Entertainment

Jamie Spears Bugged All Of Britney's Communication Devices

britney spears ipad facetime bugged jamie spears black box security
(Valerie Macon / AFP via Getty Images)

According to a former employee, Jamie Spears had the security detail team he hired to ostensibly protect Britney monitor and tap her communication devices.

Just when you thought the details behind Britney Spears’s conservatorship couldn’t get any darker, another former employee reveals that it does in another documentary. Alex Vlasov, a Black Box Security employee who made the claim in the New York Times’s documentary Controlling Britney Spears, showed texts, emails, and other messages as proof of his harrowing claim.

“It really reminded me of somebody that was in prison. And security was put in a position to be the prison guards essentially,” Vlasov told the Times.

Not only is this a massive invasion of privacy, but it is also a violation of the law in some states. For example, in California, all parties must consent to recording, whereas in New York state, only one party has to give consent. It is unclear whether or not the security detail asked Britney for permission, but given all the information that is pouring out about Britney’s father and her conservatorship, we are going to assume the answer is no.

The security firm mirrored her iCloud account on separate devices – and disseminated the messages to her father and other members of the security detail.

“Her own phone and her own private conversations were used so often to control her,” Vlasov said. He said that higher-ups at the security company, along with father Jamie Spears, received copies of everything from FaceTime calls, texts, and emails between Spears and everyone in her life.

Vlasov also alleges that Edan Yemini, the chief executive and founder of Black Box Security, once gave him a USB drive and asked him to delete its contents.

“I had them tell me what was on it. They seemed very nervous and said that it was extremely sensitive, that nobody can ever know about this and that’s why I need to delete everything on it, so there’s no record of it. That raised so many red flags with me and I did not want to be complicit in whatever they were involved in, so I kept a copy, because I don’t want to delete evidence.”

As to the content of this drive? Vlasov said it contained over 180 hours of recordings… of Britney in her bedroom.

The New York Times confirmed the authenticity of the recordings. “There was an obsession with the men in Britney’s life,” Vlasov revealed. All of Britney’s boyfriends were required to sign disclosure agreements. According to a court investigator, Britney even alleged that she wasn’t allowed to befriend anyone, especially men, without her father’s explicit consent.

The Times also obtained text messages confirming that Britney tried to hire a new lawyer in 2019, but her father and security team monitored and quickly squashed that effort. In fact, Britney told the lawyer to pretend to be a plumber, so her security team wouldn’t know that she was speaking to another lawyer. A week after this exchange, Jamie Spears took the phone away from his adult daughter. The documentary lays out even scarier details – like the fact Jamie Spears had security start ID’ing ‘Free Britney’ activists.

In response to the allegations, a lawyer for Britney’s father said, “All of his actions were well within the parameters of the authority conferred upon him by the court. His actions were done with the knowledge and consent of Britney, her court-appointed attorney, and/or the court. Jamie’s record as conservator — and the court’s approval of his actions — speak for themselves.”