Britney Spears Files to Make Public Accountant Head of Her Estate

Britney Spears has filed a petition to replace her father with certified public accountant Jason Rubin as the head of her estate. The latest move in a hectic and complex legal battle over the legendary pop singer’s conservatorship, the petition was filed by Spears’s new attorney, Matthew Rosengart.

The petition aims to remove Spears’s father Jamie from the conservatorship completely and is seen as the start of Spears’s initial reorganization of the conservatorship with new attorney Rosengart, who called the case a “Kafkaesque nightmare” in his filing. Spears’s legal team aims to deconstruct the conservatorship completely. Spears made her first public comments on the decade long conservatorship just last month.

Spears was put under the conservatorship by her father, who petitioned to instate the conservatorship after the musician was placed on a three day psychiatric hold two separate times in 2008. His petition was made permanent that same year.

The evolution of the fight to help Britney Spears

Spears’ fanbase became aware of the conservatorship after a former member of her legal team left a voicemail on a Spears’ centered podcast in 2019. The individual, who chose to remain anonymous, described turmoil within the Spears family after Spears’ father had become ill with a colon sickness and had sent Spears to a psychiatric facility involuntarily.

Since the revelation of Spears’ conservatorship became public – a decade after it was instated – her devoted fans, other celebrities and the general public have spoken out in favor of ending the conservatorship, under the banner of the #FreeBritney movement.

In February of 2021, The New York Times released a documentary on the movement as well as the events that led to the conservatorship, called “Framing Britney Spears.” Spears was reportedly emotional and distraught by the documentary and the light it cast on her private life.

In November of 2020, Spears’ court appointed attorney, Samuel D. Ingham III, filed for her father to be removed from the conservatorship. This request was denied this week by a judge in Los Angeles. This denial is not a response, however, to a 24-minute testimony Spears gave at a hearing, where the anguished star passionately described the pain her conservatorship has caused her over the past thirteen years.

Spears lamented the suffocating restrictions she faces under the conservatorship, as well as the infuriating lack of control she has in some of the most personal aspects of her own life.

Britney Spears has yet to file a petition to formally end the conservatorship, but has expressed her dissatisfaction with the arrangement for years to her attorney. Spears said that she was not aware that she could file a petition to end the conservatorship in its entirety.