the conservatorship have been in flux. To Jamie’s dismay, presiding Judge Brenda Penny appointed Bessemer Trust Co. as a co-conservator of Britney’s estate, meaning that Jamie would no longer be able to have full say over his daughter’s life. It wasn’t exactly what Britney wanted — she originally stated that she wouldn’t perform onstage until he was removed entirely from the conservatorship — but splitting Jamie's power was a significant development in her favor for the case.
Now, Britney and her legal counsel Samuel D. Ingham III are taking it a step further, petitioning the court to force Jamie to resign completely so that temporary care manager (and temporary conservator) Jodi Montgomery can replace him permanently as the legal conservator.
As the temporary conservator, Montgomery works closely with Britney to make decisions things like her security detail, the scale of her mental health treatments, and even any legal matters that the pop star wants to pursue. Montgomery has years of experience advocating for clients in this way; she and her husband Jack own a firm called Pais Mongotmery Fiduciary, which “offers expertise in managing businesses, working with limited partnerships, resolving contentious family issues, maximizing and protecting the value of intellectual property rights, managing real property assets, and developing and executing plans to optimize trust finances.”
According to documents provided to People, the petition mentions that Britney "reserves the right to petition for the termination of this conservatorship,” a claim that her father also made just weeks ago. Technically, it's up to Britney to determine whether or not she still wants to be under the control of a conservatorship, but the current issue is more so about who gets to make the power moves in said legal agreement. As of now, it looks like Britney still wants someone to help take care of her big decisions, but if she ever changes her mind, she's allowed to pursue the legal procedures to become financially independent again.