In her book, Spears condemned the court-ordered conservatorship, also known as a guardianship, which she was under from 2008-2021. During that time, her father, Jamie Spears, was in control of her finances, career and many aspects of her personal life.
She says that if she was just left to live her life, she would have worked it out.
“Thirteen years went by with me feeling like a shadow of myself. I think back now on my father and his associates having control over my body and my money for that long and it makes me feel sick,” she wrote.
But, she added, she resolved to go along with the protracted arrangement “for the sake of my sons,” even though “being in it was really hard”.
After the conservatorship ended, her father Jamie Spears said it had been “necessary” to protect her, but it was time for her to have control back.
In his recounting, Federline has a different take. Even when the marriage tanked, it wasn’t easy for him to “watch her spiral”, he writes.
Federline supported the arrangement, arguing that it provided “some semblance of normalcy” for their two boys together. After her psychiatric hold, Federline says he immediately filed for sole custody, but that set into motion a slew of issues that exacerbated Spears’ relationship with their children.
His ex, he writes “saw the events in her life through a prism that painted her as the victim, the misunderstood one, the person wronged by everyone around her.
“But from where I stood, she needed help. Whether that was rehab or therapy, I couldn’t say for sure,” he writes, noting that she was in no state to manage her own affairs and needed some form of oversight or “protective layer”.
He adds that he came to find out that there was a lot he didn’t know about the conservatorship, and he did not push for answers because part of him “doesn’t want to know”.
