Over the course of last year, the #FreeBritney movement gained enormous social media momentum amid Britney Spears’ ongoing conservatorship battle with her father, Jamie Spears.
For context, in the 12 years since her publicised breakdown, hospitalization and rehabilitation, Britney has been under a conservatorship helmed by her father. A conservatorship, as detailed by the California Courts official website, is when an adult deemed unfit to care for themselves is appointed an individual or organization to manage their finance. In this situation, Britney is considered the “conservatee” and Jamie, the “conservator.”
For over a decade, the details of Britney’s conservatorship have remained out of the public eye, though late last year Britney made the details public after filing documents via her lawyer.
Whilst the #FreeBritney moment has been around since 2009, it gained traction last year after a series of concerning Instagram posts. It picked up steam following the publication of an episode of the Britney’s Gram podcast, that saw the hosts sit down for a conversation with an anonymous lawyer who formerly oversaw Britney’s conservatorship. The lawyer expressed concerns over Britney’s management and her father’s involvement in her life.
Now, as Billboard report, the Britney Spears social media team has released a lengthy statement addressing “inaccurate theories out there about how Britney Spears’ social media operates.”
Digital marketing company Crowd Surf’s co-founder Cassie Petrey addressed rumours that Spears’ social media accounts are strictly controlled. under strict control in a lengthy Instagram post on Tuesday (Feb. 2).
She started off by saying that she “absolutely adore[s] the Britney Spears fan base,” and knows “everything they do and say is because they truly love her.”
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“Britney creates her own posts and writes her own captions for Instagram. She finds the google images, pinterest images, quotes, memes, and everything else herself,” Petrey wrote. “Nobody is suggesting any of that stuff to her.”
She went on to explain that Spears edits the majority of her own videos, or gives “specific instructions” to her team on her vision for content before deciding “if she wants to post it or not.”
“Britney is not ‘asking for help’ or leaving secret messages in her social media,” the statement continued. “She is literally just living her life and trying to have fun on Instagram.”
Petrey went on to deny that she was hired by Britney’s business manager Lou Taylor. “This is another example of assumptions being made rather than understanding true facts,” she continued.
She went on to instruct fans to “just be nice [to Britney.’]
“That’s all she really wants,” she wrote. “Don’t bully her. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s having fun creating posts and sharing images that she likes. That’s it. There’s not some secret agenda to it. She’s just having a good time, and I hope this helps people see it for what it actually is.”
See the full statement here.
