← DISGRACELAND
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- [00:05]
Jake Brennan
Double Elvis.
- [00:07]
Unknown
You know how it goes. Getting super into something that can lead to watching it, listening to it, reading about it, maybe even picking up something to go with it. That's where prime comes in. Amazon prime isn't just fast free delivery, though to be honest, that's a lifesaver. It's also prime video, Amazon music, and so much more. Whatever the interest, it's on Prime. Lately there's been a dive into new recipes, catching up on lifestyle documentaries, and building the perfect playlist to match. And prime has been part of it all. It's like a one stop shop for any passion, whether it's fashion, food, family, or discovering the next favorite show. So for anyone always exploring something new or rediscovering something meaningful, prime is right there. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.comprime to get more out of whatever you're into. Amazon.comprime I think the last time I.
- [01:03]
Jake Brennan
Spoke to you guys about quints, I told you about the transit quilted duffel bag that I got for my wife. Well, I got myself a Napa leather duffel bag from Quint as well. And I just used it. We used both our bags on this family trip that we took out west. I love this bag. Okay? It looks cool, it looks casual. It looks way more expensive than it is. Not that I care about that, but it just, it's good quality and you can kind of tell when you just look at it. I stuffed it with my new double brush stretch jacket from Quince. You know when you're, you're going out to dinner, it's summertime, it's too hot to wear a jacket, but you're going somewhere kind of dressy, but you don't want to wear a blazer. You're kind of in that sort of formal fashion. No man's land. That's where the double brushed stretch jacket from Quince comes into play. It dresses you up casually and smartly and you can rock it out around town as well if you're just running errands and you want to look good. This jacket is my new favorite addition to my wardrobe. And like I said it along with my go to Quince Merino all season, base tees fit perfectly in my Nappa leather duffel bag from Quints. The best part of all this, everything with quints is half the cost of similar brands. Okay? That's important. That matters. And they, they, they can do this because they work directly with top artisans. They cut out the middlemen and Quint gives you luxury pieces without the markup, so keep it classic and cool with long lasting staples from quint. Go to quince.com disgraceland for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E.com disgraceland to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com disgraceland Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis Britney Spears, her troubling family ties, her reign in tabloid hungry culture, and her 13 years as a conservatee under her father Jamie is a story that is so complex that we required two episodes to properly tell it. If you're just getting hip to this now, I suggest you hit pause and go back to the previous episode of Disgraceland, Part one of the Britney Spears Saga where we discuss Britney's unstable childhood in Louisiana, her father's reckless drinking and anger issues, and the media fueled meltdown that placed her under his thumb in 2008. In this episode we get into the details of that conservatorship, an arrangement so strict and so unfeeling that it left her without any control of her career, loopy on lithium and completely silenced for the sake of seeing her sons and boyfriend. But Even during those 13 years of submission and surveillance, Britney Spears refused to stop making great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, which wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for my melotron called Neon Nightlife MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Butter by bts and why would I play you that specific slice of smooth sidestepping cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on June 23, 2021. And that was the day Britney Spears was finally allowed to address the chord about her conservatorship after more than a dozen years of suffering in silence in this episode, Lithium, Submission, Breaking the Silence and the long awaited emancipation of Britney Spears. