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Judge Denies Britney Spears' Request To Have Her Father Removed From Conservatorship

A judge has denied Britney Spears' request to remove her father, Jamie Spears, as a co-conservator.
AP
A judge has denied Britney Spears' request to remove her father, Jamie Spears, as a co-conservator.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge signed an order Wednesday denying Britney Spears' request to have her father, Jamie Spears, removed from the financial aspects of her conservatorship.

Judge Brenda Penny denied the request, which was first filed by Britney Spears' attorney, Samuel D. Ingham III, in November. The judge's decision comes after the singer appeared in court June 23 to make a direct appeal. In that emotional statement, Spears said that she was being exploited and "bullied" by the conservatorship — and specifically, by her father.

Until recently, both the financial and personal arms of the conservatorship were controlled by the singer's father.

Last year, Ingham stated in a filing that Spears "strongly opposed" her father as conservator and that she refused to perform if he remained in charge of her career.

In February, Penny allowed a wealth management company, Bessemer Trust, to come in as a co-conservator for the financial arm of Spears' arrangement. Jamie Spears remains the main conservator for all other aspects of the performer's conservatorship.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for July 14. It is possible that Britney Spears will submit a petition for the conservatorship to be terminated. In her comments to the judge last week, Spears said she had been unaware that she could take such an action. "I didn't know I could petition the conservatorship to end it," she said. "I'm sorry for my ignorance, but I honestly didn't know that."

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Anastasia Tsioulcas is a reporter on NPR's Arts desk. She is intensely interested in the arts at the intersection of culture, politics, economics and identity, and primarily reports on music. Recently, she has extensively covered gender issues and #MeToo in the music industry, including backstage tumult and alleged secret deals in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against megastar singer Plácido Domingo; gender inequity issues at the Grammy Awards and the myriad accusations of sexual misconduct against singer R. Kelly.