All About Change - Saving Britney Spears - Tess Barker and Babs Gray, Co-hosts of the Britney's Gram and Toxic Podcasts

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

When Tess Barker and Babs Gray started comedically dissecting Britney Spears’ quirky social media on their podcast Britney’s Gram, they had no idea it would morph into something far greater. As the two dove into Britney’s online presence, they started to wonder how willing of a participant she was in her own life? Then they received a disturbing voicemail revealing that Britney had been placed in a mental health facility against her will. Tess and Babs courageously sounded the alarm on their podcast and social media. The response was massive and immediate, and overnight, and the #FreeBritney movement was born. Together with Britney’s loyal fans, Tess and Babs shined a much-needed light on the truth behind Britney's conservatorship, ultimately helping the singer regain control over her own life. Listen to the latest episode of All About Change as Tess and Babs dive into how a comedy podcast led to #FreeBritney activism, more details surrounding how Britney was kept in a conservatorship for so long, and conservatorship abuse in general. Please find a transcription of this episode here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oh God, Britney Spears is in trouble, and I think we might have to do something to help her. Hi, I'm Jay Ruderman, and welcome to All About Change, a podcast showcasing individuals who leverage the hardships that have been thrown at them to better other people's lives. This is all wrong. I say put mental health first because if you don't... This generation of Americans has already had enough. I stand before you not as an expert, but as a concerned citizen. In each episode, we bring you in-depth and intimate conversations about activism, courage, and change.

I really doubt that a man in Britney's situation would have ended up in a conservatorship. Today on our show, Tess Barker and Babs Gray. That would not happen to a man. Writers, comedians, podcasters and free Britney activists. What started as two friends comedically dissecting Britney Spears' quirky social media on their podcast. We didn't think about how it was going to affect, you know, the entertainment. We didn't know. Mor morphed into something much bigger. As the two dove deeper into Britney's online presence, they started to wonder how willing a participant was she. Intuitively, we were touching on that there was something going on with her in her life and her situation, but we didn't know quite what it was yet. Then they received a voicemail that revealed that Brittany was being held against her will

at a mental health facility. Hi there. I cannot disclose who I am. I just heard the latest episode. You guys are on to something. They courageously sounded the alarm on their podcast and social media. The response was overwhelming. The Free Brittany movement was born. I think this is a really important movement, not only because it provided the public pressure

needed to free one pop icon, but because it also shed a light on conservatorship abuse. When you are placed into a conservatorship, you are essentially depersoned in the eyes of the law. So the law essentially takes away the civil liberties that you have as depersoned in the eyes of the law. So the law essentially takes away the civil liberties that you have as an adult citizen in this country. Tess and Babs, thank you so much for joining me. How did you decide to start a podcast following Britney Spears' Instagram?

We were actually at a comedy festival talking about Britney's Instagram posts because we just found them super fascinating. And we thought, hey, why don't we start a podcast about her Instagram as kind of like a joke niche podcast? Yeah, I think originally the idea was that the comedy from the show was going to come from us taking something that we thought was pretty uneventful or pretty banal, I guess, in Britney Spears' Instagram and taking it super seriously. Like that was what we envisioned the sort of crux of the comedy of the show being. But from listening to you on the podcast, it was clear to me that

in addition to thinking that her posts were interesting, you really liked her. Oh, definitely. We both love Britney. I've been a Britney fan since I was a teenager. She's always been one of my favorite artists. She's a celebrity that I've always looked up to for how down to earth she seems and how unabashedly herself she's always been. We were always coming to it from a place of love and admiration. And this was really the way that she seemed to be communicating with the world. So it was a fun way for us to kind of analyze a person who we really adored and kind of this method of communication. Hello and welcome to Brittany's Gram. The happiest place on the internet.