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. Britney Spears knew she would have to be fast if she wanted to get away with it. She thrust open the door to the local burger joint and held it open for her security guard. Not one she hired. No, this was a stranger. A stranger hired a trailer at all times. Hired by her father, her conservator. Six days into this conservator shtick and it was already old. February 6, 2008 Britney flashed a smile as she held the door. You could call it Southern charm, but today was a Strategy. The guard entered the restaurant in front of her. Brittany cautiously followed. The scent of grease and sizzling patties hit her nose. Her mouth watered. After days in the hospital, all this hearty, real food made her knees weak. And then the presence of the guard looming nearby yanked her back to reality. Remember what you're here to do. Focus. Oh, yeah, right. So Britney spun on her heel. She flung the door back open and sprinted towards her car. In the parking lot, she tossed herself into the front seat and threw that fucker in reverse. Just like a woman caught in a paparazzi chase. Which, of course, is inevitably what this little incident would turn into. She dialed with her thumb on her clunky cell phone. As she peeled off towards the highway. Her former business manager, Howard Grossman, answered her call for help. Meet him at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he said. Asap. Britney banged a U turn and steered straight for the hotel. So did a handful of paparazzi who spotted her flying solo on the road. She could escape from her security, but she couldn't escape the onslaught of snapshots. A few more paps piled onto the daisy chain behind Britney's black Mercedes Benz. And then another few. And then it was a dozen. By the time she turned onto Sunset Boulevard, between 50 and 75 paparazzi cars were on the hunt behind her. Britney couldn't give a shit. Snap away. Publish what you want. She had business to tend to. Britney was beyond caring about unflattering photos now. Inside the Beverly Hills Hotel, she and Howard reconnected over an urgent matter they could barely discuss earlier that week, when she was confined to a hospital room at the UCLA Medical Center. Damn that 5150 hold. Brittany needed a lawyer. A good lawyer. Someone who would help her navigate a term she didn't even know existed roughly a week ago. Britney didn't want to end this new conservatorship. She had already accepted the situation. Instead, she just wanted someone other than her father to be in charge. Does this sound like the idea of someone with dementia? Like symptoms, as Britney's father, Jamie Spears, had claimed in his conservatorship paperwork only a few days prior? This is a mature, respectful request. Britney wasn't asking for the conservatorship to end. She just wanted someone else to be her metaphorical boss. Someone she wasn't afraid of. She craved a little humanity. She knew at this point a different conservator was her last chance at a decent life. The timeline for her new legal arrangement had been hurried along on purpose, and Britney never even got the chance to balk. Under normal circumstances, potential conservatees had five days notice before a conservatorship begins. Allowing them time to contest the arrangement or find their own lawyer. But Britney hadn't been granted any such time. Instead, Jamie Spears, her dad, claimed the influence of Britney's quote unquote life coach Sam Ly was such a threat that he needed to take over immediately. Jamie didn't just file for the temporary conservatorship over Britney. He took it one step further. That same day Jimmy Jamie requested a restraining order against Sam. He didn't want to see that creep within 250 yards of Brittany or her homes, her children or her cars. Even her parents homes. Brittany's mother Lynn laid out the explanation in a lengthy breakdown of Sam's alleged sins. She claimed he drugged Britney, cut her home phone lines and disabled her cars, disposed of her phone chargers and basically Sam Luffy isolated and gaslit the hell out of Britney. And Lynn even stated that Sam had a plan to have Britney slip into a sleep induced coma so a doctor could give her drugs to heal her brain. That's a quote. Heal her brain for real. Sam already had two other strikes against him too. Prior to infecting Brittany's life, courts granted two other people restraining orders against Sam. One was from an ex neighbor in 2004 who Sam harassed and threatened and the other came from a former business associate who claimed Sam often harassed her with offensive faxes and emails plus 15 to 30 telephone calls and hangup every day. All the claims suggested that Sam was indeed a bad bad man. The threat to Britney's sanity, even to her life left from the pages of Jamie's court paperwork. The judge granted the restraining order and the conservatorship on February 1st, 2008 waiving Britney's right to a five day notice. First they threw out her warning and then they threw up Britney's legal representative. One she she chose because once someone becomes a conservatee they don't have much choice in anything. Even if you're Britney Spears. And while Britney completed her stay at the UCLA Medical center earlier that week, Howard connected her with an attorney named Adam Streisand, as in cousin of Barbara Adams, spoke with Britney about her estranged relationship with her father and her desire to have Jamie removed as conservator of her person and her estate. He heard her plea and he understood her. He agreed to speak to the court on her behalf. Their conversation didn't matter. The court didn't care. Adam tried to explain he had Information demonstrating that Jamie wasn't a