As you may have noticed, Britney Spears has been in the headlines quite a bit in recent weeks - particularly since giving her testimony in court on June 23rd.
Last week, a judge turned down her plea to be released from the stifling conservatorship she has been under since 2008 and there has been an outpouring of support from her fellow celebrities - including some unlikely stars fighting her corner.
An in-depth piece in the New Yorker by Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino was published over the weekend that revealed further details of the recent developments.
One of them was that Britney Spears called 911 the night before her testimony on June 23rd to "report herself as a victim of conservatorship abuse".
The piece also revealed that Spears had been against the conservatorship from the very beginning, although last month was the first time that she had publicly requested to be released from it, and quoted a former family friend, Jacqueline Butcher, recalling how her father Jamie Spears was aggressive and abusive. "He would get all in her face — spittle was flying — telling her she was a whore and a terrible mother," she said.
Tellingly, the New Yorker piece also confirmed what many fans have suspected in recent years: that Britney Spears' social media accounts are monitored - although perhaps not to the degree that they suspected.
Spears "typically writes the posts and submits them to CrowdSurf, a company employed to handle her social media, which then uploads them. In rare cases, posts that raise legal questions have been deemed too sensitive to upload," it claims. "A member of her team claimed that, aside from 'about one per cent' of her posts — those which might incur liability — Spears has 'pretty much total control' of her social media."
Farrow and Tolentino also quoted Britney's mother Lynne Spears, who was forced to speak to them on the phone in a whisper lest someone come in and find her talking to a reporter. "I got mixed feelings about everything," she said. "I don't know what to think ... It's a lot of pain, a lot of worry."
During her testimony, Britney said: "All I would honestly like is to sue my family [and] share my story with the world."
