All the Major Players in the Britney Spears Story That Led Up to Her Emotional Testimony

In a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday, Britney Spears was given a chance to speak for the first time on her conservatorship. In a harrowing testimony, Spears detailed the constraints of conservatorship saying that her psychiatrist forced her to go on lithium and that she is not allowed to remove her IUD. As the details of her conservatorship, which is managed by her father, Jamie, came to light, many celebrities who have run their mouths about Spears’s behavior in the past have chosen to speak once more, tweeting in support of the star as she tries to extricate herself from the legal arrangement that has effectively trapped her for over a decade.

The transcript of her testimony, which was delivered via a video chat, is a brutal story of a woman who, despite the insistence of those around her who are ostensibly her protectors, sounds cognizant of her plight and would very much like out. Over the course of 24 minutes, Spears said that her family was making money off of the conservatorship and that part of the reason she didn’t say anything in the first place is that she wasn’t sure anyone would believe her.

From Variety:

I deserve to have a life. I’ve worked my whole life. I deserve to have a two to three year break and just, you know, do what I want to do. But I do feel like there is a crutch here. And I feel open and I’m okay to talk to you today about it. But I wish I could stay with you on the phone forever, because when I get off the phone with you, all of a sudden all I hear all these no’s — no, no, no. And then all of a sudden I get I feel ganged up on and I feel bullied and I feel left out and alone. And I’m tired of feeling alone. I deserve to have the same rights as anybody does, by having a child, a family, any of those things, and more so.

Many people, including Justin Timberlake, who made headlines or a career on trashing Britney’s behavior in the past have come to a sudden about-face. Interesting! Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.