healthy fit as Britney's conservator. And the court turned around and told him they possessed special information too. A medical report stating that Brittany didn't have the capacity to retain counsel and have an attorney client relationship instead. Incredibly, the court appointed a lawyer on Britney's behalf. A man named Sam Ingham. Sam said that he chatted with Britney over the weekend too. He claimed she didn't understand his conservatorship arrangement one bit. And then again, maybe that's because his visit with Brittany at the hospital was unannounced and only lasted 15 minutes. The court rejected Adams request and rejected him as Britney's lawyer. Then they ejected him from the courtroom. Adam Streisand never saw that medical report. If anything, the meeting had the opposite effect on Britney's fate. The judge extended the temporary conservatorship for an additional week through February 14, pending another hearing. Britney's life and her 40 million dollar estate remained in Jamie's control for the indefinite future. She was trapped, caged in plain sight, 100% on display like a sideshow freak. But Britney didn't do sideshows. She took center stage. She played the role of the ringleader. Jamie might have the power to approve who she worked with, but Britney still called the shots as a lyricist, a singer and a creator. The world still wanted a spectacle. And Britney would give them a spectacle all right. As the tedium of life under the conservatorship wore away at her spirit in 2008, Britney colored her world with dashes of dazzling yellows, blues and reds. She moved her remaining musical freedom into the big top ballooning inside her head. Britney Spears was about to bring the circus to town. Circus, her sixth studio album, dropped in late November 2008 and raked in more than half a million US album sales in one week. Her eye popping pop bazaar went platinum in just two months. And the hype around the record was so huge that the lead single, womanizer, shot from 96 to 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in just one week. And maybe Britney was a hot mess at times, but she was still Britney. She tipped her top hat to the absurdity of her long list of scandals with a dirty little ditty called if youf Seek Amy. The single casually explained how all the boys and girls in the club were begging to if you seek Amy. A grammatical nightmare if you read it literally, a parental nightmare if you read between the lines and heard Britney spelling Fuck me on the radio. And when such vulgar verses went to number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained on the chart for 20 weeks. It was Britney who had the lusty last laugh. She transformed tabloid gossip into a veritable gold mine. The success of Circus eventually carried Britney from country to country on a world tour, proving not even Jamie could suppress her pop prowess. But suppressing Britney's superstardom was never what Jamie wanted. Jamie wanted Britney to gain all the success in the world, and he wanted his cut of it. I love my kids. I spoil the crap out of them. But until I started using Monarch Money and used their budgeting app, and I actually sat down and I was actually going through what I was spending that I realized how much I was spending on garbage that my kids frankly don't need, they've got this whole complete financial command center for everything. I mean, it's not just for what I'm spending. It's for what I'm saving. It's for what I'm investing in. It's for what my goals are, my family's goals. But now that I have this financial command center, I can integrate my kids savings accounts as well. And I can clearly show them what we're spending money on and I can show them how much money they have and how quickly that would go down to zero if they were to be spending $70 on a Lego box on a whim, you know, something they're going to use for, I don't know, 90 minutes before they forget about it for the rest of their lives. But of course, Monarch Money does so much more than that. You can easily get a hold of your personal finances. You can become your own personal cfo. Like I said, this whole financial command center that's part of their budgeting app is fantastic. It's going to give you visibility and control into what you're spending, into what you're saving, and it's going to help you earn more and start growing. Highly recommend Monarch. Start managing your finances to build the life you actually want. Guys, without a clear financial picture, financial dreams are just that. They're just dreams, okay? And they can feel out of reach. And Monarch makes managing money simple. Even if you're super busy. Especially if you're super busy. All right, Monarch Money, the budgeting app that I'm talking about, over a million households are using it. It was named Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Get control of your overall finances with Monarch Money. Use code disgraceland@monimalmoney.