Page 7 - Pop History: XXceedingly Britney

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

Britney Spears c-c-crossover! We're joined by Brooke Rogers and Mackenzie Brennan (of XXceedingly Persuasive Podcast) to discuss the ins and outs of Britney's conservatorship, legal battles and more.��Want even more Page 7? Support us on Patreon! Patreon.com/Page7Podcast Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a special episode where we are actually, we have a lot of people in the Zoom right now. This is extremely persuasive. I'm Brooke Rogers. I'm Mackenzie Brennan. And there's so much serious stuff going on in the country. So we decided to pick one of the serious topics and really dig in on that this week. So that is the inimitable Britney Spears. And her conservatorship.

And her conservatorship. And we are joined by the pop hits. history crew. Do you guys want to say hi? Chime in. Yeah. Oh. Hi. That's our say hi. That's a chime. All right. I'll just start. Hi, I'm Holda McNeely. I'm from pop history. Joining me. It's Jackie Zabrowski, the other host of Page 7's Pop History. Thank you guys so much for having us because today we're going to get into the nitty gritty of this conservatorship. And y'all are, I'm not going to say smarter than we are, but you're, you're, you're, you

You're gifted in different ways than we are. And I just want to say thank you guys so much for inviting us here. Thank you guys. To explain a little bit further. Thank you for joining. And Natalie is also here. I am Natalie. Gene also here.

From page sevens, pop history. We take, by the way, any subject, we just did Romeo and Michelle's high school reunion. We'll take any subject and we'll just talk about the history of it. Did you guys talk about that on your legal show as well? Yeah, we should. What are the top five legal issues in Romeo and Michelle's high school reunion? Who invented post-its? Do they have the copyright?

Also, if female friendship and should it exist or should it die. Well, and then we get into, should female and male friendship exist. And so I can't answer, cannot answer the post-it question, but you know what I learned recently? Mike Nesmith from the monkeys, his family invented Whiteout. What? Wow. So, see, this is a tropical. Look at that.

These are the tidbits that we bring the table. And for all the pop history listeners who don't know who we are, McKenzie and I have a politics and legal podcast called Exceively Persuasive, where we break down the issues that are going on around us in the world and talk about the legal side of them and the political side of them and all of that fun stuff. Yeah. And normally we just do like fun jaunty topics, but we decided to do a multi-part episode of Britney Spears and now we're all crippled by our own emotions. and really wanted to add. Sometimes it's surprising, like, you think it's going to be a fun topic, and then we are weeping by the end of it. We're like, I'm sorry.

This is supposed to be a fun show to do. I will say that Britney Spears, we kind of knew what we were getting into when we started this because of everything that's been going on, and this is really the time to get into this. And also about the idea, which is what we really struggled with with the last part of our Britney Spears episodes, of how much is the hashtag free Britney how much do they know and is it enough to truly know what this person is going through?

And that's why I really, I'm so thankful that you guys asked us to talk about this a little bit further because as someone, I don't know anything about the law. I'm not even going to pretend like I don't, I don't shit. But I do know that I think that this is bad, but I love to hear y'all's thoughts about it. And then there's also, is it legally bad or is it more? and culturally, like, where is the answer to the problem? Totally. And there's a lot where we were talking, all three of us going, is this legal?

This seems like it should not be legal. Right. But then also, you're analyzing facts as they've been cycled through a lot of very biased, very limited sources of facts. So we'll put the caveat out here now that we're operating only on what is public information. So anything that we say analyzing her current. status is totally hands off at a distance, just like shooting the shit.

Like we don't have any expertise or background that other people don't. My personal opinion is that Jamie Spears is an asshole. Daddy Jamie. We all can get on board with that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think consensus. Yes. Yeah, consensus is Jamie Spears is a jerk.

Yeah. He shouldn't be the conservator. I know that. Yeah, absolutely. Many documentation already, you know, books have been written about how abuse he was in the household when she was growing up. I mean, so just outside of even, is he taking

advantage of her? It's like, no, no, this guy's been like textbook alcoholic, a home, a household, a domestic abuser, and now he's got the keys. Has a restraining order against his her son. Her son has a restraining order.

How old is his son? Well, Kevin Federline put the restraining order on him, yes. another stand-up character. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. There was an altercation. Yes, because Jamie Spears hit Britney Spears's child. And now she's a lot of the reason why so much of her parenting rights have been taken away over the past six months, eight months is because of what her father did to her kid. And now she is the one that is punished for it. And he's, yeah, so he's still a conservator, even though he got into a fifth. physical altercation with the child. Yeah, that's question.

So let's maybe at this point back up and have you guys do like crib sheets very quick crash course. Obviously, if people want the full in-depth dirty details, listen to the three-part series. They should go back and listen to pop history. For sure. And we also talk about like all, you know, her albums and her, you know, artistic process, all this kind of stuff. We'll, well, yeah, cut that out for the, mostly we'll just say what, where do we start? A young Britney Spears She was

You know From a very early age She looks to be Like a big dollar sign for her parents They were Her dad was a failure In business He was a drunk and

Not around pretty checked out They end up moving her to New York City Lynn does the mom She's another fucking character And when they get to New York She gets her what she Well she tried to get her on Disney

Mickey Mouse Club. The Mickey Mouse Club, but she was too young to actually audition for it. She was like two years too young for it. They told her she was too young for it. They ended up going to New York doing auditions and stuff. And then Jackie... She's been looked at as a way for her family to make money since she was little. They never put the same pressure on her sister or her brother. It's always been on her. And so all of the money, the little bit, little bit of money they did have went into her. being a star. And so from a child, everything she did was never for herself. Not that I'm not saying that she didn't enjoy it. I'm not saying that she did

that she hates all aspects of it. But what I do know is that she's done everything that she has done to help her family because she is a loyal person who loves her family and from a young age always wanted to be a mom.

And that is something that we kept a part of the entire Brittany Spears trilogy because it's it's such a huge part of who she's and what she's always wanted. And I think it makes a lot more sense of where she is now and how she feels about her kids being threatened and understandable of why she's flipped out. Sure. And I think one of the really troubling parts about her father still having control over her assets is like not only was she given this huge responsibility as a kid, but she was essentially, it was

inferred that the family wouldn't necessarily have money for like food and stuff if she didn't succeed. There was always this sort of level of pressure on her that if she didn't succeed, the whole family would suffer. Like it's not just stage mom at that point. It's

livelihood. Because he was, Jamie Spears is the kind of guy who's like a flimflam man where he just sort of invest and does different businesses and he fails at them all the time and then it ended up being like Britney was, this is the Hashkow, this is the prize.

It reminds me so much of Shilabuff story, because I know that he did the movie Honeyboy about his dad. And I think this is actually the origin stories of a lot of these really famous people who end up having nervous breakdowns at some point in the late teens, early 20s. I mean, pretty much like you said, you mentioned the Mickey Mouse Club. Pretty much the entire Mickey Mouse Club, it's like nervous breakdown alumni, right? It's this entire class of people who later had a lot of, of mental health trouble. And like, of course they did because there was so much pressure on them from

such a young age to be providers for their whole family and be in the public eye. Right. And I do feel like, and speaking of the Mickey Mouse Club, I do feel that a lot of her leading up towards her mental break was a part of when she dated Justin Timberlake. He was one of the few. And this is, you know, in the late 90s to the early 2000s until 2002. He was the only one that was protecting her. That he was the only one was on the same level as she was and also supported her emotionally as well as creatively. And I think that when that broke up and when that stopped was when that's really when you see the overnight marriage, when you see her getting married to Kevin Federline, when it's like all, like all of the choices that she made after that were really starting to, because also she never got to be a kid.

No. She never got to have fun. At that point too, Jackie, she was like 20. you know, early 20s when you're supposed to be experimenting and trying different things. Informative. She was scrutinized to such a level that her quote unquote breakdown, she barely did anything that bad. Right.

Like she shaved her hair. She did a couple irresponsible things and they act like she's this criminal. She hit a car with an umbrella. Yeah. And she really. How dare she? That car could have been. A headlight could have been stretched.

