Britney Spears: Justin Timberlake sends support after court testimony – ‘We should all be supporting Britney’
‘What’s happening to her is just not right. No woman should ever be restricted from making decisions about her own body’
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Your support makes all the difference.Justin Timberlake has spoken out in support of Britney Spears after the singer-songwriter testified publicly in a bid to end her conservatorship.
Spears’s personal and professional affairs have been controlled by a conservatorship since 2008. Her father Jamie Spears has been in control for the majority of that time, ceding partial control in 2019 to an attorney and a trust group.
In a Los Angeles court hearing yesterday (23 June), Spears alleged that she had been forced to take Lithium against her will. She also claimed that the team managing her conservatorship had prevented her from having another baby by refusing to let a doctor remove her IUD.
“I am traumatised,” she said, speaking to the court remotely. “I just want my life back.”
Timberlake, who dated Spears from 1998 to 2002, wrote on Twitter: “After what we saw today, we should all be supporting Britney at this time. Regardless of our past, good and bad, and no matter how long ago it was.”
“What’s happening to her is just not right. No woman should ever be restricted from making decisions about her own body.”
The former NSNYC star continued: “No one should EVER be held against their will… or ever have to ask permission to access everything they’ve worked so hard for. [Actor Jessica Biel, Timberlake’s wife] and I send our love, and our absolute support to Britney during this time. We hope the courts, and her family make this right and let her live however she wants to live.”
Her father told the court in a statement he was “sorry” to hear how she was suffering.
”He is sorry to see his daughter suffering and in so much pain,” the statement read. “Mr Spears loves his daughter very much.”
“Any time Britney wants to end her conservatorship, she can ask her lawyer to file a petition to terminate it; she has always had this right but in 13 years has never exercised it,” Vivian Lee Thoreen, a lawyer for Mr Spears, said in a statement to People earlier this year. “Britney knows that her daddy loves her, and that he will be there for her whenever and if she needs him, just as he always has been – conservatorship or not.”
Other celebrities have also spoken out in support of Spears in the wake of her testimony, including Mariah Carey and Halsey.
Earlier this year, Timberlake was criticised for his behaviour following his past breakup with Spears, after details emerged in the documentary film Framing Britney Spears.
He issued an apology to Spears, saying that he “fell short” and “benefited from a system that condones misogyny”.
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