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% of your first year at monarchmoney.com with code DISGRACELAND hey discos, if you want more Disgraceland, be sure to listen every Thursday to our weekly After Party Bonus Episode, where we dig deeper into the stories we tell in our full weekly episodes. In these After Party Bonus episodes, we dive into your voicemails and texts, emails and DMs and discuss your thoughts on the wild lives and behavior of the artists and entertainers that we're all obsessed with. So leave me a message at 617-906-6638 disgracelandpodgmail.com orisgracelandpod on the socials and join the conversation every Thursday in our afterparty Bonus episode. Ready for a new way to play? Champa Casino lets you spin and play your way to fun anytime, anywhere. Enjoy classic slots, blackjack and live casino games, all with just a few clicks. Have fun with no fuss. Simply sign up and receive your free welcome bonus plus daily login rewards to keep the fun going. Let's Chumba. No purchase necessary. VGW Group voidware prohibited bylaw 21 plus TNCs apply Britney Spears pressed her palms to either side of the road case and hung on for dear life. The case tilted, fumbled over bumps and probably cables taped to the floor. The vibration made her stage heels click together. There's no place like home, she muttered to herself in the darkness. Sometimes Brittany reached for the top of the box. Other times she gripped the chair her crew provided for her. But today she blindly held her balance with her arms held out, like she was ready to flap her wings and rocket out of the case. In 2009, Britney Spears remained in high demand. Such high demand that a large road case was required to safely escort her from backstage to beneath the stage inside arenas during her circus tour. Before every show, Britney climbed into the case and perched atop the small chair inside and held that pose for however long it took to wheel her into the belly of the venue. Limber dancer that she was, Britney could stay in the cramped position for a while as staff whisked her away. The fans that were wired into the road case provided some much needed ventilation. Every night, 40,000 audience members never suspected a thing. Britney practiced this awkward act for months in a row. She wasn't claustrophobic. She knew that showbiz meant frequent discomfort for the sake of a few seconds of magic on stage. But tonight was different. Tonight, fear seized every nerve in Britney's body. The air that filtered into the case smelled pungent, earthy, trashy even, like a skunk got spooked in the backyard and sprayed the family dog just like pot. The walls of the road case closed in on her. Her hands went clammy. Britney exhaled and clamped her mouth shut, pinched her nose between her fingers for as long as she could. She frantically tried to waft fresh air inside of her free hand. The case sank deeper under the stage as Britney's lungs pulled pleaded for oxygen. The case hit a row of cables and shuddered. Britney gasped a big old inhale of fresh air. Finally, the case halted. Britney Stylus opened the door and Britney flew out like a bat out of hell. It smells like pot. It smells like pot. Brittany repeated herself for emphasis. The stage crew blinked at her. Of course it smelled like pot. It was a concert venue. And who said pot anyways? It was grass, weed. Marijuana fans snuck joints inside every night and hell catching a second hand high was part of most traditional concert experiences. Britney paced in a panicked circle. Her mind and heart jittered in unison while she contemplated the consequences. She couldn't breathe in pot smoke. She'd fail her drug test and they wouldn't let her see her boys. Her fearful voice cracked as the tears started spilling. And the smell was down here too. It wasn't safe. She wasn't safe. Britney's face crumpled in despair. And then she bolted. She tumbled into the innards of the stage, skidded around corners in her stage heels, raced towards the sober safety of her dressing room and her stylist followed in hot pursuit. When she caught up to Britney, she spun her around and got serious. There are 40,000 people out there waiting for you, she explained, chanting her name, ready to trip away when she cracked her prop whip. To see her prance, to see her strut around that stage. The show had to go on. Brittany didn't care about the adoration of those 40,000 people. She cared about two boys, Sean and Jaden, her sons. And if Britney failed a drug test for him so much as eating a poppy seed muffin or inhaling secondhand smoke, her time with her boys would be reduced from limited to zero. Then again, if Britney didn't, quote unquote, behave herself and act like a gracious little conservatee, then that caused trouble for her custody arrangement too. The public had already forgotten about her conservatorship, let alone what that word even meant. That was last year's news. But in Britney's world, the conservatorship was nearly all she could think about. It ruled her mind because it ruled her life for good. As of October 