'Britney Vs Spears': 5 things we learned from the documentary
The documentary was released one day ahead of Britney Spears' next scheduled hearing in the conservatorship battle
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Netflix released the latest documentary detailing Britney Spears' legal battle to regain control of her life Tuesday.
"Britney Vs Spears" began with the start of Spears' conservatorship in 2008, controlled by her father Jamie Spears, and ended with the most recent court developments told by filmmakers Erin Lee Carr and Jenny Eliscu.
The film dropped a day ahead of the "Gimme More" singer's upcoming court hearing. Spears most recently requested the court remove Jamie as her conservator.
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However, her father argued the replacement should be denied in a Sept. 27 filing despite Jamie filing an earlier request to end the conservatorship and after he subsequently stated he was willing to step down as Spears' sole conservator when the time was "right."
Here are five shocking moments from the documentary:
1. Spears had attempted to appoint her own lawyer twice before and was once helped by filmmaker Jenny Eliscu
Spears was recently awarded the right to appoint her own lawyer, and she chose Mathew Rosengart. However, the pop star had previously petitioned to name her own lawyer to the court multiple times -- once when the temporary conservatorship first took effect and again in 2009.
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Eliscu, along with the help of Spears' ex-manager Sam Lutfi and ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib, put together a document request Spears be allowed to appoint her own lawyer. Eliscu, who was working for Rolling Stone at the time, met secretly with Spears in a hotel bathroom to have her sign the document.
"Ms. Spears is of the opinion that he is not advocating adequately on her behalf particularly in light of the severe restrictions placed upon her," the document said, according to Eliscu.
Eliscu was under the impression that there would be an ex parte hearing regarding the document she got Spears to sign, but days passed and she never heard anything about it. Eventually, the court ruled that Spears "lacked capacity" to choose her own lawyer, similar to what had happened when the conservatorship first started.
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"It had been ruled that she lacked capacity to choose her own lawyer, and that they had cast enough doubt on to whether that was her signature," Eliscu claimed in the film. "I never heard anything of it again. No one ever talked about it again. Still, no one talks about the fact that there was another attempt to get a lawyer that somehow didn’t work out."
After appointing Rosengart as her new lawyer in 2021, Spears filed a petition for Jamie to be removed as her conservator.
NETFLIX RELEASES FULL TRAILER FOR ‘BRITNEY VS SPEARS’ DOCUMENTARY
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BRITNEY SPEARS SAYS LATEST DOCUMENTARY LEFT SINGER SCRATCHING HER HEAD ‘A COUPLE OF TIMES’
2. The pop star's former manager Sam Lutfi claims he was used as a ‘scapegoat'
The documentary acknowledged that Spears was not given the five days notice before her conservatorship went into effect. Lorilee Craker, who helped Lynne Spears write her memoir, claimed the pop star wasn't given the five days because the team was in "crisis mode."
Both of Spears' parents blamed the pop star's public meltdowns on her new manager, Sam Lutfi.
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"It was total crisis mode with Sam," Craker revealed in the documentary.
"That is something that I don’t think has really been portrayed correctly is the level of crisis at the moment the conservatorship began," she continued. "They felt they had to do it to protect Britney from Sam. He was crushing drugs and putting them in her food and bragging about it."
However, Lutfi denied ever drugging Spears during his own interview for the documentary.
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"We have 100 blood tests and drug tests the entire time I was with her and she passed every single one of them, which is why the police never came to my door," he told the filmmakers. "No one ever called the police. To be accused of allegations that serious, that you’re drugging the world’s biggest star, you call the police, you call the FBI, you don’t call TMZ."
Lutfi went on to accuse the family of using him as a "scapegoat."
"I was the perfect scapegoat. I was new. They didn’t know who I was. I was just an expendable guy," he claimed. "A five-day notice means she would have been notified that this was going to happen and she would’ve had the right to contest to it. She would have obviously contested to it, immediately, and they knew that and everyone knew that. They had to do everything possible to prevent that from happening."
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3. Adnan Ghalib opens up about the night Spears' ‘devastating’ conservatorship took effect
Celebrity photographer Adnan Ghalib, who Spears had a romantic relationship with, opened up about the moment the pop star's temporary conservatorship went into effect in 2008. He allegedly received a phone call from Jamie demanding that he bring Spears to her home.
When the two arrived, Jamie was allegedly waiting with four security guards and two police officers.
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"They’re standing there and she freaks out. ‘What are they doing here? Why are they here? Why is my father at my house? Who are these people? Why are the cops here?’ And she looks at me," Ghalib recalled during the documentary. "I’m supposed to be the one that protects her. I’m trying to calm her down, and I cannot."
"I’m trying to explain to her, ‘He is your conservator. Without his permission, because he is you, I’ve kidnapped you.’ And it’s that real. She just looks. She doesn’t talk anymore. She’s completely silent. You know, they escort her to the house. That’s when the realization was, ‘OK, I don’t think things are going to be the same anymore.'"
4. Spears allegedly wrote a letter to be read on TV that included details of her conservatorship, divorce from Keven Federline
Spears never spoke openly to the press about what was going on behind closed doors, but the "Toxic" singer apparently tried to get her point across after Kevin Federline did a cover story for People magazine in 2008 detailing the marriage and divorce.
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In response, Spears allegedly wrote a letter for cinematographer Andrew Gallery, who the pop star had worked with while filming the MTV special "For The Record," to read on TV.
Gallery never read the letter on TV, and once Spears' team found out about the letter it set off "a huge fire alarm." Gallery, who had grown close with Spears after the MTV special, claimed he was "removed" from the pop star's life shortly after.
However, he had saved a copy of the alleged letter and read it during the documentary.
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"What happened to Britney was a year ago and people need to get with the times," the letter read, in part. "And as far as Kevin saying Britney divorced him, she was forced to by her lawyers b/c she went to visit him in NY and he wouldn’t see her and the children, and her lawyers said if she doesn’t divorce him he’s going to do it himself."
"So Kevin trying to play the innocent victim is hardly irevalent [sic]. He left her and the babies," the letter alleged before further claiming: "Her going on the mend partying two years ago has nothing to do w/the situation now. She is a completely different person and most of their fighting was done back then b/c of his problem waking and baking to marijuana at 5:00 in the morning."
Spears' letter went on to emphasize that the pop star didn't think anybody knew "the truth."
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"No one talks about these things because no one knows the truth. She was lied to and set up," the letter read. "Her children were taken away and she did spin out of control which any mother would in those circumstances."
"Now this year Britney has been silenced to speak about anything that’s really going on. The people controlling her life have made 3 million dollars this year. She would love for her new eyes to see her situation, but if she brings it up she’s constantly threatened that the conservators will take her kids away. So how long does this go on for. As long as the people are getting paid she has no rights, it could go on for awhile but it doesn’t make it right at all."
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5. Jason Trawick believed the conservatorship was ‘too constrictive’ during engagement
According to a memo sent from a doctor regarding the conservatorship, Trawick believed that "eventually Britney will have to learn to live without a conservator."
"He feels that the present arrangement is too constrictive," the doctor wrote in the memo, dated March 18, 2012.
The memo then listed restrictions placed on Spears that Trawick believed were inconveniences including, asking permission to drive the golf cart around the neighborhood and asking for money to buy books for her children.
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A rep for Spears and Federline did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.