Louder: Britney Spears: “I Just Want My Life Back”

June 25, 2021

By Caryn Ganz

Pop Music Editor

When I came to The Times in 2015, my boss asked if I had any ideas for big, ambitious stories. I had one: an investigation into Britney Spears’s conservatorship, which became increasingly curious as the years ticked by following its 2008 institution. Serge F. Kovaleski and Joe Coscarelli reported the story, which we published in 2016 and served as the first significant probe into the legal arrangement that controls the pop star’s life.

On Tuesday, Joe returned to the story, along with Liz Day and Samantha Stark, who made the NYT documentary “Framing Britney Spears,” with a fresh investigation: confidential court records revealed that Spears expressed serious opposition to the conservatorship earlier and more often than had previously been known. On Wednesday, Spears, long silent in public on the subject, made her thoughts clear in an emotional 23-minute speech before the court. “I’ve been in denial. I’ve been in shock. I am traumatized,” she said. “I just want my life back.” Spears said she was unaware she could request to end the arrangement, placing a focus on her court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III.

That … is a lot of pop music journalism for one week. But that wasn’t it. We also published 50 Reasons to Love Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” in which 25 artists spoke about the album’s impact on their lives and its enduring power on its 50th anniversary. Lindsay Zoladz wrote its wonderful intro and conducted many of the interviews, and our design and photo collaborators turned it into something magnificent.

And I welcomed live music back to my life (I know you were all anxiously awaiting this moment), with Foo Fighters at Madison Square Garden and Madonna’s brief appearance at the Boom Boom Room. Which is another way of saying, that’s a lot of adrenaline for one week.

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Britney Spears: ‘I Just Want My Life Back’

In a rare public appearance in court, the singer gave an impassioned speech about her treatment under the conservatorship that controls her life, telling the judge she would like it to end.

By Joe Coscarelli

X17	Britney Spears Quietly Pushed for Years to End Her Conservatorship Confidential court records obtained by The Times reveal that the singer has urged changes to the arrangement that controls her life, and her father’s role in leading it. By Liz Day, Samantha Stark and Joe Coscarelli

Gabe Ginsberg/FilmMagic

Britney Spears’s Courtroom Plea Spurs Questions for Her Lawyer

The singer said she had not known she needed to petition the court to be released from her conservatorship, placing a focus on the court-appointed counsel who has represented her for 13 years.

By Joe Coscarelli, Liz Day and Samantha Stark

The Britney Spears Transcript, Annotated: ‘Hear What I Have to Say’

In a 23-minute speech, the singer said she desperately wants to end her conservatorship, calling it an abusive system in which she was drugged and forced to work against her will.

By Julia Jacobs and Sarah Bahr

“BLUE” AT 50

Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images

50 Reasons to Love Joni Mitchell's ‘Blue’

The singer-songwriter questioned everything on her fourth album. Twenty-five musicians speak about the LP’s enduring power on its 50th anniversary.

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Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples and others shine in a documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival from Questlove.

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The Chicago rapper and singer opened with the equivalent of 143,000 in sales, and Migos’s “Culture III” debuted at No. 2.

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In ’70s and ’80s New York, he elevated Jean-Michel Basquiat in a huge show he curated, helped found the Mudd Club and worked with Patti Smith and Laurie Anderson.

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