I'm Barbara Gray. And I'm Tess Barker. And, oh my goodness. What about her posts drew you or drew her fans? And what was it about her that people just fell in love with? It was this weird sort of duality that was going on where she was posting these kind of like mom memes, I guess, for lack of a better word. But at the same time, we just had these questions. You know, she's always alone in her

house. You never see her hanging out with other people. You don't really see her out and about in the world very much. So for someone who was posting these very candid kind of like snapshots of her life, you'd never really saw her outside of this sort of really restricted setting. And then she would post things that I think if your friend from high school posted, you wouldn't think much of. She posted a meme that said, let me shop and no one gets hurt. But when you have the information that she's lost complete control over her own finances and the money that she's been earning, it sort of takes on this other subtext. And so I think that was what we found so, I guess, fascinating. So let me take you to the announcement of her Vegas residency.

I guess the second Vegas residency. And you guys dissected that. And then at what point did you realize there's something going on here? You know, there are definite moments you can pinpoint as far as how this whole story is unraveled that were big moments. as how this whole story is unraveled that were big moments. And I think that that was definitely one of them in realizing that she seemed extremely uncomfortable and just she did not want to be there. I mean, you could tell on her face like this was the last place in her she wanted to be. And we were already paying very close attention. So when that happened, it just really piqued our interest even further as far as like, what's happening behind the scenes here?

Yeah, it seemed sort of like an act of protest. It was like this huge production in Vegas with helicopters and fireworks and things projected onto buildings and this huge buildup for Britney to come. She arrived really late to this event, came up on a stage and didn't say like one sentence. She didn't say, hey, guys, I'm so. Thank you for being, no kind of canned nothing. She just walked off the stage about three seconds after she came up on this platform, immediately walked through a crowd and then got into a car and was driven off. So it felt like a really intentional form of protest

on her behalf. I guess there was a line that people could call into and leave messages and feedback. At what point did you set that up? Yeah, I think we set it up pretty early to start playing a few at the end of each episode. That was the fun of the show was that the people who were into it, they got the game, which was like, let's take this too seriously. You know, so people would call in to sector emojis and just do the kind of silly things that we were also doing and talking about on the show.

So that was mostly what it was. At one point, you get a message that's, I guess, three minutes long. And one of you was listening to it late at night and called the other. And that sort of really shocked you. Could you just walk us through what it was like to get that message? And what was your reaction? So a little context, what had happened is she announced that Vegas residency. That was in, I think, October of 2018. In January of 2019, she posted on her Instagram that she was then canceling that three-year engagement and that she was doing it in order to take care of her father, who we knew she had sort of a fraught relationship with.

Then paparazzi photos surfaced of her going through a drive-thru in and out, looking like happy with her boyfriend. And then she completely disappeared. There were no paparazzi photos, nothing on her Instagram, nothing was going on with Britney for three months. So for like three months on the podcast, we were like, where is she? Like we called it the Britney shutdown because it was like, where is Britney? And then at the same time, we were also looking at her legal situation. Tess had gone to hearings involved. So it was like the both she disappeared and there was like, you know, actual digging into the conservatorship legal files. Yeah, yeah. And then she posted on her Instagram or somebody posted on her Instagram.

Sometimes you just need a little me time. And that was the first post that had been on the account for like three months. So literally, I remember driving when that post came up, immediately grabbing my podcast equipment and going to Babs's house because it was like, what is going on? And on that podcast, we had been having this discussion of, I just, knowing what we know about her legal situation, knowing how long she's been missing, I don't think that she A, checked herself into a mental institution and B, that it happened this week. So we put out that podcast and then I was editing the podcast for the following week. And yeah, we always put the little voicemails at the end and the show had started to get a little bit more popular. So we had more voicemails. And I thought that's probably enough for this episode. And that's when I noticed

one that was longer than the rest of them. And so I thought, oh, I'll just listen to this one real quick. Hi there. I cannot disclose who I am. And it was a person who was a paralegal for an office associated with Britney's conservatorship, who told us that Britney had been in fact, in a mental institution against her will since January, and that there was no plans for her to get out on any sort of timeline. There is no end, particularly in sight for this day. And it was the most, I think probably the most chilling thing that's ever happened to me. It was like, oh God, Britney Spears is in trouble.