2008, the conservatorship of her person and her estate were legally permanent. Permanent control. Permanent paranoia. A permanent nightmare. Britney wasn't the ringleader of this circus after all. She let out a shaky sigh and surrendered. Members of a Row crew escorted Britney back to her designated spot under the stage. Then they dismissed her wardrobe assistant. She had seen too much. She always saw too much. Like the way Britney bickered like a teenager with her father, Jamie, over how often she could use her cell phone. How she couldn't have sushi for dinner two nights in her in a row because it was deemed too expensive. How she was denied new shoes at the mall for the same reason. For the record, they were a pair of Skechers. As Britney's permanent conservator, Jamie now exercised more power than ever. The power to cancel all her credit cards to pursue new professional opportunities for Britney as long as Britney's medical team approved. Britney, on the other hand, didn't have the right to approve Jack if her medical team okay to consider the contract signed. Britney never bought Jamie that boat. But she did buy him a new car under lease. With her money. Against her will, of course, because Britney no longer had any direct access to her finances. If Britney desired anything, it had to be approved first. Clothes, food, anything, everything. If she so much as wanted $100 to purchase new books for her sons, she had a call and ask for it. It could be days before she heard back with an answer. Days for a mere $100 for books for all this taxing work Jamie, Brittany's dad, had. Brittany cut him a $16,000 paycheck every month straight from Britney's bank account. He named his own price, of course, and in return he limited Britney's allowance of her own money to $8,000 a month, half of what he paid himself. If anything was causing the Spears estate to dwindle, it was Jamie's pricey paydays. Not California rolls two nights in a row. But the Circus tour kept the cash flow consistent. After Jamie milked Britney's stamina for 70 tour dates worldwide, she returned home to California for some much needed rr. Which would be easy since Britney was allowed to do little more than sing, dance and earn revenue. No more days of Sam Luffy inviting paparazzi inside of the house. If anyone visited her home, Jamie knew about it. If Britney wanted to take a spin around the gated community on a golf cart with her boyfriend, Jamie knew about that too. Even leaving the neighborhood for a quick bite to eat required a phone call for permission. It could be minutes until Brittany got A call back. It could be hours. And if you were craving that hamburger right now, well, tough shit. You probably couldn't afford it anyways, right? Brittany was used to life under a microscope. On the street. At least not in her own house. Her reality had flipped inside out before the conservatorship. Her home was the only place where she could safely slip under the radar. Now, Britney never left Jamie's radar. He hired a security team that made sure of it. Britney knew that when security showed up every day with pills and an envelope, she had to take them immediately, right then and there, with the guard watching. Same routine every day. What she didn't know was that the same guards could view her texts, photos and phone call history. All they had to do was log into an iPad with the same icloud name and password as Britney's phone and boom. They had a replica of her digital life in real time. She didn't know they were ordered to encrypt certain text messages and pass them along to Jamie in secret either. The grossest surveillance sin of them all came when the security team hit a recording device and used it to capture more than 180 hours of audio without her knowledge. In her bedroom. Not all that different from someone asking if you're a virgin or if your breasts are real. Visit When Britney was a child and things got rough at home, at least she could run to her aunt's trailer. Now she couldn't even leave the house without her father knowing precisely where she was headed. With extensive means of keeping tabs on her, circus had enticed the masses once again. And so had Femme Fatale, her 2011 album that produced Hold It Against Me, Britney's fourth career number one single on the Hot 100. It also marked a momentous occasion in her career. Britney now had number one singles in three different decades. Her fame was on a rebound, ricocheting off her tabloid rock bottom era of 2006-2008. But Britney now dwelled in a different rock bottom. And this one didn't allow her any room to mess up so much as inhale a whiff of weed by accident. Painfully ironic, considering her dad Jamie's liquor laden past. But Britney endured it begrudgingly, strictly as a mother who loved her sons. She knew they were the only things still worth fighting for. But she also knew that given the choice between living like this or a life inside her special road case, she'd pick the road case. We'll be right back after this.
