How would you feel if Britney was free but then had a downward spiral?

[Sea flower]

I think we should not speculate that, nobody knows what will happen in the future.

[Steel Magnolia]

On 8/3/2020 at 5:48 PM, PokemonSpears said:

I was 14 at the time, and I do remember seeing her on the news every day. I did fear for her, and, as probably most of the people did, I also believed the narrative that the conservatorship was the best for her at the moment. Yay, we still have our Britney, safe and sound, and she's coming back stronger than ever with her Circus era. Later I thought it was more of a ruse, or some sort of legal technicality just to protect her from lawsuits (something that wouldn't have been correct anyways) but that stopped making sense when in 2016 she was made to appear in court to face Sam Lutfi.

Btw I wonder how things would've been if she wasn't followed by paparazzi 24/7. If the media had actually left her alone, would people have the same impression of her? Would her family had worried so much about her to the point of putting her under a conservatorship? How would've the world reacted to Britney being put under a conservatorship without the preconceived image that the media gave her in the previous couple of years?

It's really difficult to tell, because we can't go back and change things to see how things would've been in a different scenario. Would've Britney shown "erratic behaviors" if she wasn't followed by dozens of paparazzi every day?

 

Yes, she might have needed help, but a conservatorship wasn't the answer, and there's no amount of love or worry that her family may have felt to justify it. And when you see how the conservatorship was placed, how they stepped over what the law says the process should be, how they tricked her into getting into that second evaluation so they could go to the court and say it was better not to tell her anything about the cship, so she couldn't fight back, and most importantly, when you really see what a conservatorship is really about, and in which cases it should be applied, you realize how they were (and still are) just basically playing with the law, using this legal resource to create their "hybrid business model".

At first the conservatorship was due to end on December 31. However it was made permanent in October, because according to Reva Goetz, Britney Spears had shown she was “susceptible to undue influence.” Why did they need so much time to get her life on track to begin with? The most they should've done was just getting her into rehab or some sort of treatment, and then let her be on her own, giving her her rights back. Work and money income wasn't even a problem for her, she had just released an album in the worst moment of her life, a new perfume had come out in early 2008, she was preparing a single at the time, I mean, what was even their plan or what were they trying to fix? They just put her to work on other things. Did they need a conservatorship for that?

 

 

What do you think the answer was?

At the time?

[PokemonSpears]

7 hours ago, Steel Magnolia said:

What do you think the answer was?

At the time?

Well, I don't know what "the answer" was, but they could definitely have tried many other resources before deciding the conservatorship was the only alternative left.

I really don't know the legal system, but Ryann mentioned on that podcast that there are several ways to try to help someone without being as extreme as a conservatorship. She mentioned a power of attorney, rep payee or supported decision making as some options. Again, I don't know the details about each one, but she works very closely with patients under conservatorships, and she also agrees that it was a very unusual decision to opt for that resource right off the bat, without even exploring less harsh options or the most obvious one, as they call it, a natural support. Like, did they ever try to at least speak to her in a civilized way to convince her of seeking help?

And as I said, ok, the conservatorship is placed to help her go back in track, after tweaking the law and stepping on it, fine. This temporary conservatorship shouldn't have lasted longer than weeks, and that already sounds like a lot. They shouldn't need a lot of time to just send her to some mental facility or rehab center, put the restraining orders you wanna put, make whatever decisions or adjustments or whatever they had to do to just, do that, put her on track, and then they should have left her there to continue her life under her own decisions. If that doesn't work, which I don't even know how they would measure that, by how many times she appeared on the cover of magazines? well, then try another thing, and so on, and only until nothing else worked, then contemplate the possibility of a permanent conservatorship, but again, conservatorships aren't for strong-headed people that refuse to seek help or follow a treatment, they aren't for people with substance abuse problems either, they're for people that are literally out of their mind, that have no self awareness and will literally die without the help of someone else, because they won't be able to provide the most basic needs for themselves, like buying food, or having a shelter, clean themselves, or taking medicines, etc.

So I don't know what was the absolute answer to Britney's situation at the time, I just know that a conservatorship wasn't it.

[Steel Magnolia]

8 hours ago, PokemonSpears said:

Well, I don't know what "the answer" was, but they could definitely have tried many other resources before deciding the conservatorship was the only alternative left.

I really don't know the legal system, but Ryann mentioned on that podcast that there are several ways to try to help someone without being as extreme as a conservatorship. She mentioned a power of attorney, rep payee or supported decision making as some options. Again, I don't know the details about each one, but she works very closely with patients under conservatorships, and she also agrees that it was a very unusual decision to opt for that resource right off the bat, without even exploring less harsh options or the most obvious one, as they call it, a natural support. Like, did they ever try to at least speak to her in a civilized way to convince her of seeking help?

And as I said, ok, the conservatorship is placed to help her go back in track, after tweaking the law and stepping on it, fine. This temporary conservatorship shouldn't have lasted longer than weeks, and that already sounds like a lot. They shouldn't need a lot of time to just send her to some mental facility or rehab center, put the restraining orders you wanna put, make whatever decisions or adjustments or whatever they had to do to just, do that, put her on track, and then they should have left her there to continue her life under her own decisions. If that doesn't work, which I don't even know how they would measure that, by how many times she appeared on the cover of magazines? well, then try another thing, and so on, and only until nothing else worked, then contemplate the possibility of a permanent conservatorship, but again, conservatorships aren't for strong-headed people that refuse to seek help or follow a treatment, they aren't for people with substance abuse problems either, they're for people that are literally out of their mind, that have no self awareness and will literally die without the help of someone else, because they won't be able to provide the most basic needs for themselves, like buying food, or having a shelter, clean themselves, or taking medicines, etc.

