Britney Spears' attorney rejects Jamie Spears' request to pay legal fees

An attorney for pop star Britney Spears is objecting to a petition by the singer's father, Jamie Spears, requesting she pay his legal fees for what he calls assistance in "winding up" the now-concluded conservatorship of which he was a principal.

"Mr. Spears reaped many millions of dollars from Britney as a conservator, while paying his lawyers many millions more, all from his daughter's work and hard-earned money," Britney Spears' attorney, Mathew S. Rosengart, said in a statement to Newsday. "The conservatorship has been terminated and Mr. Spears was suspended ignominiously. Under the circumstances, his petition is not only legally meritless, it is an abomination. Britney poignantly testified about the pain her father caused her and this only adds to it. This is not what a father who loves his daughter does."

Jamie Spears' attorneys who filed the petition, Alex M. Weingarten and Eric J. Bakewell, did not respond to a Newsday request for comment. Britney Spears has not commented publicly on the petition.

From February 2008 until its termination last month, multiplatinum Grammy Award winner Britney Spears had been in a conservatorship, under which court-appointed guardians made major decisions about her life and finances following a series of bizarre public incidents and brief involuntary psychiatric confinement. The custodianship arrangement was divided into two parts, one covering her estate, the other covering health and medical issues.

In a motion filed Dec. 15 in Los Angeles, Jamie Spears — who stepped down as health and medical conservator in 2019 and was removed from estate conservatorship on Sept. 29 — asks the court to have Britney Spears' estate pay his attorneys who are "participating in proceedings concerning Jamie's ongoing fiduciary duties relating to the winding up of the Conservatorship" so that it "can be wound up quickly and efficiently to allow Britney to take control of her life as she and Jamie desire."

The public document, posted online by Billboard magazine, states that to "fulfill his ongoing obligations," Jamie Spears' attorneys must, among other things, "transition administration of Britney's estate to Britney's representatives which involves over 13 years of records relating to the $57-plus million Estate."

The motion additionally notes — in reference to Britney Spears' allegations of psychological abuse by her father as conservator — that, "Payment of Jamie's attorneys' fees from the Estate is required regardless of the unsupported ad hominem vitriol lodged [against] him."