“I was just like a robot, honestly. I didn’t give a fuck anymore because I couldn’t go where I wanted to go,” Spears says. “It was just demoralizing. I was kind of like in this conspiracy thing of people claiming and treating me like a superstar, but yet they treated me like nothing.”
While working on her ninth studio album Glory, which was released in 2016, Spears says she “started to get a spark back” and regained more confidence in herself. Still, she felt like she had to continue to “play this role” and “go along with” what her father and his associates wanted her to do. “I knew they could hurt me,” she says.
Then while rehearsing for what was supposed to be another Las Vegas residency in 2019, Spears says, she said no to a dance move she was asked to do. She recalls “everything got really weird and quiet” as the show’s producers went into a room to talk. The next day, she says, she was told she had to go to a facility and that she had to announce she was taking a break because her dad was sick.
“I didn’t want to ever go there,” Spears says.
While on the phone with her dad, Spears says, she was crying as she asked why she was being sent away. He told her she had to “listen to the doctors” and that he couldn’t help her, she says.
“His last words were, ‘Now you don’t have to go, but if you don’t go, we’re going to go to court and there will be a big trial and you’re going to lose,'” Spears recalls her dad saying. “‘I have way more people on my side than you, and you don’t even have a lawyer, so don’t even think about it.'”
During the majority of the conservatorship, Spears had a court-appointed lawyer and was not permitted to hire her own attorney. It wasn’t until she spoke out last June that the court allowed her to hire Rosengart.
Again, Spears says she didn’t understand why she was placed into treatment. “I was scared out of my mind,” she says.
“I haven’t wanted to share this because it’s unbelievably offensive, sad, abusive, and honestly, would anybody believe me?” she says.
She recalls that while she was at the facility, she felt like her heart was “frozen” and that she was “in a state of shock.” At that time, she says, she stopped believing in God. While there, she had six vials of her blood drawn every week, leaving her “weak as hell.” She was watched while she changed and showered, had to work from 8 am to 6 pm, couldn’t have the keys to her car, and wasn’t allowed to smoke cigarettes.
“How did they get away with it, and what the fuck did I do to deserve that?” Spears says.
She says the owner of the facility ultimately had to let her go when the #FreeBritney movement started raising concerns about her well-being. Spears notes the dichotomy between her fans’ support and the alleged lack of action from her mother and sister, saying she thinks her family liked that she was “the bad one” and “messed up.”