In mid-November, after a long and difficult 13 years, Britney Spears was finally freed from the conservatorship that left her feeling controlled to the point that she compared it to “sex trafficking.” Now that the superstar is enjoying life fully on her own terms, she’s continued to open up about the treatment she says she endured while under the court order. Spears is now claiming that she wasn’t allowed to perform new music or even remixes of her hits during the conservatorship, as she reflects on taking a break from the music industry.
Fans of Britney Spears have known for a long time that her Instagram was the place to go to try and get updates on the pop singer, but that became even more true once Spears spoke out against the conservatorship for the first time in open court in late June. She’s now spent the past several months talking a lot more openly about what her life has been like for the past 13 years, and is now speaking about her break from music. The star is alleging that it stems from the control her family had over her career while she was under the conservatorship, and said in her post, in part:
I wanted to be nice but what they did to my heart was unforgivable!!!!! I asked for 13 years to perform new songs and remixes of my old songs. I had two months off between each show setting for four years in Vegas, and every time I asked I was told ‘No.’ !!!!! It was a set up to make me fail yet I knew exactly what I wanted my fans to see and it didn’t make sense how network television shows are showcasing my music with remixes of all my music, yet the person who owns the music is told no!!!! They even gave remixes to my sister, but why was I always told no?
A few days after Spears talked about her conservatorship in court and made many shocking claims about it, her manager, Larry Rudolph, resigned. He noted that he was hired by the singer (as opposed to the conservatorship) to take care of her music career, but that it had been nearly three years since they’d last spoken, and during that last conversation, Spears said she was planning “an indefinite work hiatus.” Rudolph resigned after he became aware of the performer’s desire to actually retire from the music business.
And, in truth, Spears hasn’t performed since 2018, when she made appearances for Dick Clark’s New Year's Rockin’ Eve and the United States Grand Prix, so it seems that the timeline for her conversation with Rudolph and her backing away from music basically line up.
While the songstress has talked before about her claims that her career was used to control her in other aspects of her life, the idea that she wasn’t even allowed to rework her own songs for her benefit, or perform new music, is something we haven’t heard before. Spears obviously believes that she was denied in the hope that the move would “make me fail,” though it’s anyone’s guess as to how vetoing those professional requests would accomplish that and why those who controlled her career would want such a thing.
Later, Spears admits that it may seem “odd” to many why she doesn’t perform or record anymore, but notes that that’s “just the surface issues,” adding that she’s now “scared of people and the business” and is using her retirement as a way to take a stand:
Not doing my music anymore is my way of saying ‘Fuck you’ in a sense when it only actually benefits my family by ignoring my real work.
Maybe, once Britney Spears has taken the road back to fully embracing everything in her life and gotten used to all the freedoms she’s been denied for so many years, she’ll be able to see music and performing as something she enjoys again. Either way, you can bet that her fans will support her, 100%.