And I think we might have to do something to help her. It was very surreal. This was not a decision she made at all. So can you talk about the sort of ethical dilemma? Because I know you talked about this on your podcast about what do we do? What was the process that you guys went through in trying to figure out what to do? We talked more to, you know, the source who called us and made sure he was legit, talked to some friends about legal advice as far as like putting this information out there. And if we could get in trouble, we kind of just tried to like gather our thoughts, but we

knew we needed to put it out. I mean, we didn't think about how it just tried to like gather our thoughts, but we knew we needed to put it out. I mean, we didn't think about how it was going to affect, you know, the entertainment. We didn't know. We just knew, like Tess said, that like it seemed like she was in trouble and that time was of the essence, basically. We felt a real sense of urgency that like, this woman has been held against her will in this place for a few months and they're pretending she's okay. It doesn't seem like she's okay. And we need to put this info out there. So I think once we kind of like confirmed things on our end and felt as good as we could going forward, we just went for it and released the episode.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Britney's Gram. We're here. As you've already found out, this is a special emergency episode. What was the reaction to that? It was a sea change in terms of Britney Spears fanship in terms of the entertainment industry in terms of pop culture. I mean, we intentionally because we are comedians and I think pretty savvy in terms of social media and stuff like that. We did make the intentional decision to release the episode in the middle of the night because our thought was that maybe it would catch on and get too big for her team to do anything.

And that's sort of what happened. By I think seven or eight o'clock in the morning, it was everywhere. Everyone was tweeting about it. Brittany's mom had started liking posts about Free Brittany. She posted sort of like a religious meme that seemed to be a reference to Free Brittany. So that was very validating. It was like, okay, this is confirmation. I think that we've tapped into something. We got contacted fairly soon after that by other people who were close to Brittany, who also corroborated the stuff that we had heard. It was crazy. Share the shit, share the episode. Let's get her out. Free Brittany. Free Brittany. We love you, Brittany. Let's talk about the conservatorship. Most people didn't know what it was.

So maybe you can talk about what it is and what you came to learn about it. They're called different things from state to state. But essentially what happens in a conservatorship is somebody decides that a person is incapable of making decisions for themselves, personal decisions, financial decisions, decisions about who they can visit and their health care and things like that. And the court appoints someone called a conservator and essentially hands over all of that person's civil liberties to that other person. So that other person now has the authority to decide where they can go, what doctors they're going to see, whether they can go to the grocery store, who can call them. And then additionally, if they're in a financial

conservatorship, then there's also somebody who then has access to all of their bank accounts, have access to what happens with all of their real estate, if they own property, can sell it, can do whatever they want. So when you are placed into a conservatorship, you are essentially depersoned in the eyes of the law. So the law essentially takes away the civil liberties that you have as an adult citizen in this country. And we think of guardianship or conservatorship as something that people who are very elderly, maybe going through dementia or Alzheimer's, it's placed on them to help them live their lives. maybe going through dementia or Alzheimer's, it's placed on them to help them live their lives. But Britney is young and famous and successful and working and making a lot of money for a lot of different people. How does this happen to Britney Spears? She was in a really unique situation where she's in a conservatorship and actively working and making money,

which is generally not the case at all. What happened was in 2007, 2008, when the tabloids were all over her and she was going through a public divorce and things like that, you know, there were a few incidents with like her kids and custody things, and she got 5150'd once. And then a month later, she got 5150'd again. And we found out that actually the second 5150 was planned days in advance and that this conservatorship had started to be planned. And so they took her and it all happened in one weekend. She went into a hospital one weekend. And by that Monday, all of her rights, they got an emergency hearing, which shouldn't be generally used for something like that. You know, these hearings are meant for somebody who's literally like on the brink of death, or it's an extremely serious situation. And from all the things we learned, there was nothing serious going on that night at her house, no reason for police, ambulance, all these people to show up and strap her onto a gurney and take her away. It did not seem like an

emergency of any kind, but they treated it like that and then put her in this conservatorship, which also, you know, we've learned a lot about conservatorships, and there's different kinds. Probate conservatorship is the kind that she's in, which generally deals more with the money and is, you know, often for people who are older, and an LPS conservatorship, which is a mental health conservatorship. And those are generally supposed to be one year so that you can see maybe they'll get better, they can get out of it in a year. But probate, they call them lifetime, basically, conservatorships because they're not really meant to be ended. So she was put into a lifetime conservatorship.

