Netflix Unveils First Trailer For New Britney Spears Doc About Her Conservatorship

The project, titled "Britney vs. Spears," will premiere the day before the pop superstar's next court date in the ongoing legal battle to end her conservatorship.
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Britney Spears’ life is getting the documentary treatment without her explicit permission once again, but this time Netflix is at the helm.

Following months of rumors that the streaming service was working on a project about the pop superstar’s highly publicized conservatorship, the first trailer for “Britney vs. Spears” was released on Wednesday.

Directed by Erin Lee Carr (“How to Fix a Drug Scandal”), the documentary will reportedly “center around Spears’ highly-unusual conservatorship, and will feature key figures in Spears’ orbit,” according to Variety. The film is set to premiere on Sept. 28, the day before the singer’s next court date in her ongoing legal battle to regain control of her life.

Ahead of the full trailer’s release, Netflix dropped a short teaser on Tuesday featuring an alleged 2009 voicemail Spears left for her lawyer in which she discussed ending the legal arrangement.

“Hi. My name is Britney Spears. I called you earlier. I’m calling again because I just wanted to make sure that during the process of eliminating the conservatorship…” she says in the 18-second clip.

As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the voicemail seemingly complicates Spears’ assertion that she was previously unaware that she could petition to end the court-ordered conservatorship, which was put in place in 2008.

Since last fall, Spears has been publicly fighting to take back control of her finances and freedom from her father, Jamie Spears, amid increased media and public scrutiny surrounding her case.

While her supporters in the #FreeBritney movement have mobilized for years to draw attention to the pop star’s fight against her conservatorship, Hulu’s documentary “Framing Britney Spears,” made in partnership with FX and The New York Times, spurred a cultural reckoning about how the media mistreated her and just how controlling her conservatorship has been.

Months after the documentary was released, Spears testified in open court in June that she’s being exploited under the dehumanizing restraints of the conservatorship, which she said prohibits her from removing her birth control, getting married and driving a car on her own, among other alarming claims.

“I haven’t done anything in the world to deserve this treatment,” she said at the time, describing her current arrangement as “harmful” and “abusive.”

Spears has since hired her own attorney in the case for the first time in 13 years, and her legal team is petitioning to end the conservatorship and remove her father as conservator. Jamie Spears unexpectedly said earlier this month that he “intends” to transition away from his role without giving a specific time frame.

While Britney Spears has publicly thanked her fans for their support, she’s been less than enthusiastic regarding the documentaries about her life, blasting them as “so hypocritical” given how “they criticize the media and then do the same thing.”

Breaking her silence about “Framing Britney Spears” a month after it was released, Spears wrote in a separate post: “I didn’t watch the documentary but from what I did see of it I was embarrassed by the light they put me in. I cried for two weeks and well …. I still cry sometimes!!!!”

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