Entertainment

Britney's Lawyer Alleges Her Dad Approved $500K Payment Without Consent

by Julie Scagell
AFP/Getty

Britney Spears’ lawyer cited a $500,000 payment made without the singer’s consent

Britney Spears’ attorney, Mathew Rosengart, has petitioned the court to remove her father, Jamie Spears, or suspend him immediately from his role as conservator of her estate until an audit of his financial dealings can be performed.

The petition filed in Los Angeles probate court this week seeks to speed up his removal before the Sept. 29 original request to remove him goes before a court. He wrote in his filing that “every day that passes is another day of avoidable harm and prejudice to Ms. Spears and the Estate.”

Rosengart continued to remind the court of her suffering under the conservatorship, which he describes as “abusive,” stating an investigation into her father’s finances is “warranted” — but can only commence fully once he has been entirely removed from the conservatorship.

Rosengart specifically pointed to Jamie’s management of Britney’s $60 million estate, alleging that there has been continued “dissipation” of her money. To support his request, Rosengart says Jamie has been paying himself $2,000 more per month than what he has allocated to Spears herself — plus another $2,000 monthly for his “office expenses.”

The filing also states one set of his lawyers recently billed Spears’ estate more than $1.3 million for eight months of work, including more than $540,000 for “media matters” spent defending the conservatorship.

Rosengart then alleged Jamie “grossly overpaid” a company run by Britney’s former business manager Lou Taylor back in 2019, without her consent. “In December 2019, Mr. Spears inexplicably approved a payment to Tri Star in excess of $300,000 above the approximate $200,000 that was supposedly payable to Tri-Star at the time,” Rosengart claimed. This was paid at the time when Spears was on work hiatus.

All of this was happening at the same time he initially rejected his daughter’s request to go on vacation (with her own money) to Hawaii. “Rather than promptly approving his 39-year-old daughter’s right to take a well-earned vacation (supported by her own hard-earned money), Mr. Spears opposed the trip as unnecessary,” he said. He eventually relented. What a guy.

“Among other things, [Britney] described the trauma and abuse she endured under the control of her father and those beholden to him,” Rosengart declared in court earlier this month. “[Britney] also explained that she had been traumatized, felt like ‘I was dead,’ and like ‘I didn’t matter.’”

Britney’s mother, Lynne Spears, has previously alleged that Jamie is “incapable of putting [her] daughter’s interests ahead of his own on both a professional and a personal level,” and stated having him as conservator is not in her “best interests.”

“Ms. Spears’s medical team is also in agreement: Mr. Spears’s removal is necessary,” Rosengart said again in this latest filing. “During the July 14 hearing, Ms. Montgomery’s counsel stated that it has been the ‘strong recommendation by the medical team, that Mr. Spears, her father, needs to be off of the conservatorship.'”

“A conservatorship should be a last resort, designed to benefit the conservatee rather than a mechanism designed to serve as a tool for the enrichment of third parties,” the filing stated. “It is apparent that this conservatorship has allowed would-be influencers to take control of the Estate and exploit Ms. Spears, often for their own benefit. The suspension and ultimate removal of Mr. Spears will be the first step towards rectifying that abuse.”