- Britney Spears' dad defended his role in her conservatorship to The Mail on Sunday.
- Jamie Spears said the arrangement helped her, even as it stripped her of the power to run her life.
Britney Spears's father, Jamie Spears, claimed in a rare interview that the controversial 13-year conservatorship which stripped her of her autonomy helped save her life.
His claim flatly contradicts Britney's own account of the arrangement, which she said was cruel and abusive.
Jamie Spears was one of the main players in Britney Spears's conservatorship. The 13-year-long legal guardianship removed her ability to make financial, personal, or medical decisions without his permission.
"Not everybody's going to agree with me," Jamie Spears, 70, told the Mail on Sunday, a British tabloid.
"It's been one hell of a time. But I love my daughter with all my heart and soul. Where would Britney be right now without that conservatorship? And I don't know if she'd be alive. I don't."
The conservatorship stabilized the pop singer's finances, Spears's father claimed in the interview, also arguing that it was good for her children.
"For protecting her, and also protecting the kids, conservatorship was a great tool," he told The Mail on Sunday. "Without it, I don't think she would have got the kids back."
Jamie Spears agreed to be interviewed to give his side after he was barred from the conservatorship in September 2021, according to The Mail on Sunday.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny later ended the conservatorship altogether, describing it as "untenable," The Associated Press reported. She said it constituted a "toxic environment" that Britney Spears needed to be freed from immediately.
The pop singer was officially released from the conservatorship on November 12, 2021, after both her parents agreed to end the arrangement.
That came after years of campaigning by the #FreeBritney fan movement and testimonies to the court in which Spears recounted what said was her father's abuse of his power over her.
In one hearing in July, 2021, Britney said the conservatorship had allowed her father to "ruin" her life and called for an investigation into her father for conservatorship abuse. At the time, attorneys for Jamie disputed the account, calling it "hysteria on record."
Britney has since called out her father for how she was treated during her conservatorship.
Page Six reported that she wrote on Instagram last month that no longer having to participate in his "slave treatment program" had changed her life. That caption appears to have since been removed.