For those listeners that don't know, what is a 5150? It's an involuntary psychiatric hold. It's instituted usually when someone is presenting a clear danger to themselves or someone else. We spoke to an attorney on our podcast Toxic about this 5150 hold. And her view was that it's not really something that can or would be planned by the police because normally it's a truly emergent situation where someone possibly has a weapon

or is threatening someone quite urgently. But that was not the case with Brittany. If you watch the videos, they're horrifying. There's like 50 paparazzi trying to photograph her. I know a lot of people in the entertainment world have paparazzi, but it seemed obscene. I don't know any person that could go through that on a daily basis. The way she was being treated,. She was only 26 years old when this happened. So I don't know how a 26 year old who doesn't have two young kids deals with that level of fame and that level of harassment by the paparazzi. I mean, imagine as a young mom trying to keep their baby safe and you're being pursued by a gaggle of men who aren't respecting your personal space, who are probably driving recklessly, who are flashing photographs that you haven't consented to be taken of yourself.

And this was happening to her from the time she woke up in the morning to the time she got back to her house at night. They were following her everywhere she went. So Jamie Spears, her father, didn't really have a tremendous amount of success at anything that he was doing in his life. And in fact, took a loan shortly before the conservatorship. What were the qualifications that Jamie Spears had to become a conservator of his daughter, who was one of the most successful musicians on the planet? I mean, yeah, it's, you know, there's no question you look at it. And I really doubt that a man in Britney's situation would have ended up in a conservatorship, ended up in a situation where people said, you know what, her dad should come in and take over all of her civil rights. That would not happen to a man. We're in this age now

where we kind of look back and say like, oh my God, how was she treated this way? But it was very easy to infantilize someone like Britney Spears. You know, she's beautiful. She's a pop star. She's blonde. And I think also she didn't act the way that people wanted her to act. She was star. She's blonde. And I think also she didn't act the way that people wanted her to act. She was very like from a small town, Louisiana, you know, she went barefoot, she wore what she wanted. And that was not like what they were asking for from her. So therefore, she had to be punished. And I think it was extremely sexist what she went through. And I mean, continues to go through, but no question in my mind that if you know, she was a man, I don't think we would be looking at the situation at all. I think that's another really horrifying aspect to this story is he was granted not only control of all her personal decisions, but also her finances. He

had a history of going into bankruptcy, a history of just poor financial management. From our vantage point, I don't think he had any real qualifications there. And then in terms of taking over her personal life at the time that Britney was placed in this conservatorship by Jamie Spears, Jamie Spears was estranged from Britney. Britney had instructed her security not to allow this man in her house. And he essentially broke into her house a few days before he had her involuntarily detained without her permission and totally violated her consent in terms of who she wanted in her house. So I think that it speaks to our society's tendency towards paternalism, that basically just a guy stepped in and was granted complete control over someone else just

because he's the dad of a woman who is being severely infantilized. At one point, Brittany has a meeting with Adam Streisand, who she wants to be her lawyer. And he comes into the court to the conservatorship and the judge basically says, hey, you don't have capacity, Brittany, to hire a lawyer. And it seems like such a gross violation of due process. I mean, we all grow up saying, oh, you're arrested by the police or something happens. You end up in court. You have a right to a lawyer. Once Brittany was detained that weekend in 2007, she's truly detained in a hospital room that she can't leave. So Jamie Spears says to the court, this is an emergency. I need a hearing right now. And normally when a person is going to be conserved, there's due process and they should receive notice that this hearing is going to take place so that they can come and speak for themselves.

