The push to remove Jamie Spears but not end the conservatorship was a strategic move on the part of the pop star’s lawyers.
A judge has officially ruled to suspend Jamie Spears as the conservator of Britney Spears’s finances, marking a major victory in Britney Spears’s ongoing battle to regain control of her life. Since 2008, the 39-year-old pop icon has lived under a conservatorship that leaves her unable to legally make decisions about her own life, including when to work, how to spend her money, and even whether she can have children. Instead, her father Jamie has been calling the shots, leading him to reportedly adopt as a mantra the phrase, “I am Britney Spears.” On September 29, Los Angeles Judge Brenda Penny replaced Jamie Spears as conservator of Britney’s estate and replaced him with California attorney John Zabel, as requested by Britney through her lawyer. Leaving Jamie in place as conservator, Penny said, was “not tenable.” Jamie Spears agreed to step down from the conservatorship earlier this summer. In September, he filed a petition asking to end it entirely, citing Britney’s increasingly public opposition to the arrangement, which reached a climax in her explosive public testimony before the court this past June.
