Britney Spears told a Los Angeles judge on Wednesday that she has been drugged, compelled to work against her will and prevented from removing her birth control device over the past 13 years as she pleaded with the court to end her father’s legal control of her life.

“I’ve been in denial. I’ve been in shock. I am traumatised,” Spears, 39, said in an emotional 23-minute address by phone that was broadcast in the courtroom and, as she insisted, to the public. “I just want my life back.”

It was the first time that the world had heard Spears address in detail her struggles with the conservatorship granted to her father, James P. Spears, in 2008, when concerns about her mental health and potential substance abuse led him to petition the court for legal authority over his adult daughter.

Spears called for the arrangement to end without her “having to be evaluated”. “I shouldn’t be in a conservatorship if I can work. The laws need to change,” she added. “I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive. I don’t feel like I can live a full life.”

The struggle between one of the world’s biggest pop stars and her father has become a long-running saga that has spawned a “Free Britney” movement around the world among her fans and fellow celebrities.

Outside the courtroom, Spears’s voice silenced a crowd of roughly 120 supporters who had rallied on her behalf but paused to listen to her words on their phones.

The striking development came after Spears’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, asked at her request in April that she be allowed — on an expedited basis — to address the judge directly. Confidential court records obtained recently by The New York Times revealed that Spears had raised issues with her father’s role in the conservatorship as early as 2014, and had repeatedly asked about terminating it altogether, though Ingham had not filed to do so.

“It’s embarrassing and demoralising what I’ve been through, and that’s the main reason I didn’t say it openly,” Spears said. “I didn’t think anybody would believe me.” Spears said she had been previously unaware that she could petition to end the arrangement. “I’m sorry for my ignorance,” she said, “but I didn’t know that.”

Working off prepared remarks, the singer spoke so quickly and so passionately that the judge was forced more than once to ask her to slow down for the sake of the court stenographer.

“Now I’m telling you the truth, OK?” Spears said. “I’m not happy. I can’t sleep. I’m so angry it’s insane.”

The singer has lived under a two-pronged conservatorship in California — covering her person and her estate — since 2008, when concerns about her mental health and potential substance abuse led Spears to petition the court for authority over his daughter.

Spears, 68, currently oversees Spears’s nearly $60 million fortune, alongside a professional wealth management firm she requested; a licenced professional conservator took over Spears’s personal care on an ongoing temporary basis in 2019.

Representatives for Spears and the conservatorship have said that it was necessary to protect Spears, and that she could move to end the conservatorship whenever she wanted.

But Spears said that she felt compelled to again address the judge in the case, Brenda Penny, after most recently speaking out against the conservatorship in a closed-door hearing in May 2019. “I don’t think I was heard on any level when I came to court the last time,” Spears said before recapping her previous remarks, including the claim that she had been forced to tour, undergo psychiatric evaluations and take medication in 2019. “The people who did that to me should not be able to walk away so easily,” she said.

She described being pushed into involuntary medical evaluations and rehab after she spoke up for herself in rehearsal for an upcoming Las Vegas residency that was later cancelled. When she objected to a piece of choreography, “it was as if I planted a huge bomb somewhere”, Spears said. “I’m not here to be anyone’s slave. I can say no to a dance move.”

“I need your help,” she told the judge. “I don’t want to be sat in a room for hours a day like they did to me before. They made it even worse for me.”

Multiple times, Spears drew attention to the fact that she was able to “make a living for so many people and pay so many people”, while not controlling her own money. “I’m great at what I do,” she said. “And I allow these people to control what I do, ma’am, and it’s enough. It makes no sense at all.”

For years, fans and observers had questioned how Spears has continued to qualify for a conservatorship, sometimes known as a guardianship, which is typically a last resort for people who cannot care for themselves, including those with serious disabilities or dementia. Until recently, the singer had continued to perform and bring in millions of dollars under the arrangement.

Outside the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, dozens of Spears’s passionate supporters, who rally under the banner of #FreeBritney, gathered in front of a neon pink step-and-repeat background to chant and give speeches about the unfairness of her predicament. Fans said they had travelled from Las Vegas and Detroit to attend. With an even larger media presence, the crowd grew.

Also joining the singer’s faithful were older participants who saw Spears’s case as bringing attention to a system in need of reform. “When we heard about this group of socially conscious young people, we saw a chance to educate Americans,” said Susan Cobianchi, 61, who connected with the #FreeBritney contingent earlier this year.

New York Times News Service