Jamie Spears convinces the judge that Britney doesn't need notice, nor does she need to be at this hearing. So Britney isn't at this hearing, but she has a meeting with this attorney that's like, yeah, I want you to be my lawyer. So Adam Streisand, that lawyer that she had the meeting with, shows up to court on Monday while Brittany is still detained in the hospital and says, hey, I've spoken with Brittany. She wants to hire me. I'd like to represent her. Samuel Ingham, the lawyer who the court had appointed, says, oh, I also talked to Brittany this weekend, and I don't think she has the capacity to decide who should be her lawyer. So this guy can't be it. It's going to be me. And the judge says, yeah, sounds good. Get out of here, Adam Streisand.

So the court goes along with it, and Ingram continues to be her lawyer. And there's some questions, as you mentioned, like, does he have her best interest at heart? But he's making a lot of money off, I think it's $10,000 a month to serve in this position. A week. A week. Sorry. Wow. That's a lot of money off, I think it's $10,000 a month to serve in this position. A week. A week. Sorry. Wow. That's a lot of money. Yeah. And why do you think the court is allowing all of this to happen and not give her a voice? As you said, there's no medical documentation as to what her condition is at this time. It seems like as an

outsider, as a money grab, why does our court system go along with this and why don't they see through it? I think sexism plays into it, but we heard a lot that like they listen to kind of like the loudest voice or they listen to the person who seems to tell the best story almost. And Brittany wasn't there to defend herself. No one was in court on her behalf. And, you know, they were also using the excuse that she's being manipulated by other people. We need to take care of her because outsiders are invading her. So they were saying that Britney Spears is being manipulated by other people, and we have to save her. I don't think you can underestimate just how

saturated in the media Britney Spears was at this point in history. What was going on with Britney Spears was on the nightly news every night in Los Angeles. She was on the cover of every magazine. She was on every blog. Her and the hard times she was going through were at the forefront of the American consciousness. So I think the judge was also living in that society and seeing those things, seeing the picture that was being painted of her by the media. And I think in second part, I think Britney Spears was sort of unequivocally failed by that judge. I don't know whether it was corruption or just negligence, but I think unequivocally the judge just failed to protect Britney Spears in that situation. Britney eventually goes back on tour and does a tremendous amount of shows and is put through a very strenuous work schedule. What was her role in this?

What were they holding over her to make her do this? And why wasn't she at one of her concerts just speaking out saying, hey, you know, I'm being held against my will and this isn't right and I want this to stop? Her kids. Yeah, her children. Her dad would use her kids, hold her kids over her head and say, basically, if you act up, then, you know, you're not going to see Her kids. Yeah, her children. Her dad would use her kids, hold her kids over her head and say, basically, if you act up, then, you know, you're not going to see your kids. It was actually a function of the conservatorship that Britney couldn't be around her kids unless Jamie was

there to supervise. So also outside the court, there's this growing Free Britney movement, which you guys helped spark and elevate. But can you talk about this growing movement that was happening outside the court system that was actually probably influencing the court system? You know, we released that Free Britney episode and then we actually held a rally in West Hollywood, the first Free Britney rally. And she did get let out of the mental hospital

where she was a week later, I want to say. So a couple of days later. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of days later. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of days later. So we all we knew with releasing it was that public pressure would probably be the only thing that would change or help the situation. And, you know, it seemed like, oh, wow, we actually saw something happen already. You know, she got out. Thank God. Her fans and a lot of people who just heard about the situation were just disgusted with the fact that we've been all watching this woman work for years and years and that she has no access to any

of the money that she earns that she's has no rights so i think the more people learned about it the more you know pissed off people got and they joined in there started being rallies basically every one of her hearings and it grew and grew and the media started paying attention. Then I think New York Times presents Framing Britney Spears on Hulu. That really took it to the next level because once the general public really saw the truth about what was going on, you know, that kind of just legitimized it further. At every hearing, one of us was inside the courtroom. First hearing that I went to, the audience was virtually empty. Nobody was really paying attention to what was going on. And by the time Britney spoke out in court, where these

hearings had happened behind closed doors for so many years, and you could literally hear people outside chanting Free Britney while the proceedings were going on. So it became undeniable that eyes were on them and that there was going to have to be some accountability. We mentioned the taking over of this media empire and the finances, but there was much more to it. There was the drugging. I mean, that she was forced to take medicine that she did not want to take, that she was forced to use birth control that she did not want to use. You know, there's so many disturbing aspects about this. But I think when she spoke out about the IUD and how they wouldn't allow her to take it out, I mean,