That car was the one's son. Okay. That car is someone's family member. But this is so funny because, so Brooke and I are a little younger than you guys. So she's about 10 years older than I am. But then I was talking to my little cousin who's about 10 years younger still and kind of setting up this whole, well, she had a breakdown, I guess. She shaved her head. And so my cousin was like, isn't that essentially what Miley Cyrus did?

Yeah. And it was an interesting thing to highlight. So it's like, oh yeah, a little bit, except that the society at the time when Brittany did it was so much more aggressive, so much more paparazzi heavy, sexist, all that stuff. It was back, it was the days of Perez Hilton. It was. And, oh, celebrity is, fuck him. I mean, it's relatively soon post-Diana.

And you listen to that time period and repeatedly people go the most controversial star and we talk about this on the show. But it's like all these people who've like actually beaten their girlfriends who have domestic abuse, they're not the controversial ones, but the girl who was like, I don't want to look like a blonde pop star. anymore for five seconds. Yeah. And her mom, and her mom's book, I have to say this quickly because it's insane.

Her mom's book, it's called Through the Storm. It's insane. First off, the entire book is crazy. But in the very beginning of the book in the epilogue or I'm sorry, the prologue, she says, it was the worst time of my life. My sister died and then I got the worst phone called the same week. Oh, my daughter had cut off all of her beautiful hair. Hail yourself.

She mentions her sister's death in passing to go on to say how horrified it was that she shaved her head. Like that's what we're dealing with here. That'll stick with you. Which like, listen, if shaving your, if drastically changing your hair and like hitting a parked vehicle is enough to get you hospitalized, like, I've done more self-destructive things like that. Just because it was like a Monday. I was just like. Oh, girl. Don't even get me started.

I just cut off all my hair. God damn. Well, so I think, I think, and I would say we're leaving a couple things out. First of all, they made her a sexy baby at the age of 17. At the time that she, at the time of her breakdown, she was being followed by a squad of like, there were like, what, 70 paparazzi outside when she was dragged from her home and a helicopter, taking a helicopter to a mental ward. She was harassed every day by paparazzi.

They hounded her. Violently. favorite thing. Creamed out of it. Violently. Yeah, terribly. And that's its own. I was even going to bring that up as like, can we look into this?

I think it's its own conversation that I feel like there needs to be better legal protections against the paparazzi and celebrities. That's its own thing. And then also, I will say it was more than just shaving her head and hitting a car with an umbrella. There was a standoff with her children, a custody standoff for hours where she was like holding that, like keeping them kind of hostage. But I will say they did prove that in that hostage situation, when,

When the media said that she was, that she was drunk and she was on drugs completely sober. Okay. Is that good, though? Yes, they drug tested her. They tested her blood. She was completely sober. It was the fact that they were saying that they were going to take her children away. She was being hunted and they said they were going to take her children away.

So she, you're right. It's not okay. It's almost worse because then it's not substance. Then it's just your clear head. It's, it's almost like they created the situation. and then went, oh, you monster. She's just like, I just want to have my children. And it's not like when the hostage situation happened.

It's not like she had a gun or anything. She was just like had them in a bathroom with her and she didn't want to leave the bathroom. So I think Natalie, you said this in your episode and I wanted to come back to it kind of throughout our analysis because conservatorship and guardianship have a lot to do with diagnoses. Just because that's a baseline level of proving a lot of incapacities. but I think you had asked like did the media and the paparazzi create the mental illness? And I found myself wondering like kind of a chicken and the egg situation. And then does it matter at the end of the day? Because the fact is she maybe cannot function on her own because of the world she's lived in.

So even if it did create it, that's the world she's in now. Right. Yeah. No, you're totally correct. And I think my anger comes from the fact that the people who pull. put her through this are the ones who are still controlling her. And maybe she does need help, but the wrong people are helping her. Sure.

And also, all of us as, like, listeners of her music and fans are also not really doing any good. But also her father is not in charge of the conservatorship anymore. He's stepped down after the surgery. So he is not technically in charge anymore. We'll have to touch on that. Which I think is a nod. I think it is good. I think it's a step in the right direction.

She's still being controlled by someone that she did not choose to be the head of her money. Right. That's what I assume. Yeah. But at least it's not her father anymore. Sure. Yeah. One more quick thing to pre-setting up the conservatorship.

It was like arguably worse people were looking over her. And that was kind of why the father got the keys was because this guy, Sam Lutfi, essentially slid in and was like, I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to take care of all your business stuff. and was like clearly feeding her drugs and clearly like just a terrible influence. So it was essentially because of that guy that on, what was it, January 31st or February 1st, the family issued a restraining order against Sam Lott Fee that alleges he drugged her, took over her finances and controlled the ravenous paparazzi, which he did.

He set up meetings like photo shoots with paparazzi for money and stuff. And when was it this was this year or was this back in 2008? This is like the day the conservatorship got set up. And then on February 1st, 2000, Spears's father, Jamie, is appointed co-conservator of her estate as the star was deemed unfit to look after her own affairs, along with the attorney. Love the name, Andrew Wallet. They'll come up with that one, yeah. All right, so, Brooke, you want to kind of set up what we're going to add such as it is to this? Sure. So if you did listen to the pop history episodes, and if you haven't, you should go back and listen to those to get some background.

But if you did listen to that, then you know kind of the circumstances of the conservatorship. We're going to break a little bit. We're going to break down the legal side of that. So we didn't mention this before, so we should. McKenzie is a Supreme Court lawyer. And so she's got the knowledge in the background on all of this legal stuff. And so we're just going to dig into kind of the nitty-gritty details of what the next couple of steps might be. for her conservatorship and like what actually all this means.

Quickly, they're, when we're talking about conservatorship versus guardianship, guardianship is when there's a caretaker who care, who takes after a person's well-being in terms of like their living situation and their health. A conservatorship looks at, handles that, but also handles the scope of their estate and their financial well-being as well. So it's a little bit different. being basically. Yeah.

Well, so that, that actually depends on the state. So New York is guardianship across the board. So the way that I think of it is that they're interchangeable depending on little nuances of state law. So in New York, we call it guardianship for both financial and personal affairs. In California, it sounds like they call it conservatorship for both. But essentially, the way that we'll use them, and because I practice in New York and I work for the New York Supreme Court, I use guardianship.

So if I slip into that, just know that I'm substituting it for the same sort of standard. Cool. But, yeah, it's for adults who otherwise the presumption is that they can care for themselves, take care of their own person and finances. So it's divided into person and property powers. But you can have a guardian of both. But it's somebody who otherwise you would presume could take care of themselves. And so the showing then is that they can't.

And we'll get a little more into that. And I think that, you know, you guys sort of had a conversation about, in the last episode, about, you know, does she need a conservatory? Because there's, with the whole free Britney movement, they're trying to, you know, quote unquote, give her her autonomy back and, you know, make sure that she has control over her life. But there is a question of, is that what's best for her? So we're going to jump into whether Brittany fits the standard given for a conservatorship, basically. Cool. And then after that, kind of, okay, if that's the case, who should serve? Because it seems like that's kind of a subsequent question is, I guess now her dad has stepped down, which is good news. But who should serve? And is there somebody better when a lot of people are going to be, it's like chum in the water. Like when there's somebody up for grabs, if you will, who's worth that much, but needs a guardian or a conservator. It's a same, right. It's the same with, like, in all of this,

Jamie Spears brought on Lou M. Taylor, who is Brittany Spears' business manager, who is also someone that runs, I don't want to say religious scams, but I will say the phrase religious scams because Britney Spears had this foundation that she, the whole part of the foundation was giving art classes,

dance classes, singing classes to underprivileged youth. And it had raised all this money. And then when Lou M. Taylor was brought on board, all of the foundation went under. And where did all of the money from the foundation start going? It was going to conversion camps that were found out as conversion camps. And eventually the entire foundation went under.

