Britney Spears's mother speaks out as firm acting as co-conservator resigns

It comes after a judge denied the star's request to have her father removed from her conservatorship

Britney Spears's mother has spoken out after a judge denied the star's request to have her father removed from her conservatorship. Reuters

Following a judge’s decision to deny Britney Spears’s request to have her father removed from her conservatorship last week, the pop star’s mother, Lynne Spears, has admitted she has “mixed feelings” about the arrangement.

In comments made to The New Yorker, Lynne, whose ex-husband Jamie Spears is co-conservator over his daughter’s professional and personal affairs, said: “I got mixed feelings about everything, I don’t know what to think. It’s a lot of pain, a lot of worry."

The comments come as the firm Bessemer Trust, which acts as co-conservator over Spears’s finances alongside her father, put in a request to resign from the conservatorship.

In documents filed to the court on Thursday, and obtained by The New York Times, Bessemer Trust said that “due to changed circumstances”, citing the pop star’s recent court testimony, it no longer wished to be responsible for managing her finances.

In the filing, the firm explained it had been told Spears’s conservatorship was voluntary, with her consenting to hire the company.

The firm has “heard the Conservatee and respects her wishes”, the filing stated.

The filing was made on the same day a judge denied Spears's request to have her father removed from her conservatorship.

While not related to last week's hearing, in which the pop star gave an explosive testimony, new court documents filed by the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday show a judge denied a request filed by Spears's lawyer in November 2020.

In that filing, the Toxic singer stated she was “afraid of her father” and would refuse to perform again if he continued to be in charge of her career.

“The conservator’s request to suspend James P Spears immediately upon the appointment of Bessemer Trust company of California as sole conservator of estate is denied without prejudice,” the court documents filed Wednesday stated.

When the request was first filed in 2020, Judge Brenda Penny declined to suspend Spears's father from the conservatorship and appointed financial company Bessemer Trust as a co-conservator.

Wednesday's filing was for the judge to approve Bessemer Trust as the co-conservator, and the judge maintained her decision to not remove Jamie.

However, in Thursday’s court filing, the firm said it was still “not currently authorised to act” on behalf of Spears, and hasn’t received any of her estate’s assets or taken any action as co-conservator.

Last week, Spears gave a heartfelt 24-minute testimony, her first public statement since the conservatorship was instituted 13 years ago, after she went through a very public breakdown. In her remarks, the singer called her father "ignorant" and controlling. "He loved every minute of it, the control he had. He loved it," she said.

She also claimed she was forced to take the drug lithium against her will and was prohibited from marrying or removing a birth control device, and that she wanted the "abusive" conservatorship to end.