that was just heartbreaking and so beyond what should be allowed. The conservatorship was in charge of who she got to see. She had to get permission to see her boyfriend. Every aspect of her life was controlled. One hearing, she spoke about how they were not allowing her to have a cup of coffee. It was an abusive level of control over things that she could or couldn't consume. And then, yeah, forced use of antipsychotic medicine, lithium, which is a very, can be a very toxic drug and can have some really severe side effects. And they were forcing her to take that against her will. Since this is developing into a huge story with a lot of powerful people involved, how did you feel at the time? Did you feel threatened?

Did you feel scared? Yeah. Yeah, it was terrifying. It was extremely scary the entire time. And once we put that podcast out there, we were very exposed. The New York Times made a second part to their documentary, which I definitely recommend everyone watches,

called Controlling Britney Spears. And that documentary revealed that they had dossiers on us and other members of the Free Britney movement. We didn't think about it before releasing the episode, but it became really apparent really quickly, like, oh, we have there's a lot of people making a lot of money off of this situation. And we have potentially just disrupted that situation. And it was really scary. We were freaked out. We did like feel honestly, like we were being followed or watched and kind of scared at times. And, you know, we're in the entertainment industry. We're poking a big bear and standing up for something. And there was always just this driving force of like, you got to keep going. Like she there's, but the risks to your own careers. I think one of you, I can't remember which one, told a story about someone actually saying to them, you're done in this town, which seems so cliche. Yeah, we got threatened and somebody who did not want us to poke around said, yeah, threatened us and said, you're never going to work in this town again. And it was extremely... And that's someone who like in the interim, I've had professional situations

come up where I'm like, oh, oh, that person is involved. So that's a bridge that I've burned. Okay. Yeah. I also think at the same time, we were the right people to pursue it because we're not in music. We are comedians. We have our own outlet. We don't work for a newspaper or a magazine where a lot of times the journalists we talk to, the deal would be like, yeah, you can interview Britney, but it has to be softball, basically. We didn't have to worry about her PR team not giving us access to another person or something like that. So I do think that we were just in the right place at the right time, you know, and the right people to do it. Good afternoon, Ms. Spears. I believe you're on the telephone. Hi. Good afternoon.

So I want to take you to a very emotional moment where all of the lawyers are, they're all on Zoom. Your Honor, this is Ms. Wright. I did want to ask that we please seal the transcript and clear the courtroom so we can preserve those medical rights. I think it's really important. And I think anything said about them. I think they've done a good job at exploiting my life and the way that they've done my life. So I feel like it should be an open court hearing and they should listen and hear what I have to say. OK, that was Ms. Spears speaking. That was me, yes. OK, thank you, Ms. Spears. All right.

And she speaks for 23 minutes, and it's the first time that Brittany has been heard in a long time. Okay, so I have this written down. I have a lot to say, so bear with me. What happened and what it was like for you? It was just an incredible moment. I mean, it was because I don't think anyone had told her that she even had that option.

Like, it was just such a moment of her asserting her voice and her refusing to stand for this abuse anymore that everybody in the courtroom, I mean, it's, you have to be very quiet in a courtroom and very respectful, but everybody, you know, we're all wearing masks and all the journalists are looking at each other like, Oh my God, this is really happening. Ma'am, I'm not here to be anyone's slave. I can say no. And you could see all the lawyer spaces on the Zoom.

And they, it was like this collage of deer and headlights. Like none of the lawyers knew what to do. Like the train had left the tracks, you know, like it was Britney's show. And nothing was going according to their plan. I shouldn't be in a conservatorship if I can work and provide money and work for myself and pay other people. It makes no sense. It was a very emotional, very powerful moment. Right. I remember the scene that you guys recorded when I think Tessie left the courtroom, you saw Babs and you know, like how emotional you guys were. I mean, having gone through this whole thing and seeing like, oh my

God, she laid out her case. That was like the last, the missing piece, basically, because it was just like, everyone is, you know, out there trying to fight for her, but people needed to hear it from her. She was so brave and did it. And it was just like, so overwhelming. Is that where the conservatorship starts to fall apart? Yeah, people start resigning.