And where did the rest of that money go? It seems it went into the foundation that was run by Lou M. Taylor. She used to have gone into methamphetamine and male sex workers. And he wanted dance lessons. You forget about that part. He wanted to learn how to dance. Let him dance. Real quick, a note about money, too.

I just want to say like even three, all right, she had her heyday in like the early 2000s. She has her breakdown around 2007, 2008. After her breakdown, her Las Vegas residency, hundreds of millions of dollars she made. She continued to make mad money. Her final Las Vegas residency show brought in $1.172 million alone. Just that show. One show.

She has been making oodles of money this whole time. Hand over fist, yeah. Yeah. So is that added in like being able to make money? Is that added in to being able, like as part of this guardianship, conservatorship, can you be mentally completely unstable to make and perform that? And yet consistently do a show. This is a great segue.

Yeah. So the biggest thing that I'll say at the outset, just to address that now, is that conservatorships or guardianships are Taylor. It's not one-size-fits-all. So when you hear that somebody, even that they have a quote-unquote permanent guardian or a permanent conservator, that's just that it's not this immediate temporary sort of emergency petition that the standard is a little lower because it automatically expires. and there's some showing of an emergency, even if it's a permanent guardianship, you can tailor it to be just this number of powers

because they've shown that they can't apply for Medicaid benefits or they can't arrange for their physical therapy. So it's not a binary of either you are incapacitated and you cannot do anything and you have to show that or you're totally free and good, Which is, you kind of see that division with the personal versus financial powers as an initial thing. Right. In fact, shouldn't every state then, shouldn't it always be separate? And it is a lot in practice, but like using New York as an example, and actually California too, because they both use one word, conservator in California, guardian in New York.

But in New York will write they need a guardian of the person or guardian of the property or limited property powers and full person powers. And then you enumerate the powers that they need in. And then there are some kind of iffy powers where they have to come back and apply to the court where it's like, if they need this, a good example that comes up a lot is moving the person. So if they're in a nursing home, but they want to move them back to their house with home care. It's like we're going to put an asterisk on that power and say if you want to do that, the door's open, but you have to make a separate application at the time. Explain to the court why and where. and then we'll sign off fully on the power. So there are tailorable options,

and it does sound scary if you think of it as a binary sort of thing. And that's where I can imagine the free Britney people being like, what the fuck? Like she's obviously able to sing and do business stuff, but that's what she knows how to do. That's the thing she's been trained to do. It's this financial, maybe interpersonal sort of dynamic that I think is more ripe for question.

And that is, her brother did. sort of bring that up in that he was saying, you know, he thinks people are trying to help, but to understand, you'd have to understand that she's never, like, called to order her own food and stuff, which I get, but I do,

I do think that she could learn. Right. How do we, but just what's in place in terms of this stuff to, and I think this is what gets to my frustration is that even her own lawyer, this ingram guy or whatever his name is, has only incentive to keep her in her conservatorship. And it's like, where's the social worker and all this?

It goes to her house once a month and teaches her how to order a fucking burger. Right, because I'd asked you guys about this, about who checks in on a conservatorship. So this is, I'll just say at the outset to backtrack just a second. So the standard that's used in most places, at least most progressive places, there might be states that are more regressive. I would not be surprised. but New York and California both tend to be like ahead of the curve in terms of, you know, protecting due process rights because that's what this is. It's depriving somebody of their liberty.

And it's a similar sort of bodily integrity privacy right to what you see in Roe v. Wade. So side note to plug all these rights are interconnected. And if we lose that framework, a lot of shit falls apart. So cuts both ways. But in any event, you have to show that the. incapacitated person, so they're called AIP's alleged incapacitated person or IP once they're found to be, does not appreciate the nature and extent of their disabilities and thus is likely to suffer

harm because of those disabilities if somebody isn't appointed to help them. So then you kind of, that's where the tailoring comes in because it's like, what are the disabilities, what are the things they can't appreciate? What have we actually shown here with evidence if we've only shown that she can't balance a checkbook or invest well, which I wouldn't be surprised. But I can't. I can't. Do I need help? Maybe.

Maybe I do too. I want one. Yeah. She really hasn't been given the opportunity to prove that she can do any of that since, like, 2008. She's been under this conservatorship for 12 years, and yes, they're having hearings. But when was the last time she actually, you know, got a chance to show that she could, you know, be independent and make choices independently?

because it seems like she's just been assumed that she can't do that up to this point. Yeah, you're right. And in researching this, I'm actually really surprised at how similar a case, if it's the worst case scenario here, the Brian Wilson and Dr. Eugene Landy situation were. Yes. Yeah. Because Dr. Landy was, again, it's like it's the worst version of a lot of stuff that's going on here, which is also a useful point of comparison about like how.

And we're talking about Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Yes. And also you should watch Love and Mercy because Love and Mercy is so good. It's a very good. It's also a really good explanation of what was going on. And I mean, it's Paul Giamati and John Kut's like, how can you go wrong? And that other guy, Paul, Paul Dano. Dano.

Yeah. Yeah. I love Paul Dano. Oh, yeah, he drank the milkshake. He drank the milkshake. Yeah, and all the boys came to the yard. I remember. that. Just like Brian Wilson did. So, yeah, so Eugene Landy was the psychiatrist for Brian Wilson.

Brian Wilson, I think, has been diagnosed subsequently with schizoaffective disorder. So he does have a psychiatric diagnosis. And in California, that's a threshold question for getting a conservator hearing, even. So that hasn't been released with Brittany, what her diagnosis is, but you know that just to get in the door of the court, you have to show that. Which isn't surprising. I have a question about that. Yeah. great, like, what tier, if you will, of mental illness do you have to have in order to be considered for a conservatorship? I don't know. I don't know in California. Because it seems like, you know, like if it's, if it's just someone who has like anxiety or depression or even like bipolar disorder, but, you know,

show, they show that they can, you know, take care of themselves. It seems like that that shouldn't be like a wedge in the door, a foot in the door for people to, you know, apply for conservatorship. Yeah. So I will say, I'll make the comparison of saying that New York doesn't have that threshold requirement. So if you're assuming that it's kind of a make or break, then New York standard would be lower, but it's not. It's just that I guess California would like to show something more concrete in the beginning. But then obviously that in and of itself. Isn't it a possibility for a conservator to hire the doctor that does the inspection of mental illness? That's Landy, right? Because Landy was both his psychiatrist and a eventually was appointed his conservator and was his business partner. So you see triple-dipping. Exactly.

Yucky yuckies. Because I know that you can't say directly one way or the other because we don't know. But it does appear as though she goes from being very clear-eyed to very heavily medicated in a way that seems debilitating. And a way that she seemed easy. She was able to communicate pretty well until these sort of drugged. expressions come over her face over certain years. And that does, it is a, it raises a question, like, are there people who don't have a stake in this checking on how she's being medicated?

So yes is the short answer. And so there are people appointed by the court. And it's worth stating that once a petition is filed, so somebody files a petition to be a conservator or guardian of this person. They're called the petitioner. So that's Jamie Spears here. And then the proposed conservate is Britney Spears. So at that point, the petitioner has an attorney. The dad has his own attorney. The court appoints an independent person who usually is an attorney.

In New York, you can get licensed, but you're still a fiduciary, if you're a social worker, for example. But somebody with experience in the field who's gone through a training class, and they're called a court investigator or a court evaluator. And they're somebody who, their job is to, like, they have access to all the bank records, all the financial records, and that's what the court appointment does. It's like, okay, all the doors are open. You can go to Wells Fargo and look at the withdrawals over the last 10 years. You can go to the hospital, and even though they have all these HIPAA laws, you still have access to it.

So they can look at everything and determine, what is the real state of things? And then they write a report that is strictly for the court's consumption. And then the judge decides if that gets released to the parties. I mean, the incapacitated person has access to it as of right because it's about them. But the petitioner does not automatically have access to it. And then... Ken, could you explain what as of right means real quick for the layman?

So it's essentially that due process sort of thing that because it's their liberty at stake, It's the presumption is that the incapacitated person has a right to see it. You can't withhold it for funsies or because somebody says that it. From them, you're right. So then, so they're appointed by the court. They're not allied with either party in theory. I've never seen it happen that they are allied with either party. I've seen it work pretty well.

