Britney Spears Rebuffed In Efforts To Speed Up Tossing Her Father Off Conservatorship; Singer Could Try Again – Update

Dominic Patten
·7 min read
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UPDATED, 12:46 PM: Britney Spears won’t get an earlier chance to try to chuck her father off of her restrictive conservatorship.

In a tactical victory for Jamie Spears over his daughter’s expressed wishes, Los Angles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny today denied the request by the one-time Princess of Pop and her new-ish lawyer Matthew Rosengart

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“The Application is … Denied Without Prejudice,” Penny ruled about the August 5 filing by Rosengart to move a scheduled September 29 hearing ahead (read the ruling here). Now, before all those #freebritney supporters start gnashing their teeth in anger, Penny’s decision might have much more to do with her busy calendar than the merits of expediting the efforts against Jamie Spears.

Interestingly, with the term “without prejudice” in there, the decision by the LASC official does permit Britney Spears’ attorney to file again in a new attempt to shift the pivotal hearing to sometime this month or early in September.

Whether Rosengart will take that opportunity, we don’t know right now as the GreenbergTraurig lawyer did not respond to Deadline’s request for comment today. In his initial filing, Rosengart certainly had a sense of urgency to knock the elder Spears off the powerful perch he has held over almost every aspect of Britney Spears’ life since 2009. In the August 5 paperwork, which followed a late-July filing to have Jamie Spears replaced by forensic CPA Jason Rubin, Rosengart said that “every day matters” that the father is overseeing his daughter’s finances, her more than $50 million fortune and career.

In an opposition filing of his own on August 6, as you can see below, Jamie Spears said that issues Rosengart and Britney Spears raised in addition to the desire to move up the September 29 hearing “cannot be resolved on a non-appearance ex parte basis.”

AKA who’s the boss? We’ll see with Rosengart’s next move for his client in late September.

PREVIOUSLY, August 6: Everyone is at war with everyone else it seems in Britney Spears’ controversial conservatorship. However, the singer herself says “things are way better than what I ever anticipated.”

Moving away from “the drama of the conservatorship,” the video remarks yesterday by a sunbathing Britney also go on to tell fans what her favorite clothing brand is and what her favorite Miley Cyrus song is, among other questions from fans she wanted to answer – as you can see below:

On the drama of the conservatorship, just one day after the one-time Princess of Pop’s new and self picked lawyer filed paperwork to have a September hearing moved forward in an effort to speed up tossing Spears’ father off the restrictive 13-year old arrangement, Jamie Spears has launched a counterattack in the courts.

“Mr. Rosengart’s request to suspend Mr. Spears is based on (i) untested testimony provided
by Ms. Spears at the June 23, 2021 and July 14, 2021 hearings; (ii) allegations and events largely related to health and medical issues for which Jodi Montgomery has been responsible for since late 2018; and (iii) vague, conclusory, and unchallenged declarations submitted by Lynne Spears, Jodi Montgomery, and Mr. Rosengart himself,” says the elder Spears in opposition and declaration filings today in LA Superior Court to attorney Matthew Rosengart’s move on Thursday. “At a minimum, Mr. Rosengart’s suspension request raises serious and complicated legal and factual issues that require a full opportunity to be heard and cannot be resolved on a non-appearance ex parte basis,” the filing adds (read it here).

Late last month, in her second remote appearance in Judge Brenda Penny’s courtroom, Spears called out her father directly and said she wanted to “charge him with conservatorship abuse.” The Toxic singer also asked the authorities to “investigate him.” The elder Spears has been a co-conservator over his daughter since 2008, and at present is the only person in charge of her career and fortune of more than $50 million. Personal and medical issue fall under the purvey of co-conservator Jodi Montgomery, who has been involved with the Spears’ case for the past couple of years and has constantly clashed with the elder Spears — and now they are clashing against as Britney herself and Rosengart assert involantary treatments and more being forced upon the 39-year old singer.

“These issues regarding Ms. Spears’s medical treatment are indeed serious, but Mr. Spears has not been in control of his daughter’s medical treatment since late 2018,” Jamie Spears’ Holland & Knight lawyers declare in today’s filing. “It was Jodi Montgomery, along with the Conservatee’s former attorney Sam Ingham, who admitted Ms. Spears to a facility in early 2019, including but not limited to signing the admittance documents.”

And, with the elder Spears painted as the villain by all parties and the #freebritney movement, then things get nasty.

“Mr. Rosengart also quotes Ms. Montgomery’s assertion that removing Mr. Spears is
‘critical,; but neither explains why,” Jamie Spears’ filing say. “It is unclear whether this
assertion is related to Ms. Spears’ current psychological state, her medical treatment, or something else completely.”

“This claim is ironic, however, in light of Ms. Montgomery’s recent plea for help
from Mr. Spears when Ms. Montgomery felt that Ms. Spears was spiraling out of control,” Britney’s 69-year old father adds, throwing his fellow co-conservator way under the bus.

“Mr. Spears received a call from Ms. Montgomery on July 9, 2021, in which she sounded very distraught, expressed concern about Ms. Spears’ recent behavior and her refusal to listen to or even see her doctors,” he reveals. “Ms. Montgomery pleaded for Mr. Spears’ help to address these issues Mr. Spears explained to her that he would do anything to help his daughter but was limited in this ability since he no longer had access or insight into any of his daughter’s medical information.”

Now, Matthew Rosegart has not responded to request for comment on the latest turn of events, but Jodie Montgomery, who is also seeking 24/7 security protection after being pushed into the public sphere in the past few months, certainly had something to say.

“Ms. Montgomery is saddened that her telephone call to Mr. Spears, made out of genuine concern for Ms. Spears, and intended to re-establish a working relationship with Mr. Spears towards Ms. Spears’ mental health and well-being, is now being misrepresented and manipulated to gain some sort of tactical advantage in the pending proceedings to remove him as Conservator,” Montgomery said bluntly in a statement Friday.

While noting that she has “concerns about Ms. Spears’ ‘recent behavior and overall mental health’ as set forth in Jamie Spears Declaration dated August 6, 2021,” Montgomery also says she cannot go into specifics because of privacy regulations.

Montgomery does, however, take a very specific swipe at the elder Spears, who has opposed the high cost of her heightened security proposals among other clashes between the two since 2018. Montgomery says in her long-ish statement that she “cannot go into those concerns with any further detail except to say that having her father Jamie Spears continuing to serve as her Conservator instead of a neutral professional fiduciary is having a serious impact on Ms. Spears’ mental health.”

AKA Burn me, I’ll burn you back.

Amidst all this fiery business, Britney Spears herself had other concerns today. Making it indirectly clear how restrained and controlled her life is under the present construct of the conservatorship, the singer became a little bit more connected with the world this week – with her very first iPad. In a post oddly now disappeared from her Instagram, Spears proclaimed “I got my first iPad today, and I am so excited.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Britney Spears (@britneyspears)

Currently the next hearing in the matter is set for September 29. However, if the past few months are any blueprint, expect Judge Penny to shift that up a few weeks and maybe even to this month as Rosengart has requested.

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