- [26:07]
Unknown
Word, word, word.
- [26:11]
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- [27:11]
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- [28:19]
Jake Brennan
Britney Spears couldn't believe what she was hearing from her spot on her therapist's plush sofa. It sounded like a dream. Like nothing was real. Because nothing Dr. Benson was saying was real. It was all lies, rotten, piped in from wildly unreliable sources who loved to stack the odds against her. Dr. Benson gobbled it up. He received quite a few calls in the past few days, he explained. Agitated ones. Calls from Folks claiming that Britney wasn't taking her medication, that she wasn't cooperating to everyone's level of satisfaction during dance rehearsals. Bullshit. She cooperated just fine. She led those rehearsals, for fuck's sake. Led all 16 dancers, actually. The dance studio was the one room in her life where she could lead. Britney knew what this was really about. This was about Las Vegas, about saying no to a second residency. Because somehow 248 shows at the Axis Theater just hadn't been enough for Jamie Spears. Britney's famed Piece of me review deposited $310,000 in the bank. And for each concert, almost a million dollars a week for five years straight. $137.7 million in box office sales total. Jamie took home 1.5% of that fortune, along with a cut of Brittany's merchandise sales. That's $2.1 million if you're counting, in addition to his monthly salary of 16 grand. Crunch some numbers. And over those five years, Jamie Spears raked in more than $3 million. Skimmed off the top of Britney's payday, of course. But Jamie wanted more. His entire team wanted more. And they had the legal weaponry to ensure it. Brittany's co conservator, Andrew Wallet, again, that's the guy's real name, submitted a document praising Brittany's lucrative career under the conservatorship and called their arrangement a quote unquote hybrid business model. In that same paperwork, he also happened to sneak in a request for a raise. Convenient conservatorships were supposed to work for the conservatee, for the vulnerable party. But these days it seemed like Brittany was working for Jamie. And because Jamie could agree to business opportunities on Britney's behalf, he kept that sweet, sweet cash coming in regardless of what Brittany had to say. Not that she ever got the chance to say it. No one asked her if she needed to rehearse or perform on her birthday. Too bad. If she had a fever of 102 directly before a performance. Too bad. And if she was forced to perform a mini tour directly after 248 shows and she was tired and well. Tough darts, pop tart, you're on it. 8. They called it the Piece of Me Tour. A hastily branded extension of Britney's residency. The tour was set to jet from the US to Europe. Over 30 dates, bringing some Vegas va va voom. To the fat wallets who couldn't make it to Nevada legally. Britney couldn't even shoot the dates down. Her current management contract locked in her performance obligations. If Britney were to back out, her Own management team could sue her. So she took the Piece of Me residency on the road and performed until there were no more pieces of herself left to give away. The tour ended on October 21, 2018. The second Las Vegas residency was announced October 12. Nine days earlier. They literally announced it before Britney could wrap up her first set of shows. Zero room for rest in between residencies or family time or hell, time to grow her family. By 2019, Britney was eager to bring more children into the Spears household. But Jamie refused to let her see a doctor who could remove her iud. Jamie's control went that deep. It spread to the most intimate parts of her body. The only thing drowning out the maternal tick, tick, boom in her mind was the rhythm of her razor sharp dance moves. Britney's body was long past the brink of exhaustion. She needed a breather, a fucking break to get out of the zone for a while before her limbs straight up fell off her body. But Vegas was heating up again. Lady Gaga relocated her ludicrous pop to the Strip. Bruno Mars suave singing brought in the big bucks with his residency over at the Park Theater. Calvin Harris and the Chainsmokers DJ through evenings of debauchery under million dollar contracts with nightclubs. Las Vegas residents weren't just a sad cash grab for has beens who were too old to tour anymore. No longer a gig where old stars rot alongside the outdated hotels, paint peeling from their facade of old grandeur. Once the gleaming highlights of American pop culture and now unkempt and underwhelming. No, Las