And these are people that they're not paid well for that appointment. And it's a thankless job. I mean, it's a lot of hours. I think I told you guys in an email, like, we had a court evaluator recently who got lice because she went and sat with the IP while she got her hoarder deep cleaning of the apartment. And she just, like, hung out with her. So, like, it's a thankless job, and you get a lot of people mad at you. So I tend to, just having seen it play out a number of times, I tend to trust their evaluations most of the time.

that's not to say it can't go wrong because obviously you have... Is there a difference between a court investigator and a social worker? Like what are the differences with that? Like, is it that kind of thing that like with, in Britney Spears's case, would it be best like if someone else was looking in? Like you said, it's a thankless job, which I don't mean to immediately just think of social work. But as someone that is friends with a couple of social workers,

I'm aware of how much they work and how little things they get. And they work. Oh, so they work. So it is the kind of thing that sometimes they would bring in a social worker. Yeah. So often those social workers are usually, if I could say, like one witness that's called more than any other type of witness, it's a social worker in these types of proceedings. Now, in a case like Britney Spears is, I don't know that you would need to because there would be so many other people in her life accessible who are familiar with the facts because usually it's to show things like they can't clean themselves. They can't clean their home.

They can't file taxes, things like that, that the social worker knows because, say, adult protective services had to step in. But the only difference is that a court evaluator or court investigator, depending on what state, they at least have taken a class to be licensed as that in the court system. So there's a little bit more familiarity with what the legal standard is. And a social worker can do it, at least in some states. they can go through that class and be licensed, but usually it's lawyers just because they're the ones who are aware of the system. Gotcha. Yeah, but so, yeah, they overlap.

With this burden of proof, it's like, how do we know in Brittany Spears's case that she can't do all of this? I mean, again, like, I know that they're like, well, you know, she can't balance a checkbook and stuff. But like, like I said before, yeah, it just seems like she's just because she's been under, it is a, like a second chicken and the egg thing where it's like, yeah, you took all this power from her and said, no other people are going to take care of this from now on.

And then you say that she can't do it. Oh, she can't do it. She can't do it. Yeah. And she can't learn. And that's kind of what the onus, unfortunately, would be on her to take it upon herself to learn it and then show the court. Because it's not like in these situations, it's just, it's impractical to have the

resources and the means as a court system at large. otherwise you're just, you know, preferencing the money cases. But the court can't be like, let's call someone to come in and teach you because even though it's been shown with clear and convincing evidence, which is a higher standard than usual civil proceedings, which is good because it's a due prep, but it's like closer to the criminal standard. So it's good to know that that evidentiary bar is higher. But the court can't then go and be like, I think, I think, think you could learn, though, if somebody parented you better now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's, yeah. But if she were to do that, she could. She could. So she would have to take, she would have to take charge and say, look, I can cook my own food. Or other people in her life. It seems like that's a

fallacy, though, because if that was a minor, then you would be putting them into classes and stuff. Well, that's the key difference, right? Yeah. If they're an adult who can't, They need the help, then they should be given it. It's kind of where the Constitution presumes your independence and liberty is. That as a minor, the presumption is that you have a guardian or you should have one already.

As somebody who's reached the age of majority, the presumption is that you don't need that guidance. And so- And that's a thing, Hans. Shouldn't the fact that she should have a right to liberty out, like shouldn't they have a heavier? have your influence on the decision making. It's like, because it seems like protecting her due process and protecting her right to, like, you know, liberty and agency and all this.

Like, it just seems to me that that should be given more consideration than it's being given in her case. Yeah. I agree with you, but at the same time, what about the candles burning down the gym? It's like, then it's things like that. Where? That's true.

Wait, what happened there? Because you referenced something with a lot of fires and her, and I missed that. What happened? She's, so, so this was even just a couple of months ago, but I believe that it's the second time that it's happened where she lit candles inside of her gym, forgot about the candles,

and it burned the, like, part of her at-home gym down during quarantine. Who among us has not burned a gym down, okay? But how old were you? I mean, like, did you learn the first? Right, and did she, is she aware? of what is happening. Or was it on purpose? Maybe I'm looking into this too

conspiracy theory-wise. Was it un-per- because she is a smart human being. But how would that help her? I mean, she's not, she's not incapacity. She's not a vegetable. She's not fully,

she's got nothing going on. She's not binary zero. Right. I'm more of the mindset that the medication she's on is causing her brain to be slogging. I think she's being drugged. I think she's straight at being drug.

So this is kind of an interesting thing. and Brooke and I were talking about this yesterday. I think that there's a presumption, and let me start out by saying, the whole like Brian Wilson, Eugene Landy thing is evidence that this can be abused, but what I want to say is that it's not legal. So the fact that people can abuse the power

is neither here nor there for this piece of it, that if you want to forcibly medicate somebody, so give them treatment against their will, that is a separate application. It always is. because that standard is so high across the board on a constitutional level. So you cannot write into a guardianship or a conservatorship opinion that regardless of what happens, they've shown that they're so messed up that whenever you want to pump them full of something,

that's your call. You can't do that. You always have to come back and apply under a different procedure to get that treatment and show that they are, you know, forcibly resisting it, that this is the only option and that it's this necessary. So again, obviously, you can encourage somebody, you can coerce somebody, you can even force them physically in a way that is not legal, but the power isn't there in this proceeding.

But now with this kind of thing, is it legal that if it was the kind of thing where she believes that she is on the... drugs that she shouldn't be or if someone believes that she is. Is it the kind of thing that the court could order a drug test to see what is inside of her system to see if it goes along with what is being prescribed to her from a legal doctrine? So they can do that. They can do that.

With any of these things, it's a similar sort of thing that, like, we're thinking about Britney Spears and Britney Spears's case, but you have to think, is this practical for anybody. And a lot of the cases that I get, they're indigent. And they don't have people looking out for them. They certainly don't have, like, members of the public looking out. So you, if it were everybody who could just come in and be like, I think that I'm being medicated with the wrong thing, please test me. That it wouldn't, it'd be untenable. Like, the system would fall apart. So you have to think about what standard of proof there is for every type of application. So the short answer is yes. They could do that. Okay. But they'd have to show some indication

other than my meds aren't working or she seems kind of loopy in this video, but she also has a psych diagnosis that involves ups and downs. But I think that this is evidence that she's being medicated falsely. And improperly. Yeah. I think that's what a lot of people, why they question it is because she didn't really show any indications of having an inability to make decisions just because she, had a nervous breakdown

like that doesn't mean that you have to become drug that heavily and it's weird it feels weird and it looks weird that she is being that way. Well do we know that it's drugged or do we I feel like we're just basing that off at how fucking bonkers she is in her Instagram

posts but I mean she just clearly to me on in from her Instagram post yeah she looks like she's all drugged out like I don't know if she's not drugged out it would be like brain damage or something you know I've done poppers I've done downers, you know, I've done fucking weed, dude,

I'm done all of us. I'm gonna know what it looks white. Snazzy, snappy. Okay. Let the record show that Holden McNeely is done weed. Yeah, I'm right there. I'm done weed.

I did bunch of rooms in Amsterdam. I freaked out. I did so much of it. You know, whatever. And I'll come back for a 420 episode. Look at this guy. Oh my God. And then is it possible?

She's self-medicating. She's seen drugs. That sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We. Kinsey, I had asked you this earlier, and I'm sorry if you've already explained this because me dumb with legal things. You might have already said it.

It's messy. It's hard for me, too. So fuck. Most, I think you might have touched on this. Most people in this situation don't really have a lot of asset property. Don't have an entire, what's it called? Not an empire. Yeah.

But basically. They're not all queens like Britney Spears. Right. So are there specific laws in regards to this sort of thing if you have assets? If there isn't, should there be? Because it seems like there's so much, there's so many people who would want to take advantage of the situation. It seems like there should be something in place. Yeah.

