Britney Spears’ legal battle to remove her estranged father Jamie from her conservatorship took another contentious turn this week. The pop star’s lawyer Mathew Rosengart accused the Spears patriarch, 69, of demanding nearly $2 million before he steps down as co-conservator of his daughter’s estate in new court documents obtained by HollywoodLife. On the heels of the accusations, a source has revealed exclusively to HollywoodLife that Britney, 39, “isn’t surprised” by the latest development.
“She feels he has been taking advantage of her earnings for years,” a source close to the singer told HL. “Her one saving grace in all this is she will finally have some rights. She has felt suffocated by all the rules and she very ready for change.” Jamie has not yet responded to the accusations. HL reached out to his reps for comment, but we have not heard back.
Still, the source maintained that Britney is “so relieved that she is finally seeing movement.” The source added, “It truly feels there is a light at the end of the tunnel.” Jamie filed the paperwork to step down as co-conservator in August, a role that he has held since 2008. In the documents obtained by HL, Jamie said there were “no actual grounds for suspending or removing” of him, but agreed to eventually step down “when the time is right.”
However, in the latest development, Mathew has accused Jamie of “improper quid pro quo,” per COURT docs obtained by HL. The docs read: “Regardless of the past, Mr. Spears and his counsel are now on notice: the status quo is no longer tolerable, and Britney Spears will not be extorted. Mr. Spears’s blatant attempt to barter suspension and removal in exchange for approximately $2 million in payments, on top of the millions already reaped from Ms. Spears’s estate by Mr. Spears and his associates, is a non-starter.”
In a statement issued to HL about the extortion allegations, Mathew said that Britney “will not be bullied” by Jamie. “Britney Spears will not be bullied or extorted by her father,” he said. “Nor does Mr. Spears have the right to try to hold his daughter hostage by setting the terms of his removal. This is not about him, it is about the best interests of his daughter, which as a matter of law, mandate his removal.” He added that if Jamie “loves his daughter,” he would “resign now, today, before he is suspended.”