Vegas was new again and the desert was hot. So Britney's presence there had to stay hot too. News of her second residency rocked the pop community. Flashy new billboards graced the sleeves of the Strip. Another concept came into focus. Britney. Domination. Maybe the name was the final straw. Domination more like dominated. Britney was sick of the submission. Britney said no to the name, to the residency, to the endless work without adequate rest. She said no to all of it. One little word, two little letters. One massive source of trouble. Someone or something had acquired that trouble. Britney's therapists chose lithium. Then things in Britney's world slowed to a halt. Her legs hurt like hell. She stretched them from the discomfort of the foreign bed she was tucked into. She couldn't dance anymore. Not here. And they wouldn't let her. For Britney, they once meant her father and the legal team behind the conservatorship. But in recent weeks they had swelled to include even more people. Specifically the nurses at the mental health facility where she was currently living. But despite their constant presence, no one at the facility could adequately explain why she was here. Brittany traced the events again in her mind. She said no to the residency and the doctor put her on lithium and ripped her from the comfort of her regular medications. She devolved into a sleepy, slurring mess. She apparently failed a mental health test that she didn't even understand. And now she was here in a small facility in Beverly Hills for rehab. Rehab for what exactly? She was squeaky clean in every way. If she looked drunk all the time, it was only because they were pumping her full of lithium every day. That kept her in a stupor. And the only benefit of the lithium lubricant happiness was that it took the edge off her extreme lack of privacy. Nurses watched Britney just like the paparazzi used to, except they were by her side at her new home 24 hours a day. They watched her change buck naked every morning. They peered at her from the hallways right through the empty door frame to Britney's room where a door should have been. Stretching her limbs in a rehearsal studio is obviously off the table. Britney couldn't dance, but she could sure work long days. 8am to 6pm every day. No weekends off. Brittany didn't even know how that was legal. She might not have been performing anymore, but her body slumped into a new kind of exhaustion. Her joints ached from sitting through meetings 10 hours a day, seven days a week. Her schedule was new. But her dad, Jamie in the rehab facility dangled the same damn carrot in front of her. Misbehave and you'll be missing your children. Near hunky boyfriend too. So Britney obeyed Miss American Dream since she was 17, now lived a 9 to 5 nightmare. And for this grand luxury of working 10 hour days 7 days a week, Britney paid $60,000 every month. $60,000 to be in a rehabilitation program when there was nothing to rehabilitate except perhaps a perceived disobedience as one final blow to Britney's freedom. Britney didn't even have a phone. That's where Jamie Spears and the rest of the unnecessary team messed up. Because if Britney didn't have her phone, she couldn't post to social media. Her Instagram and Twitter accounts went radio silent for months. Fans noticed. They talked, posted, stirred up new conversations about the conservatorship relearned what the hell a conservatorship was. They learned a little empathy too. Something that was lacking in the ravenous tabloid culture of 2007 and 2008. The news exploded. Wait, this conservatorship was Still a thing. Fans retweeted every article they theorized, started podcasts, made YouTube videos. They made a hashtag too FreeBritney. And then they started a movement. Movement. The private investigator was lucky the chant was so simple. What do we want? Free Britain. When do we want it? Now. The PI yelled. Along with the small circus of fans gathered on the street. She marched in step with the real protesters who carried signs that read Britney is not your slave and Free Britney, bitch. The mole might not have had a pithy slogan to parade around, but she had the fangirl look down to a science. Pink sunglasses, an old circus tour T shirt and fishnets layered under short shorts. She wasn't there to spread awareness. She was there to collect information, chat it up with the fans, hear what they were saying, which aspects of the conservatorship they were bringing up. ID them, which was easy if you swapped a few Instagram and Twitter follows. She played the role of advocate for hours. And when the megaphone