So this actually intersects with Holden's question, too, about. about like what is the incentive for somebody who is either her appointed guardian or her appointed attorney to really advocate for, like actually advocate for less restrictive means, which usually is the preference. It's like this has to be the only option to provide for her needs if they're making bank on it. And if they keep it going, then they keep making bank. They're making all making money right now. Yeah, they're making like six figures a year, even more. actually if you factor in like all this other stuff that they take to the court and say I need you know office space needs to be reimbursed and all this kind of stuff everyone's getting like a massive paycheck and even including her own lawyer that she didn't choose that and I just feel like that guy has no incentive to not to get her out to actually advocate for her yeah right yeah it just seems like he has all the incentive in the world to not get her out because he's making bank off of this situation and I can see where that suspicion would come in this This is one of those things that given, and obviously I'm biased because I work in this institution and I have somewhat rose-colored glasses on in terms of like, I'm involved in this and I like to think that we do a good job and that the statutes are at least maneuverable in a way that protects people.

And I'll say to my own judge's credit that he is somebody who does not rubber stamp guardianship applications in the way that some judges do, which means it's less. abusable. But this, that said, I think that this might be one of the things where the fix is not in the law per se, because, so protections. If the estate is of a certain size, and this is a little bit discretionary, but I'm going to say, yeah, Brittany's falls into that category. And there's an equation that they use to figure out how much, but the guardian has to put a bond down. So if they're going to be guardian of the finances, they have to put a bond. bond down that is held by the court to say that you will be financially responsible and it comes out of your pocket. We keep that bond or, you know, part of it if you do something not in the person's

interest with their money. So it's a down payment on a conservatorship. Yeah. And that stays there and can be renewed as like for the duration of the conservatorship, however long that is. So that in and of itself, obviously it's not going to be the whole value of her estate, but in a very real practical sense, money out of their pocket. And an incentive to what's good for the goose is good for the gander kind of thing that if she's daddy's cash cow in the way that she has been, why not? Just keep her doing well in terms of business decisions.

Now, in terms of prolonging the conservatorship, that's more of an amorphous answer that might not be as satisfying, which is it's the same thing that keeps criminal defense attorneys in line. It's the same thing that keeps anybody who represents wealthy clients in line, which is that, yeah, by that logic, if you represent somebody very wealthy, you could or maybe should advocate for them to stay in litigation for a long time, so you keep getting paid. But we don't see that being a problem just because, like, there are criminal sanctions,

there are civil sanctions, you lose your license, you're a fiduciate. Like, there are a lot of personal consequences that come out of abusing it. And for something like this, especially with a celebrity, there's a lot of oversight. So. Well, and that's exactly what Jamie Spears said. Yeah, he's like, Jamie Spears was like, you keep saying that I'm taking all of this money from her. He's like, but I have to provide receipts for all the things that I take from her. Everything that I pay from her estate has been okayed by a judge and by anyone else, I guess,

who was looking at it. And that was actually something that he came out in saying about five or six days ago. Oh, interesting. Because the family's getting death threats. Right. I mean, like the hashtag free Britney movement. Which is not helping anything guys.

Please don't send people dead threats. Yeah. That's insane. And it's not like very anti-death threat. Legally helpful either. It's not like it's helping her case to have. No, right. You're not helping her doing that.

So I, yeah. Okay. This is like, this is a question that may sound harsh. that I'm not that I'm even thinking it, but honestly, okay, if it's not about money, why else is Jamie Spears doing this? Because he doesn't have a good relationship with his daughter. Like, every time he talks, he said it was really strained. He's abusive to her kids.

Like, I don't believe he's just doing this out of the goodness of his heart. You know what I mean? I don't either at all. The first thing that I'll say, and then I think we should all get into a conversation about like this could be a good leap to who should serve if she does need a guardian. But the one thing I would say about this also is that it's not necessarily a binary. So if it's good for him in a lot of cases, it's going to be good for her. So it's not that he's like a magnanimous stand-up guy.

It's just that if her business does well and if she's doing well and if she's keeping her shit together and has a good public image, that benefits him too. They just happen to be aligned interests. So it's like he he's not necessarily being a good guy. It's just that like when she does well, I do well. Right. It shouldn't be that way because he's serving no real purpose to her in my opinion. So he's out now, correct?

But he's apparently out, yes. Let's talk about him a little bit because I want to know. I know Natalie in the episode you had mentioned like abuse allegations. I think there was some reference also to a bankruptcy filing, which is kind of funny because in New York, that's like a blanket disqualification for being a guardian of finances. Okay. Yeah, that was back when they were, you know, dirt poor and living in. Well, what's her hometown? It's, um...

It was Louisiana, right? Some shit hole. It's like tally towns. Yeah, yeah. They have like a town garbage can. where like everybody throws their stuff away. Just one garbage can in the center of town that everyone threw their trash into. And the children dance around it.

I mean, literally the guy who she married in Vegas, Brittany's mother, like, had him in daycare. Like, the town is tight. Oh, cute. It's Kent Wood. It's Kent Wood, Louisiana, by the way. Kent Wood, Louisiana. In case anyone's familiar.

But that's another thing before we move totally off of, like, is she, incapacitated. The fact that she's entering into legal contracts flippantly. So the two marriages, the custodial battles, I feel like there was one other thing. Well, and then it makes sense of why he wanted to keep the money and the family so that then no one that married

into it could take control. Well, but then the guy that got engaged to her was made her conservator. Did you know about this? Yes. That's so Victorian. So her agent, right? So her agent was this guy. They got started dating.

So he stepped down for being her agent. And when they got engaged, he was signed on to be her conservator until they broke up. He gave her women's hysteria as a diagnosis. Yeah, just take out the uterus. And then they threw her in the local, the local psychiatric hospital. It's, it's been that was bananas to me. But he wasn't, he was a proposed conservator. I think he was, I saw, and I'd have to go into my notes, but I mean, I'm almost certain that I, I saw that he was made.

This was a few years ago, though. Right. Yeah, this was a few years ago. So there's been some turnover, like frequently with who. That's weird. But it's all these like viper men, like these dudes who just keep rolling through. Well, you know what it probably, trying to trick. It probably is that how we're talking about like, yes, you can go back and petition the court to change elements of it.

So it's probably that people keep going back to the court and being like, there are problems with this arrangement. And the court's like, yeah, you're right. And so then they come up with, because she's still not independent, or they haven't shown that. So then they come up with a new arrangement and that's fucked. It's like Game of Thrones, but the throne is Britney Spears and everybody else is fighting over all the time. And it's still made out of swords, but it's just also Britney Spears, the pop scene.

Also, his name was Jason Trawwick. That was in 2011. When the engagement broke off, he was removed. Then you also have wallet, which we didn't talk about how wallet out of nowhere stepped down and was in a weird kind of rash way and was like effective immediately. You must accept this resignation. All this kind of crazy. That was last year.

And that's when Jody Montgomery. So that was also at the same time Jamie Spears was undergoing surgery. So Jody Montgomery was brought in at Jamie Spears's approval. So do we have like a puppet master? Sort of. Yeah. to be in charge in case Jamie Spears died because he was going through so many health problems.

And the ironic thing is that this is the kind of circumstance where you could see Jamie Spears getting a conservator himself. Right. Right? I know. Yeah, this guy named Craig McSheister-Trix a lot came in, and he was like, I need to be Jamie's conservator. Yep. And it's also around the time she's hospitalized

and she discontinues her residency, cancels her residency and touring and stuff out of nowhere. But that's why, and that's where the pre-Britney movement picked up steam, was they were like, wait, what's going on with the conservatorship is there's shady shit going on there? Also, why is she out of nowhere canceling her residency? They're mad because the tour's not happening. Yeah. Yeah. But I also saw, the funny thing is like, the one point that I saw that was made is that during this time where they say like she can't, you know, make her own decisions.

