Britney Spears has been proffered support by the American Civil Liberties Union after a court ruled that her father Jamie Spears remains the sole conservator of her estate.
This comes despite Spears' request for him to step down from the role.
The Toxic singer has been facing renewed concern for her wellbeing following her recent social media posts during the coronavirus lockdown.
Fans have speculated that Britney may be suffering due to the conservatorship she has been under for the past 12 years. She was first placed under a conservatorship by her father back in 2008 after suffering a series of mental breakdowns, which necessitated medical intervention.
The hashtag "#FreeBritney" has subsequently been making the rounds on social media.
The singer has had much of her personal affairs – including her finances, mental health and music career – controlled by legal guardians (largely her father, Jamie Spears) under the terms of the conservatorship.
Now, the ACLU has publicly reached out to the singer. "The ACLU has since publicly reached out to Britney after the non-profit organisation tweeted: “People with disabilities have a right to lead self-directed lives and retain their civil rights. If Britney Spears wants to regain her civil liberties and get out of her conservatorship, we are here to help her," they wrote.
The organisation then proceeded to share an article published on aclu.org, titled “How Conservatorship Threatens Britney Spears’ Civil Rights."
Conservatorship "is the court weighing into the person’s life and saying you, as a person with a disability, are no longer able to make decisions about yourself and livelihood – such as where you live, and how you support and feed yourself – and we are putting someone else in charge of making those decisions. Because it’s such an extreme step to take, it’s really supposed to be a last resort," Zoe Brennan-Krohn, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Disability Rights Project, wrote in the article.
"We don’t know if Britney Spears identifies herself as a person with disabilities, or what, if any, diagnoses she has received,” Brennan-Krohn added.
"But by virtue of being under a conservatorship, we know that the court has determined that she is disabled, and has stripped away her civil rights because of that disability. So it’s inherently a civil rights/civil liberties issue," she continued.
"What we don’t know is what the info the court had, what Britney has said about what she wants specifically, what other options have been tried, or what her lawyers have said," she added.
"So while it’s possible that this is an example of a thoughtful conservatorship that was implemented as the last resort and is being reviewed carefully, thoroughly, and regularly, that is not the norm for conservatorships, and it appears inconsistent with what we see of Britney publicly."