A look into Britney Spears' toxic situation with her family. From allegations of illegal surveillance to forced birth control, investigative correspondent, Mara Schiavocampo, and legal contributor, Joey Jackson, sit down with Dr. Oz to share all of the details. Could this case lead to criminal charges? Tune in to find out.
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00:00 A free Britney, one giant step closer to reality.
00:04 A judge has suspended Britney Spears' dad, Jamie Spears, as her conservator after 13
00:09 years, calling the situation toxic.
00:12 So what happens now and could this case lead to criminal charges?
00:16 From allegations of illegal surveillance to forced birth control, I'll show senior investigative
00:21 correspondent Maros Ghiapocampo has the very latest.
00:24 Jamie Spears is no longer a conservator.
00:30 Finally on September 29th, a victorious moment for Britney Spears.
00:35 Court decision her father's lawyers quickly claimed was "wrong" and a loss for Britney.
00:40 They say Jamie Spears actually rescued his daughter from people who were "harming her
00:45 and exploiting her."
00:47 But for years, concerned fans have questioned whether the world-renowned pop star was being
00:51 helped or hurt by the court-appointed conservatorship, sparking the Free Britney movement.
00:58 In June, the world finally heard from Britney herself.
01:03 In audio leaked from her dramatic court testimony, she said she was forced to take lithium and
01:09 to use birth control in the form of an IUD.
01:12 I wanted to take the IUD out so I could start trying to have another baby, but this so-called
01:18 team won't let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don't want me to have
01:23 children, any more children.
01:26 Back in 2008, in what began as a temporary emergency order after Britney suffered a mental
01:31 health crisis, the court appointed her father to take control of every aspect of her life.
01:37 A conservatorship is usually reserved for someone who is deemed incapacitated or incompetent.
01:43 But Britney was raking in millions, touring, dropping albums and headlining a hugely successful
01:49 Las Vegas residency.
01:51 The newly released documentary "Controlling Britney Spears" exposes an even darker side
01:56 of her conservatorship, alleging that all of her communication has been monitored, including
02:02 in her bedroom.
02:03 Now, with her latest legal battle won, the next court date regarding her conservatorship
02:09 is set for November 12th.
02:11 Will Britney finally be completely free?
02:16 Britney did not attend this most recent hearing.
02:18 We obtained the audio recordings you'll hear of her today online.
02:21 They're actually from a recording of her June 23rd court appearance and they are chilling.
02:26 Mars Gavacampo and Oz show legal contributor Joy Jackson joined us now with the latest.
02:30 So Marla, let's start off with this incredible event that happened.
02:35 But what was her Britney's response to all this happening?
02:38 Was she joyful?
02:39 Was she scared, not their dads all over the conservator?
02:42 Dr. Oz, she is understandably elated.
02:46 She posted on Twitter after this hearing that she cried tears of joy for hours because of
02:52 the love and support from her fans.
02:55 She credits her fans with everything that's happening right now.
02:58 She says it's because of their resilience and persistence that she is now one step closer
03:03 to this being over.
03:04 This is the Free Britney Movement.
03:05 The Free Britney Movement.
03:06 They did it.
03:07 Some experts have described conservatorship as a civil death penalty because of how restrictive
03:12 these can be for an individual's life.
03:14 But I do think they make it, you know, they serve an important purpose when someone's
03:17 no longer rationally able to protect themselves.
03:19 I'll just speak personally.
03:20 My mom obviously has Alzheimer's.
03:23 It's very difficult to manage these, you know, some folks and we've had to put her in conservatorship
03:27 for that reason.
03:28 But, you know, we watch it and monitor it.
03:30 And I don't know the full story what's going on with Britney either.
03:33 And there's a lot to talk about here.
03:35 But let me get to this, Joey.
03:36 She made millions of dollars while under conservatorship.
03:41 My mom's not making millions of dollars because she's incapacitated.
03:44 So if someone's able to make money and carry on a life, what is the role?
03:49 There's these two new documentaries now.
03:51 One said that there's proof Britney has been pushing to stop the conservatorship since
03:55 the very first day it started.
03:57 But at last week's hearing, it was her dad, interestingly, who asked for it to end immediately.
04:01 And Britney's own lawyer actually requested it to be continued longer, which is the opposite
04:06 of what I would have expected, Joey.