She needs to be taken care of. Like every facet of her life needs to be taken care of by someone else. Like, as they're saying all of this, she's doing like pretty dangerous tricks on stage and being like hoisted into the air on like these swinging things and like doing stuff that like if she really was like unable to make her own choices, putting her in bodily harm. You know, in bodily harm's way seems to be kind of antithetical to that. Absolutely. And she also runs a lingerie line and has been writing music like the whole time. She's running multiple businesses. See, this is where I'd stress the not binary sort of thing, again, that it can be in capacity for the purposes of, like, not actually, but to use what her brother said, like, making reservations or filing taxes or knowing what to do with your money.

But it's, the presumption is that you have all the freedoms that aren't listed as powers for the guardian, if that makes sense. So it's like, you could still make great lingerie and have. have good business savvy for that and you could still be a good performer, but unless that's a power that's enumerated, the guardianship just touches the things that you can't do, which is good because you want the presumption to be narrow and only expanded upon the evidence. But I do think that it's tough evidence that people do keep bringing out like, well, she's capacitated in this way. But that's not a power that they're trying to impose. Control, right. To me, it just seems sort of gross that it's like, okay, you can do all these things that make money, but you can't have any control over that money. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I know that like legally that it might be okay. Morally. Yeah. Right. But it just seems gross to me to be like, you can go out and make millions upon millions of dollars and you can work really hard. But she can't go to Starbucks. Yeah, but she has no control over how that money is spent.

Like that just seems like a puppet on a. string to me and it doesn't seem like she has any real. She's given a, I think she's given an allowance, right? She gets like $400 a week or something insane. Oh my God. That's incredible to me. Like, what are they doing for her? She's a cash cow and she has an like a $4 allowance per week. I can't remember the exact amount. I don't know offhand, but I know that she was given like a tiny amount of money. So this is where I'm going to sound like boring, scully nuance bullshit. But I would want to know what the powers are that are listed and those haven't been released to the public. And then if we're looking at the amount of money that she gets for personal use, first of all, what is the evidence that made them take that away from her to begin with?

What was she spending on? Could have been something nutty. Because usually you don't get to that point without evidence. But it's her money. If she wants to buy a fucking elephant park in Texas with her money, she should be allowed to. Like, in love. Sorry, I'm yelling. I'm not yelling at anyone who's just yelling.

What we're trying to say is lawyers are bad. Lawyers are bad. We are bad. Yes. Honestly, nine times out of ten, a little bit. Maybe she tried to buy a slide made out of knives for her children. Like the game of Thrones, like the throne. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Game of Britney. Okay, I also wanted to add the Kabbala thing. Like, if we're talking about evidence of like good. Yes. Judge Rift and how easily led. we are. Hey, if Madonna told me to read a book, I'd read it. Okay? But you can't read it. Because that's what you guys said, right? She can't read it, but she says she reads it. But sometimes you don't get it. I just, I really, I really want to know what

storage unit that ancient text is sitting in it. Oh my God. You know what? I appreciate that she tried. And I think that that's a good old Southern girl right there for you. She looked at it and she's like, well, maybe she looked up, you know, the letters from the Hebrew alphabet. She tried to put it together. Who knows? She gave it a real Alabama chance. And you're telling me she doesn't have capacity to learn. I mean.

I know, right? Oh, I'm saying. Cabala. Come on. So wait, so before we move on to the Who, do you feel that she should have a conservatorship over her at this point? Okay, so I'm going to answer. To like answer the question presented.

Answer the question. bearing in mind that I'm only operating on my knowledge of the system and kind of best case scenario, because I do think I have a good judge and good parties who do this, and not knowing all the facts, and not knowing what powers the Guardian has, I do think that yes, she is potentially somebody who's a candidate for a limited oversight. And the shitty thing is that, again, answer probably is not in law. It would be great if there were people in her life. And for all the money that she's given back to people and for how good a person it seems like she is on a face-to-face level, it would be awesome if there were people who cared about her and would be like, okay, you know what, bitch, like, let's just sit down and learn how to file taxes.

Yeah. Let's do that. Or you can get an attorney to fucking file, by the way. No more of these men. No more of these attorney men. A lady attorney. Women only. Women lawyers only from now on. Women only. But we all know women can't be accountants. You all know. If anybody has her number, I will go and just sit with her and be like, listen, friend, let's go through this. Let's just sit and put her out. And we all know her 23 year old boyfriend is not going to be the one most likely to do that.

I just hope he's nice to her. I just hope. And fun and sexy. A fun and sexy time. As Jackie you were saying on the show, I think it's great. We don't know. a lot about the relationship. I'm glad she has privacy. I just hope he's a decent guy. So that's also evidence that like maybe the conservatorship isn't the worst thing. Like a lot of people and this is important. I know that Brooke will recognize this because I quote it all the time. It's from Ginsburg's. Actually, this is great because today is the anniversary. She quotes it all the time. I do. This is the anniversary of Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act into law. Congratulations. Which is great. But also then it was dismantled by the Supreme Court.

So this is from Ginsburg's dissent to the conservative Supreme Court dismantling that. And she said, it's like getting rid of an umbrella because you're not getting wet. So that's kind of how I see the conservatorship, potentially, like the argument that people are like, well, she seems so much better. And she, you know, has a more private life now. And it seems like she's quietly working on her fitness and stuff like, maybe, maybe. there's a scenario where that means something is working, at least an element of it. But you said the word limited. And what is the difference I think, but what is the difference between limited and what's

happening now? Because I feel like it's not limited right now. Well, so limited is kind of a small L that I'm putting on it just to emphasize that there's not a one size fits all. You have all powers. We don't know what powers exist because it hasn't been released. But you don't like to get a guardian or a conservator does not mean that you, you have these set powers full stop.

Like, I write these decisions, and I have to go through what powers were shown, like the need for each power with evidence. Like, did they show that she can't do this? Did they show that she can't do this? And only the ones that they've shown with clear and convincing evidence go in that decision. And everything else is still open. So when I say limited, I mean that in practice, everything is limited, even though it sounds very drastic.

And it could be. I mean, it could be a worst case scenario that, like, somebody abused this and then the judge was also abusive and it could be a lot of abuses but legally in the like if everything went well it's limited because that's the nature of the beast kind of does that make sense a little bit it's weird yeah okay so then who yeah and so right now we're in a situation where there's a temporary guardian right and it's all but not slow down because of COVID. So we're in like a situation

that nobody was prepared for and I know that they were trying to have a Zoom hearing with her which we talked about where her fans were like hacking into the Zoom and like she couldn't to protest. So they got the link and they got see this is why my court

uses Skype. They bombed it. Yeah. They Zoom bombed it or I think they were actually allowed in as like members of the court like in the odd I don't know what you call. the audience. Yeah, right? And then they just refused to leave when it was their time that they had, were supposed to leave.

That was stupid for the court to do that. That was really dumb. Yeah, really stupid. I don't know why they would do that. What did they think was going to happen? And then mute them. Other, like just, shut them up. Yes.

Yeah, just me then kick them. If we're going to throw around who's out there, though, Jamie Lynn Spears, I think her sister. I think her sister should step up. But you can't force it on someone. This is the thing. But I'm saying, if I'm saying, Henry gets incapacitated and Natalie, I stop trusting. you. I'm going to take over his state. What I do. What I do? I don't know what you're going to do, Natalie. I'm going to take it to all his shoe collection. I'm going to keep it for myself. I'm just saying

she is married to this dude that owns this like, I think this like huge communications business. So it's like it's not that she is hurting for money. She's doing like she's doing all right. I know that she probably doesn't. She also has two young children. So I'm sure she doesn't have the time. but she's in that new show sweet not steal my sweet sweet magnolia on Netflix horrible show just got picked up for another season

I'm saying that I think that she could though as someone that is close to her sister take court like I feel like if I if I was in that situation I'd say okay I would like to take a part of the personal you know like you were talking about personal power relationship part of it and then fire someone that

she trusted to take over the financial part of it. And that's a very good instinct for what happens. We do that all the time where it's like their sibling comes in or their niece comes in and they're like, I don't want to do the financial stuff because I don't really care to and I also don't have the expertise. But I want to be there for the health care decisions. I want to be there for where they live. I want to do the personal decision making powers. And that's definitely doable. the difficulty is that

unless somebody steps up and says they want to do it and then they show that they can do it Yeah, I'm with Jackie, I'm with you I think the siblings would be the ideal Yeah But don't worry, her mother is now also trying to get control again Her mother who apparently like signed off on breast implants before she would like that would

Okay, I'm sick of her And this is a good segue to my, I'm just going to get it on my soapbox for a second Because I have my hot take on this that I truly believe, like, I agree with you. We just should not have professional performers who are children. Like, all child actors, anyone under 18, if you are under 18, you should not be able to do acting or singing or anything.