So I don't know what was the absolute answer to Britney's situation at the time, I just know that a conservatorship wasn't it.

I think they had already been trying for years.

Why do you think she married Kevin? 

[alluvion]

14 minutes ago, Steel Magnolia said:

I think they had already been trying for years.

Why do you think she married Kevin? 

You think already, by 2004, they'd exhausted all of those other options? I don't think she would have divorced Kevin, even under threat from her lawyer, as occurred, if she was using him simply to escape her team/family's attempts at legally revoking her liberty. I haven't seen any legal paperwork dug up that indicates less restrictive measures were tried before then, either. Maybe Meaner03, etc. should be checking for earlier records in CA and LA -? But there certainly didn't appear to be any public indications, that I recall or have seen pointed out afterward, of her spiraling out of control until she got hitched in Vegas.

[Steel Magnolia]

20 minutes ago, alluvion said:

You think already, by 2004, they'd exhausted all of those other options? I don't think she would have divorced Kevin, even under threat from her lawyer, as occurred, if she was using him simply to escape her team/family's attempts at legally revoking her liberty. I haven't seen any legal paperwork dug up that indicates less restrictive measures were tried before then, either. Maybe Meaner03, etc. should be checking for earlier records in CA and LA -? But there certainly didn't appear to be any public indications, that I recall or have seen pointed out afterward, of her spiraling out of control until she got hitched in Vegas.

 

[alluvion]

8 minutes ago, Steel Magnolia said:

 

That's 2005 and she's already pregnant and married to Kevin there and even refers to herself as "before" having let people take advantage of her as just a pushover blonde pop star. So, where are these years before 2004 when they were trying to explore all these legal options for wresting control? 

[Steel Magnolia]

 

[Steel Magnolia]

2 minutes ago, alluvion said:

That's 2005 and she's already pregnant and married to Kevin there and even refers to herself as "before" having let people take advantage of her as just a pushover blonde pop star. So, where are these years before 2004 when they were trying to explore all these legal options for wresting control? 

They were able to get her to divorce both of her husbands.

It's about maintaining control of the brand.

[alluvion]

7 minutes ago, Steel Magnolia said:

They were able to get her to divorce both of her husbands.

It's about maintaining control of the brand.

Sure, I agree. But I don't see any evidence of her having pushed back against the machine until 2004, when she married Jason. And you're saying they were trying for years before she married Kevin (also 2004) to remove her legal agency through increasingly aggressive steps that would eventually lead to the conservatorship trick in 2008. I'm still not seeing anything prior to 2004 (really, prior to 2007) that shows they were taking legal steps to un-person her. You may be right. There may be more and earlier court documents still to be uncovered. But publicly, at any rate, I don't think we saw her really start to assert herself, in conflict with The Machine, until '04.

[Stefani]

I'd be shocked and worried, but I think that her having freedom is her human right. If she suffers a downward spiral then that'll be sad, but she should still be free to make her own decisions.

[Steel Magnolia]

7 hours ago, alluvion said:

Sure, I agree. But I don't see any evidence of her having pushed back against the machine until 2004, when she married Jason. And you're saying they were trying for years before she married Kevin (also 2004) to remove her legal agency through increasingly aggressive steps that would eventually lead to the conservatorship trick in 2008. I'm still not seeing anything prior to 2004 (really, prior to 2007) that shows they were taking legal steps to un-person her. You may be right. There may be more and earlier court documents still to be uncovered. But publicly, at any rate, I don't think we saw her really start to assert herself, in conflict with The Machine, until '04.

I'm not saying there's current evidence of it.

But I am saying I wouldn't be shocked if it was uncovered that they had tried other means leading up to February 2008.

There's a gap of four years between her Vegas marriage and her 5150's. That's a lot of time for them to try other avenues.

It's all about contracts, right?

How do you get her to fulfill her contracts when she was so defiant against maintaining her brand?

[alluvion]

6 minutes ago, Steel Magnolia said:

I'm not saying there's current evidence of it.

But I am saying I wouldn't be shocked if it was uncovered that they had tried other means leading up to February 2008.

There's a gap of four years between her Vegas marriage and her 5150's. That's a lot of time for them to try other avenues.

It's all about contracts, right?

How do you get her to fulfill her contracts when she was so defiant against maintaining her brand?

You said you thought she married Kevin (in 2004) to get out of the grip of increasingly intense attempts to legally de-person her, which had been going on for years prior to the marriage. Clearly, from 2004 on, because of what appeared publicly to be her newly found self-empowerment, her independence via marriage and motherhood, the way she was asserting herself with RCA/her team and even circumventing them, people started to panic. But the time period you originally brought into question were the years before 2004, so whenever until 2003.

[Steel Magnolia]

14 hours ago, alluvion said:

You said you thought she married Kevin (in 2004) to get out of the grip of increasingly intense attempts to legally de-person her, which had been going on for years prior to the marriage. Clearly, from 2004 on, because of what appeared publicly to be her newly found self-empowerment, her independence via marriage and motherhood, the way she was asserting herself with RCA/her team and even circumventing them, people started to panic. But the time period you originally brought into question were the years before 2004, so whenever until 2003.

"But the time period you originally brought into question were the years before 2004, so whenever until 2003."

I don't even know where I wrote that. I've been confused why you've kept bringing it up.

I don't recall giving a time period to "de-person" her.

Either way, there are many ways to "de-person" a person outside of the law.