Horrifying details about Britney Spears' 13-year conservatorship detailed in new book

Britney Spears has detailed her experience of living through a 13-year conservatorship in her memoir The Woman in Me.

In the tell-all, which has hit shelves today, the 41-year-old pop star describes her problematic relationship with her father, whom she claims was an alcoholic during her childhood years and had ultimately became estranged from after she found fame.

That was until she heard a knock on her dressing room one day and was met with a group of strangers – and her father.

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The singer is the first to admit her behaviour at the time was out of control following the birth of her second child and difficult divorce from Kevin Federline.

Her parents had divorced, only to reconcile eight years later, and little did she know, they were now on exactly the same page – in all things.

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She said she sensed "my family was trying to get closer to me – in a way that made me uneasy". Then her mother Lynne called.

Spears claims she was told police were after her and that she should come to the house.

Next thing she knew there was a "SWAT team of what seemed like 20 cops in my house" and she was taken to a mental health facility.

Then the hammer dropped.

Her father Jamie, in collaboration with his friend Louise 'Lou' Taylor, had set up a conservatorship, which enabled them to take control of Britney's career and life.

These are often implemented for short periods of time, Britney explained in the book, but hers would last over a decade.

"My dad was able to set up two forms of conservatorship: what's called 'conservatorship of the person' and 'conservatorship of the estate'."

As he would allegedly say to her: "I'm Britney Spears now."

Spears was still fighting for custody of her boys Jayden and Sean at the time, and explained she cooperated with the conservatorship for as long as she did, as it allowed her to be reunited with her children.

"I am convinced that it was all planned," she claims.

Spears says she begged for anyone other than her father to be her conservator, but was denied.

"I remained shocked that the state of California would let a man like my father – an alcoholic, someone who'd declared bankruptcy, who'd failed in business, who'd terrified me as a little girl – control me after all my accomplishments and everything I had done."

Everything was controlled.

If a man wanted to date her, he would be subjected to a background check, blood test and would be made to sign a non-disclosure agreement, then he told of her "medical and sexual history".

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She would perform relentlessly and have no say in how the profits of her work were distributed, having been placed on an allowance. One evening she wanted to pick up a large dinner tab with her dancers, approximately $1000, but her card was declined. She didn't have enough.

"I became a robot," she says, but found "joy and comfort in the boys and in my routine."

She began her Las Vegas residency – every part of her life completely under her father's control.

"No matter how much I dieted and exercised, my father was always telling me I was fat," she writes. "He put me on a strict diet" adding she was "not legally allowed to eat dessert."

Spears describes begging for "real food" and being told no.

"So for two years, I ate nothing but chicken and canned vegetables."

She says two years is a long time to "not be able to eat what you want", especially when she was performing so much.

"I felt like my body wasn't mine anymore."

The 'Free Britney' movement played a key role in the singer regaining her mental strength, she writes.

She was able to fight her way out of the conservatorship in 2022 and remains estranged from her family.

"I did not deserve what my family did to me," she wrote in the book, adding that when it comes to her family she "tries not to think about them.".

She likened the conservatorship to when she was a child and her father would allegedly become abusive and pass out drunk on the lounge. Spears would swear to herself she would one day escape, and she felt the same during the conservatorship.

Today, the singer says she is able to "experience the riches of being an adult woman for the first time in many years."

Gaining control of her diet and being allowed to eat whatever she wanted, her "body became strong and my fire came back".

Expressing that fire on social media by dancing and performing is part of her healing, she says.

"Freedom means being goofy, silly and having fun on social media. Freedom means taking a break from Instagram without people calling 911," she wrote.

"Freedom means being able to make mistakes, and learning from them.

She ended the book by saying she hoped to "inspire people on some level".

"I can't change the past, but I don't have to be lonely or scared anymore."