Britney Spears‘ legal team says the secret surveillance her father allegedly instated in her bedroom is “horrifying and unconscionable”.
The surveillance claims were initially made in Controlling Britney Spears, the New York Times‘ follow-up to their earlier documentary Framing Britney Spears. People in the documentary, which aired last week (September 24), alleged Britney was under strict surveillance through her conservatorship.
Claims that were made in the documentary, created by NYT journalists Liz Day and Samantha Stark, include that Spears was recorded in her bedroom, that her phone was bugged with messages sent to her father and conservator, Jamie Spears, and that conversations between her and her two sons were recorded.
Britney’s legal team spoke out against her father in light of the allegations in the documentary, saying in a new legal filing that, if true, Jamie Spears demonstrated “horrifying and unconscionable invasions of his adult daughter’s privacy”.
“Mr Spears has crossed unfathomable lines,” the filing, made on Monday (September 27), reads, per The Guardian.
“While they are not evidence, the allegations warrant serious investigation, certainly by Ms Spears as, among other things, California is a ‘two-party’ consent state.”
Neither Britney nor Jamie have publicly responded to the claims yet, but another hearing for the case will occur tomorrow (September 29), and the residing judge will consider the requests from both Britney and Jamie to have the controversial conservatorship terminated.
Day and Stark revealed in an interview with Variety that Spears’ emotional 24-minute testimony in June, where she called the conservatorship “abusive”, helped encourage people to talk in this second instalment.
“Britney speaking out in court was really the game changer, in terms of people saying they’re willing to break an NDA, or they felt it was important to speak,” Day said of getting people to speak for the documentary.
“It was completely shocking,” Day went on, referencing the surveillance claims. “One of the reasons why it was so shocking is because we had heard rumours about this — people have speculated that her phone is bugged or her house is bugged, but no one really ever had proof.”
Another documentary on the star, this one from Netflix and titled Britney vs. Spears, is coming out later today (September 28) – watch the trailer here.
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