04:07 Yeah, it was kind of eye popping to everyone because Jamie, for the 13 years, the father,
04:13 we need it, we need it.
04:14 I'm not letting go.
04:15 I want control.
04:16 And all of a sudden at this hearing, I don't want anything to do with it.
04:19 I want to end it.
04:20 And then, of course, you have Britney's side saying, well, keep it in place a little longer.
04:23 So what gives?
04:24 I think what gives is the following.
04:26 I think Jamie Spears is very concerned with respect to the scrutiny.
04:29 And he thinks the quicker he can exit stage left, the less the court has jurisdiction,
04:33 the better off he'll be.
04:34 But not so fast, because I think there'll still be that scrutiny.
04:37 But to Britney's side of the equation and her attorney's, they want to put together
04:41 a strategic move so that when it ends, she has a very soft landing.
04:46 So I think that was the distinction between the other side, right, Britney's side saying,
04:51 oh, slow down, and the father saying, after all 13 years, I want to get out of here.
04:56 That was the rationale behind it.
04:57 So we heard Britney Spears say that she was being forced to stay on birth control against
05:01 her wishes, which her father's attorneys have denied.
05:04 But then there was another bombshell accusation that was uncovered by The New York Times,
05:08 that her bedroom and phone were secretly recorded.
05:10 First of all, I couldn't understand why it would even be done.
05:14 There were allegations that Britney knew about this.
05:16 Explain what you've learned.
05:17 Yeah.
05:18 So an employee, a former employee of Britney's security company, which was a company hired
05:23 and managed by Jamie, has now come forward with these claims.
05:27 And what he says is absolutely shocking.
05:29 He says that at Jamie's instruction, they were monitoring every private detail of Britney's
05:34 life without her knowledge.
05:36 That includes mirroring her cell phone on other devices so that everything she did on
05:42 her phone, they could see.
05:44 Text messages, phone records, even web browsing history.
05:49 And even more shocking than that, that they were reportedly conducting audio surveillance
05:53 in her bedroom, that they were recording her in her room without her knowing.
05:59 And then they would use that trove of information that they were gathering without her knowledge
06:03 to then control her.
06:04 Oh my goodness.
06:05 I can't believe this is even legal.
06:07 Yeah.
06:08 I'll get back to that, just to join in a second.
06:09 But in response to The New York Times report, a lawyer for Jamie Spears said in part, all
06:12 of his actions were well within the parameters of the authority conferred upon him by the
06:17 court.
06:18 Now, a lawyer for BlackBox Security said in part that the owner and the company have always
06:22 conducted themselves within professional, ethical, and legal bounds.
06:25 Let me go to this June 23rd hearing again.
06:28 Britney Spears claimed that she was being over-medicated after she refused to do her
06:33 second show in Vegas.
06:36 She's been in residence there and doing very well, by the way.
06:39 The "he" in this clip you're going to hear is actually referring to her therapist.
06:45 He immediately the next day put me on lithium out of nowhere.
06:48 He took me off my normal meds I'd been on for five years.
06:51 And lithium is a very, very strong and completely different medication compared to what I was
06:55 used to.
06:56 You can go mentally impaired if you take too much, if you stay on it longer than five
07:00 months.
07:01 But he put me on that and I felt drunk.
07:03 I really couldn't even take up for myself.
07:04 So you might ask why.
07:06 Now, according to the documentary, Britney vs. Spears, court documents also show that
07:10 the dosage for the medication she was prescribed were increased more on days she was working.
07:15 And then TMZ recently reported that members within Britney's camp were worried she was
07:18 being kept over-medicated.
07:19 So I want to bring in clinical psychologist and author of Evil Thoughts, Wicked Deeds,
07:23 Chris Mohandy.
07:24 Dr. Mohandy, if someone were kept over-medicated, is it possible that a court would deem them
07:30 incapable of taking care of themselves because they wouldn't be acting themselves?
07:34 Yeah, this can be a way of creating the impression that the person is not capable of managing
07:41 their own affairs.
07:42 You know, take a look.
07:43 They're obviously impaired.
07:45 They're not being as responsive as they ordinarily would be.
07:49 And medications, drugs, forced drugging, all of these can be used as techniques by somebody
07:56 that might be inclined to exploit another person as opposed to one that is being designed
08:01 to protect and hopefully at some point restore somebody to their, you know, competency to
08:07 manage their own affairs.
08:09 Very concerning, that allegation.