I don't care if we need to go back to having, not professionally. Like, I don't care if we have to go back to, like, adult actors playing children. I don't know what we have to do, but you all, you guys, you, I might even recruit you because one of a podcast that I have coming out soon, I will be talking about YouTube kids. Oh, God. Because there is literally zero protection for those kids. It's child labor.

If you think it's bad in the entertainment business under SAG and everything, it is a wild west out there. The freelance world of child labor is so much worse than the unionizer. That's actually a good point. It's all parents exploiting the kids. There's really scary stuff on there, actually. It's fucked. It's fucked up.

I just wonder who's watching. all that shit. I don't. Yeah, it's like, I honestly believe that like, first of all, if you, if you're, if you're trying to get your child famous, you're making a choice that they don't understand that is going to affect them for the rest of their life. If they if they want to please the parents. Yeah. And like if you, if you put like Mary Kate and Ashley, uh, yeah, Shia LaBuff, like all these kids who started really, really young, you are choosing a life for them that is going to be completely insane and probably make them insane in the process. And they don't understand the weight of that. And you. And you're, you're not. And you're, you're watching the weight of that. And you. And you're. And you're. And you're. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And You are making that decision for them. And that, to me, seems just so gross and you're making money off of them. And, like, I honestly think that we should just, like, shitty people. We should just ban child, like, labor in the entertainment industry altogether. I don't want to see any more kid actors.

I don't want to see any more kid singers. I don't care if it affects our entertainment. She wants to see adults playing babies. She wants to see sloppled adults being held. DeAsium. Oh, the DeAid technology now. I think it's great. I'm great at it.

CGI that shit. Dancing baby. Everybody loves that. Irishman? Or Benjamin Button. There we go. Jackie, you hate child singers, so this will be perfect for you. You never have to hear a chance in again.

My worst, back when I was doing a lot of commercial auditions, it was always death when I'd show up and see a bunch of kids and happen to do a scene. One time I had to do a commercial audition with a little boy and a woman around my age. And I had to pretend, we had to pretend that they were my wife, her, the boy's mother, and she was depressed. and it was for a depression medication. And so I had to sit there with the boy and be like, it's okay. Mommy's just sat at the park today. And I'm like, this kid doesn't want to be here. This kid doesn't know what the fuck's happening.

There's no way that kid woke up. You want to touch a child that's not yours? I had to have a child on my fucking lap. That should be illegal. Yeah, that should be illegal. And I'm like, what if I'm some fucking crazy psycho? That's a great, yeah. It's awful.

The whole thing's horrendous. The whole thing is disgusting. And how are their child labor laws for so many other things? and the only child labor law that I'm familiar with for the entertainment industry is like, make them twins if they're babies. There are a bunch of restrictions if it's under sag. But now that there is...

But now with reality TV and YouTube, they have gotten around all those laws with loopholes and those kids are completely exploited. Like, yeah. I mean, there's not a lot. Even I find I'm traumatized by the audition process. Yeah. You think a child...

It's like, oh, no, no, they're used to being turned down. Is that going? You know what I love? I love watching the light leave an 11-year-old's eyes. I really want to see right when you realize your failure. Don't rush it. The moment you're rejected professionally as a third grader and your soul is crushed. It reminds me of that part in once upon time in Hollywood,

Leonardo DiCaprio is acting with this child actor and she's acting like a 40-year-old the whole time. And like I understand that like, it actually is a very entertaining scene because she's, like, really, like, she's, you know, so pretentious and it's really cute. But the same time, like, but that, like, that girl probably is just that way in real life because she's been forced to be an adult and make, like, adult decisions and have an adult job. And if she got to be in that movie, you know that, like, her parents or somebody was being cutthroat. And she's been training. Like, there's such a line to me between, like, I did dance as a kid. And I stopped because I wore panties with my leotard and I got made fun of.

And so I was like, I don't want to go anymore. And my parents were like, well, okay, that's kind of weird. Just don't do that. Fine. All right, just stop. Who is making fun of you because of your panties? You're not supposed to wear them under your leotard. I know that.

No, no. I totally not. I agree with you as a child wanting to wear them, but you do get chastised for wearing them. So I stopped and they're like, all right, I guess that's not a thing we do anymore. So I liked dance a lot. That was the extent of it. And then I moved on. And obviously there are people who were more passionate.

about it and there's a middle ground but if you think about like 20 you guys mentioned that she was like 20 hours a day there is no child who cares about anything that much that they want to put the like legwork in no pun intended yeah unless they think that their family won't eat because of it and that like that's not interest her life was so micromanaged that she was given an hour a day of free time that was timed that she was allowed to spend on whatever she wanted right so what is she even complaining about 60 entire minutes and she just chooses Come on.

And this is like when you are like 10, 11, 12 years old, you should be like eating dirt in the backyard or something. You should not be like under the scrutiny of an entire, yeah, like public eye. Or Holden. He's 38 and he still does it. Yeah. Seeing how hard you can slap yourself without passing out. That's exactly what you should be doing. That's what childhood is.

That's the essence of childhood is like seeing how far you can shove a bean up your nose. These kids should not be out here doing this. Trying to draw a boob from memory. The one boob you've seen. Just one boob. I will go, going back to the Who, I've got a pitch for you, okay? Pete Townsend. America's got Brittany.

America's got Britney. Oh my God. We do a reality competition show. To be a conservator. To be a conservator. It would be amazing. I love it. I love it.

Let's make money off. We'll get Katie Perry as, who's the judges? Who's the judge? Obviously, Christina and Jessica and Mandy. What about Justin? Yeah. Justin has her best interest. He'll be the sweet one.

He'll be like the... He'll be the kind one. He'll also do Katie Perry because Katie Perry is actually John Bonae Ramsey. I don't know if you know about that conspiracy theory. That's nice for her.

She should probably do it. Conspiracy theory or hard fact. What about the Sprouses? Because they were childs, they were the babies. They were the two babies. Didn't one of them just get canceled though? One of them just got canceled.

No, people... It was a fake canceling. They said he was canceled. But he wasn't really canceled. What did he do? Allegedly. I literally, if I remember correctly, nothing, they were just saying, like, it was one of those things that happened on Twitter where, like, people were like, Cole Sprauss is canceled. I could be wrong.

What is up with those hashtags? I have been trying to figure that out for months. Like, he's over. And you guys can tell me. What is the? I honestly think nothing, there was nothing to it. Yeah, I think it's mostly just K-pop kids, like, bored. And that's a lot of what's going on, I think, with free Britney, to be quite honest with you.

It's just a lot of people who need to be. They need to be mad at something, and so they're putting it towards that. Well, just like the protests. Like the, I'm living in Arizona right now until Monday, because the courts have been virtual. And we had that whole protest where like Jake Paul broke into the mall here. Uh-huh. Sorry, that was for Jake Paul, not you. No, absolutely.

He's probably going to jail because the FBI just raided his McMansion. Yeah, I don't be worried about Jake Paul much longer. FBI just raided his home yesterday. I took a bunch of firearms out of it that I don't think he was supposed to be owning. So, yeah. The guy he does all this stuff with is like a check. He's a sex trafficker. Who is the guy?

What's his name? Because there's another Paul, right? No, it's another guy. He goes by like some wacky name. But there's the other Paul also who did the suicide forest. He got a brother, but I don't remember his Logan, maybe. Is it Logan Paul? I think it's Logan Paul.

