It's official: Netflix is releasing its own Britney Spears documentary about her conservatorship and her decade-long battle to have it overturned. After months of speculation, Netflix confirmed the Britney Spears documentary with a teaser released on Tuesday, Sept. 21, and it's enough to break your heart.
The short, 18-second clip doesn't show any new footage of the pop star, but it does feature some very revealing audio. The audio is a previously leaked voicemail Spears left for a lawyer way back in January of 2009 (one year into her conservatorship). "Hi, my name is Britney Spears, I called you earlier. I'm calling again because I just wanted to make sure that during the process of eliminating the conservatorship..." The message stops there, but it makes it crystal clear that Spears has been actively fighting to end the conservatorship for over a decade. And it's heartbreaking to think of how long she's been ignored, silenced, and dismissed by her own lawyers and the people around her.
Following the premiere of the NYT's documentary, Framing Britney Spears, this summer, Spears' conservatorship has been a hot topic of public scrutiny and debate. The documentary increased attention on the #FreeBritney movement, giving it more legitimacy, and helped shine a spotlight on what would become Spears' explosive court testimony in June, in which she formally asked for the conservatorship to be ended without any psychological evaluation. However, the doc did leave fans with a lot of questions about the legalities of Spears' conservatorship, what happened behind-the-scenes, and the nature of her relationship with her father.
Based on the first tease for Netflix's Britney vs. Spears, it certainly seems like those loose ends will be explored in this new documentary directed by Erin Lee Carr (Mommy Dead and Dearest, I Love You Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter). Not to mention, everything that has happened since Framing Britney Spears came out — including Spears' testimony, her new lawyer, and her father Jamie Spears' motion to remove himself from the conservatorship.
It's been suggested by Spears' new lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, that Jamie is only offering to step down now to gain some sort of good will with the public and avoid further prosecution for his alleged emotional abuse. "It appears that Mr. Spears believes he can try to avoid accountability and justice," he said in a statement to NBC News after Jamie filed papers asking that Spears' conservatorship be re-evaluated. But, thanks to Rosengart's legal work, and this new documentary, it doesn't look like Jamie will be able to hide the truth much longer.
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Image: Britney Spears/Instagram