finally went silent, the PI went home and fed all the information directly to Britney Spears dad, Jamie. Jamie claimed the secret research was conducted for Britney's own protection against these so called conspiracy theorists. It was of course for his own protection. Instead, what do these people want anyways? As far as Jamie was concerned, fans had won their battle. Jamie stepped down as a conservatorship of Britney's person in 2019. Problem solved. Except he remained a conservator of her estate. Problem not solved. The conspiracy theorists Jamie bitched about weren't onto a conspiracy at all. They just cobbled together the truth in detail. And Britney's silence on social media in 2019 was their tip off. Just over a year later, a petition to release Britney from the conservatorship had netted over 134,000 signatures. The media was throwing around the word crazy and Britney Spears in the same sentence again. But unlike 2008, it wasn't that Britney was crazy. It was that Britney had been locked in a troubling situation for more than a decade now. And that was bonafide batshit crazy. Jamie resorted to costly damage control and hired lawyers to advocate for the conservatorship. To news channels through on air interviews, they casually told newscasters about the supposedly great help the conservatorship offered Britney. The combined cost of all those lawyers good faith, was 530 $30,000. They sent the bill to Britney, of course. She literally forked over half a million dollars for attorneys to work against her best interests. Jamie even arranged a Special natural photo opportunity for the paparazzi. He made Britney leave a public building without security alongside her boyfriend to show just how free and normal her life was. Jamie could quell the news and he could quell the courts. But for once, what he couldn't control was his daughter's own voice. Because in 2021, the court granted her permission to speak at the next hearing. That's right. Up until this point, Britney Spears herself was never a part of any of these conversations. An attorney had a request that she be able to speak. June 23, 2021. Britney dialed in to make the phone call that would change her life. Everyone in the courtroom held their breath and no papers rustled, no pens clicked. The news outlets swarming outside impatiently pressed their earpieces, waiting for the scoop. Fans gathered around phones waiting for their Twitter update. For once, the world paused their pop playlist and listened to what Britney had to say about her well being a courtesy offered over a decade too late, but better late than never, Britney found her written speech. And then she spilled it all. The lithium, the lack of privacy, the IUD stuck inside her, the 10 hour work days, the carrot dangling in front of her, her children, and her maternal will to do anything to see them used to manipulate her into submission. Every detail sounded another alarm raised another red flag about her arrangement. But what shocked the court the most was Britney's polished presentation. She was lucid, just as lucid as she had been in 2008, 13 years ago, when she politely requested a different conservator from her father. On an afternoon when Brittany had every right to scream and shout, she calmly stated her case. This was a person who was capable of speaking for herself, of understanding just what she was being subject to. Within a month of the hearing, the court finally permitted Britney to choose her own lawyer. She hired Matthew Rosengar, Hollywood's litigator of choice for celebrities and major corporations. Matthew came to court with guns blazing. He brought a petition to remove Jamie from the conservatorship. He brought documented proof that Britney's medical team supported the removal of Jamie. The most or least surprising of all. He brought paperwork accusing Jamie of extortion, claiming Jamie straight up asked Britney for an additional $2 million for him to leave the conservatorship. It was over. Jamie raised his white flag and packed the last of his monthly $16,000 paychecks into his suitcase. On September 29, 2021, a judge suspended Jamie from the conservatorship. Two months later, they suspended the conservatorship entirely on November 12, 2021. The court stated that after 13 years, the conservatorship was no longer required. Funny phrasing when you consider that such a disgraceful order was probably never required in the first place. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening, as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland Ad Free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man.