And then finally, after many, many attempts over many years to be able to hire her own attorney, the judge allows her to hire her own attorney. That happened a couple months later. So then once she had an attorney who actually was acting on her behalf, wheels were set in motion right away to start to terminate the conservatorship. Do you feel that our country's views about mental health changed as a result of this journey? Or did this happen because the views that started to change in the country about mental health changed as a result of this journey? Or did this happen because the views had started to change in the country about mental health? I think both. We really think of the Brittany story, not really as a Brittany story, but it's really a bigger disability rights story.

I think it has shifted the way that we view people with disabilities and the agency that they should be given and the way that so many of their rights are just blanket taken away. Instead of looking at what is this person able to do, specific areas where they need support, it's really been standard practice to just really strip people of their rights. And so I think it has shifted the way that we view disability and the rights of disabled people. What would you say to people listening, and I understand there's about a million people in the United States under conservatorship, How do you view conservatorship abuse? How does someone see that it's happening?

And what do they do once they see it's happening? A lot of times it's about finding out what's going on with someone's finances. If you can get any information about finances and how somebody might be misusing someone's money or charging things incorrectly or just any evidence like that. But I mean, number one, they need a good advocate. They need a good lawyer. I mean, the other woman who we interviewed on Toxic named Dorothy, her son put her in a conservatorship and she's a very spitfire woman, lives in her own home.

And she was like, yeah, sure. I, you know, I maybe I don't clean my house sometimes, but I have my shit together. Basically. She, you know, she had to go find a lawyer who would actually advocate for her. And once she did, she finally got out. But it's honestly, it really takes like being able to find someone who will, who will stick up for you in the courtroom. One challenge that people who face conservatorship abuse face is that the attorney that's going to help you essentially isn't going to get paid at the beginning of their work because the court needs to decide, oh, this is your attorney and that needs to be signed off by the person who you're trying to get rid of. So people in conservatorships are in a real catch-22 and

Dorothy was really lucky to find an advocate who was willing to work essentially pro bono for a little bit until Dorothy was emancipated. And I would say a big sign of conservatorship abuse is also isolation. If you have someone who their phone calls are being restricted, their visits with their families being restricted, that's a huge sign of domestic violence. And I think conservatorship abuse. Where does the Free Britney movement go from here? You know, I think people are still interested in seeing justice for what happened to her, seeing her father pay some kind of consequence. Where does the Free Britney movement go from here? can actually choose their own lawyer. That was a law that got passed last year, I think. So I think that people are being able to use her case as like an example of not using this as a blanket rights restrictions, but trying to go through and treat each case by case. Hopefully now that more

people are aware of the problem, I think that's a huge help because a lot of people just didn't know about it before. Well, thank you for both of you and everyone in the movement for really changing the way we view guardianship, conservatorship and the abuses that go on. Do you guys still follow Britney now that she's out of the conservatorship? Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. I'll probably always follow Britney. You know, I thought I was very happy to see her so happy at her wedding and I'll always follow her on Instagram and if she puts out an album, I'll be the first in line to buy it. Well, I want to thank you both for coming on All About Change. You really changed our world

and I know you didn't get into it initially thinking that was what was going to happen, but you really changed the world and probably changed the world for so many people you will never even know. So I want to thank you and I really appreciate what you're doing out there. Oh, thank you. Thanks. That's very sweet. Thanks for having us. All About Change is a production of the Ruderman Family Foundation.

This show is produced by Yochai Meital, Jackie Schwartz, Matt Lippman, and Mijan Zulu. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to come back in two weeks for another inspiring story. In the meantime, we still have all our previous content live on our feed and linked on our new website, allaboutchangepodcast.com. Lastly, if you enjoyed our show, please help us spread the word. Tell a friend or family member or consider writing a review on your favorite podcasting app. I'm Jay Ruderman, and I'll catch you next time on All About Change.