08:13 And Britney's own testimony about it is powerful.
08:17 Chris, you've studied the effects of captivity on the human mind extensively.
08:21 And I want to stress again that not all conservatorships are bad, right?
08:24 I'm in one that's not bad.
08:25 But we don't know the full story of what Britney Spears' condition was in the past 13 years.
08:30 So it could have gone up, go down, who knows.
08:32 But if a rational adult, Chris, is kept in a highly restrictive environment for over
08:36 a decade, what kind of effect could that by itself, without the medications, without the
08:40 diagnosis, what effect could that have on their mental health?
08:43 Well, being kept in a position where you've got to ask everybody for permission, you know,
08:48 to do what normal people are getting to do independently, you are going to regress.
08:54 You're going to be less capable of managing your affairs.
08:58 It's going to take you time to be able to, you know, get on your feet again once you're
09:04 out of that situation.
09:05 So there needs to be a plan in place for that person to be able to regroup.
09:11 So regression is the normal reaction to that kind of situation.
09:17 So she becomes a bit more childlike, more dependent.
09:19 All right, coming up.
09:20 Exactly.
09:21 Chris, thanks very much.
09:22 Coming up, could this case end up in criminal court?
09:24 You're going to hear Britney Spears explain in her own words why she wants her dad in
09:29 jail.
09:30 The control he had over someone as powerful as me, as he loved the control to hurt his
09:36 own daughter 100,000 percent, he loved it.
09:40 Ma'am, my dad and anyone involved in this conservatorship and my management who played
09:44 a huge role in punishing me when I said, no, ma'am, they should be in jail.
09:49 Again, it makes no sense whatsoever for the state of California to sit back and literally
09:53 watch me with their own two eyes, make a living for so many people and pay so many people,
09:59 trucks and buses on the road with me and be told I'm not good enough.
10:06 That was riveting audio from the June 23rd hearing where Britney Spears described why
10:10 she wants her conservatorship to end and her own father, Jamie Spears, in jail.
10:16 Just last week, a judge suspended Jamie from the conservatorship and signaled that Britney
10:19 could be freed from the arrangement entirely in the coming months.
10:23 So, Mara, let's get into the emotional issues here.
10:25 Just how bad are the relations within the Spears family?
10:28 Well, much worse than we realized.
10:30 According to court documents, there is actually a restraining order in place against Jamie
10:35 protecting his grandson, Britney's son, Sean, from Jamie, stemming from a 2019 incident
10:41 where Sean reportedly hit himself in a bathroom to get away from Jamie.
10:45 Jamie reportedly broke the door down and then there was, quote, physical contact.
10:49 So this is a family that is really quite broken.
10:52 And joyous conservatorship.
10:53 Even if it ends and it's gone and done it in the past, could it still lead to criminal
10:58 charges?
10:59 Could someone end up in jail because of what went down?
11:01 You know, it's doubtful.
11:02 I think courts are reluctant to get involved in those internal affairs that are in court.
11:06 I think more likely we'll see civil litigation that is litigation over money and mismanagement
11:12 and that type thing.
11:13 But at this point, it's too early to tell.
11:15 So Britney's next hearing is scheduled for November 12th.
11:18 At that hearing, joy, your opinion, what's going to go down?
11:21 I think it'll be over.
11:22 You know, we know that, of course, there's some discussion about or there hasn't been
11:26 discussion about this whole mental evaluation.
11:28 Right.
11:29 I mean, the law does not require a mental evaluation for it to be ended.
11:34 But if you examine what's happening, court proceedings are adversarial.
11:37 Two sides are fighting.
11:38 I want A. I want B. Both sides are saying they want it to come to an end.
11:42 And so by all means, I think this thing is done.
11:45 All right.
11:46 Again, both of you, thank you very much for the sage insights.
11:48 After the judge removed Jamie Spears from the conservatorship last week, his attorney
11:52 released a statement disagreeing with the decision, saying in part, Mr. Spears loves
11:56 his daughter, Britney, unconditionally.
11:58 For 13 years, he's tried to do what's in her best interest, whether as a conservator or
12:02 her father.
12:03 This also meant biting his tongue and not responding to all the false, speculative and
12:07 unsubstantiated attacks on him by certain members of the public, media, and more recently,
12:12 Britney's own attorney.
12:13 You can read the full statement at DrRoz.com.
12:15 Thank you for watching.
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