Britney Spears will continue her fight in court Wednesday to free herself from the legal chokehold that has stripped her of most basic human rights for the last 13 years.
This hearing comes just as the ACLU just announced their intention to assist Spears in her fight to retain her own counsel in her next steps.
Spears’ shocking testimony June 23 broke the internet and confirmed many of the allegations #FreeBritney supporters have suggested for years, revealing the terrifying details of her life for the last decade. She hopes to sue her entire family and “anyone involved in this conservatorship … they should be in jail.”
The pop star alleges her father orchestrated in 2008 – an “abusive” system that forced her to work daily for her handlers despite having no control of her life and that she equated to “sex trafficking,” one that even forced her into rehab and onto lithium, a psychiatric drug when she refused to follow their every order. She also revealed that she’s been forced to keep an IUD despite her wishes to get married and have children.
Spears also revealed that she has not been able to choose her own attorney and that she was never informed that she could petition to terminate the conservatorship herself – an oxymoron since she wouldn’t be able to do so without her lawyer. She also said her attorney encouraged her to stay quiet about the abuses to protect her own public image.
Since the beginning, she had been forced to keep Samual Ingham, a court-appointed lawyer who has built a career from other high-profile conservatorship cases and has raised concerns on whether he truly has Spears’ interests in mind. When she previously got her own lawyer, he was thrown out of court and it was decided she couldn’t choose her own council, and Ingham was assigned to the rate of $10,000 a week for 13 years, according to court documents.
Spears’ bombshell testimony has led to immediate action – Ingham has resigned, as has her longtime manager Larry Rudolph, whom she previously fired but who returned at her father’s request upon the creation of the conservatorship.