It's Logan Paul. but I try to just, I, oh, they're all gross. They don't talk, they don't talk to each other anymore. Oh, no. Are they okay? But also, their father is in a bunch of trouble, too. Like, he's got a bunch of underage girl issues, so. Great.

Oh, I don't like, I don't like the words underage girl issues together in that order at all. No, no. What order do you like? Separated in completely different sentences. Like, I don't like them used in any kind of order next to each other. Yeah. Well, all right. I think we fixed it.

I think we solved it. We fixed it, guys. Good job. Cheers to everybody. We solved the free Britney issue. Well done. It's fixed. Well done, team.

We fixed everything. I just, I guess what I don't understand. And I'd thrown this around right before we recorded. It's just, how are they going to make more money off of her if she's not performing? Now, is there a reason? Do you think that, like, according to the law? Like, do you see a reason of why Larry Rudolph, who is one of, you know, one of the people that controls her, one of her agents? He's a manager.

Okay. Okay. The manager, right. The one that said that she wouldn't be performing anymore. And that, ever? That came out and said that she, well, she said she might not perform again. And also said that the tour, or not the tour, the Las Vegas show was going to be canceled. So this is going back a little bit.

This was last year. Okay. Okay. is there a way for them to continue to make money if she's not actively making money? I mean, I feel like this is maybe less legal and more me speculating. Because my short answer is yes. And I think I had alluded to this when you mentioned like a single that they re-released. It to me seems like they could live a lifetime.

Everybody around her could live a comfortable lifestyle. for their lifetimes on doing the whole like, let's do a greatest hits album because I want a new beach house. Like that kind of, you know, think of how many Beatles' greatest hits albums there are without anybody making new material. And then once you hit a certain point, then you start remastering it and remixing it.

And so like... Disney does that really well too. Or they're like, from the vaults. We're re-releasing this movie. Right. Nistalgia value. It's exactly the same. So I think in the sense of like profitability, she is so profitable even in her absolute worst condition that that's not really going to make her break anything.

I feel like it's probably not in their best interest to keep her from performing. But I don't know. Maybe the free Britney, this is, oh God, this is a way that the free Britney thing could actually backfire because if they're like, it's too risky, it actually could harm her or at least harm this arrangement if we put. her out there too much because then people remember she exists and think that she's capacitated and so let's just no let's just full you know stop everything I mean yeah that's a risk yeah well yakes I think we've got everything fixed sorted it out and and happy ending for everyone yeah yeah we solved it yeah I would just like I would use this time for me personally to reiterate what we said on the show, which is if you care about her, you know, send her good energy, send her prayers or whatever the fuck you do.

Just let her have her space, man. She needs it. She doesn't need you to like standing outside her house and screaming. No, you're not helping her at all. Yeah, you wouldn't want someone stay outside your house and yelling, even if they were yelling and supportive of you. So don't mind if you did that, though, Brooke. I would kind of like it. Well, most Fridays I do that.

That's true. I can't wait for that to pick up again. One person just being like, be nice to hold in. Just be nice to it. Just like to the general whoever, I guess my wife or whatever. Yeah.

Treat them well today. I'd be like, thank you kind stranger. It's a town crier in front of your house. Yeah, exactly. Take that Brittany energy and just be nice to the people in your life. Yeah. And don't put your kids into slave labor, please.

Yeah, don't be an asshole parent. And Jesus, fuck, don't have kids if you're not ready. It's me on my mini soapbox that is unrelated. I'm with you, girl. I can't help but think about, yeah. I mean, yeah, Jamie Spears and Lynn Spears probably shouldn't. You know the best side that Jamie Spears and Lynn Spears? That's what I'm saying.

The best side did the shows that they probably weren't ready to have kids. Or that they were like, one of their children, they were just like. And that was like, okay, this one, we're just going to give, we're just going to give them the whole name. It's just going to be our combined names. and then we're going to see what happens. Like, maybe wait a few years, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would feel like a real loser if I were the older child,

but I didn't get both the names. Have you passed me over? You're like, yeah, that one's Brittany, sure. We can't have a kid because a kid named Henry Natalie or Natalie is not a good look, I don't think. Natahen. That's kind of nice. Sounds like a bird.

That's actually cute, though. I like that. All right. All right. Are we ready to sign off? Yeah, I guess my takeaway is, Brooke and I say this a lot, that there's probably no great black or white answer. There's nuance to the scenario. We don't know everything that's going on.

But what I will say kind of definitively is that this is just a really fucked up story. And listening to your guys' series, Jesus Christ, a lot of child star stories are fucked up and sad. But this one, they really set her up for failure. and I think that's why we're where we are. All the fixes are kind of retrospective at this point. So. Yeah, on a very human level, she was just failed by everyone in her life repeatedly and exploited by people. And like, I think what really caused this is just her family just did not take care of her.

A lot of assholes. I know, man. And it's such a problem if your family can't protect you. Yeah. Yeah. What do we do as a society? It doesn't know. It shouldn't make it worse, but it kind of does that apparently.

it sounds like she's a really fucking nice person and that shouldn't make a difference but god damn it it sucks yeah yeah yeah it's worse it sucks yeah yeah where's Allen's conservator yeah whoa all right all right enough with the Ellen shit

well thank you guys so much for having us on the show as much as it was very sad but I really appreciate you guys shedding more light on the situation a little bit but it is super informative it's there's so much that we are not going to know

until either something bad happens or maybe it gets better. Yeah, exactly. I hope it does. Or just quiet's down. Yeah, which can mean it's working. Who knows? I mean, we're always looking for best case scenario,

not perfect scenario, and you think that with every family guardianship situation. You know, no perfect, but who's there? Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on. Your information was valuable, and it was super fun. Yeah.

Yeah. Where can people listen to? your show. Oh, we're on everything. We're on, um, we're on, um, we're on Spotify. We are on Apple pods. Um, again, it's exceedingly persuasive and the, it's XX, Cedially persuasive, um, not X. Uh, and then, yeah. Yeah, it's cool. The chromosomes. Yeah. We're, we're, we're very edgy. Yeah, look at us go. Um, we're also straight edge. Uh, we, we, uh, we have, inaccurate. I know from personal experience. We're not straight edge. Uh, that's, that's, that's, bitches.

We have a website that is getting launched thanks to Ethan Lindsay, who has been putting tireless efforts in. Yeah, he's been putting a website together for us. Thanks. It's wonderful. Yeah. Excindlypruiser.com. As you would assume. And you can look at my face and sometimes other stuff on Instagram at MKZ Joy Brennan.

And on Twitter, I tweet about my mom a lot these days. And that's get me to a nunnery. It is nice. But with the number two, last night, my cat was scratching the couch, and she's like, must we, Lyndon? And I was like, Mom, what are you talking about? She's like, like Lyndon Johnson. I don't know. No explanation needed.

Your mom is. But it was nice. Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at BKE Rogers. You can find me on Instagram at Brooke Angelene, and we like hearing your guys' opinions on the stuff and hearing from you guys. So you can DM us there. Even if they're negative. We'll take them. We'll take it.

And since this is a crossover, I will say for the people listening to this on the exceedly persuasive feed, you can check out page seven and page seven pop history on Spotify and check me out. Twitch.tv.tv.4.S.L.L.O., and you can see Jackie and I do a very drunken stream on Friday night since 6PM ET if you want to find us there. It's delightful. Everyone should watch it. I'll tune in next Friday. It's tomorrow Friday? I'm going to tune in. Hell yeah. Check it out. 6pm E.T. We get very drunk on White Claw. People pay us. I will too.

And sick. From a distance. Oh. Awesome. And my name is Jackie Zabrowski. You follow me on Instagram at Jack That Worm. Thank you guys again so much for having us. Thank you guys.

I'm Natalie Jean. You can find me at the Natty Jean, and we are also at page 7 LPN on some bullshit on the internet. Hell yeah. Look it up. All right. We love you guys. Thank you so much.

And don't be shitty parents, I guess, everyone. We'll try not to be. That's what we've learned. Be good parents. Yep. God damn it. Bye. This show is made possible by listeners like you.

Thanks to our ad sponsors. You can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.