Britney Spears is finally free

<p>Britney Spears is finally free.</p> <p>At a court hearing on Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny ruled that the conservatorship that has run Spears’s life since 2008 should end, effective today. The news comes after two years of increasing controversy about Spears’s conservatorship — and after an explosive six months of revelations about just what was happening inside the conservatorship and what Spears thought of it.</p> <p>For a long time, it was possible for many people to imagine that Spears more or less liked the conservatorship. Or at least that she didn’t mind it.</p> <p>There’s a moment toward the end of <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22276585/framing-britney-spears-us-weekly-perez-hilton-daniel-ramos"><em>Framing Britney Spears</em></a>, the New York Times and Hulu documentary that launched an avalanche of conversation about Spears earlier this year, in which the camera focuses on enigmatic footage of Spears swimming silently through a turquoise pool.</p> <p>Underwater, Spears dives, touches the bottom of the pool, and spins. Her face is obscured in a cloud of bubbles.</p> <p>“It’s impossible to know her,” muses former MTV VJ Dave Holmes in voiceover. “We never knew her. We know her even less now. She is unknowable.”</p> <p>For the past 13 years, the fact that we don’t know Britney Spears has been one of her defining traits. We don’t know what she wants. We don’t know how she feels. We haven’t been able to know, because our access to her and hers to us has been so curtailed.</p> <p>From the time that the conservatorship began in 2008 until November 12, 2021, Spears has had no control over her financial life or her personal life. All the shots were called by a team led primarily by her father, Jamie Spears. Until very recently, few details about how the conservatorship operated or how Spears felt about it had made it into the public view.</p> <p>Before this year, Spears almost never discussed the conservatorship publicly, and the interviews her team granted came under tightly controlled circumstances. Few reputable news outlets investigated the conservatorship, so worried fans had to scavenge for scraps from unverified gossip posts on the far corners of the internet. Britney isn’t allowed to have a phone or access the internet, some claimed. Britney wants to get married and have another baby and she’s not allowed to, others said. Britney is being held captive by her family against her will, said another.</p> <div class="c-wide-block"> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636769036_9380_169229" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22718326,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wlxtvdSsR3ibn9Bf9NR4TLQesfE=/0x0:2537x1672/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EKRTuJ8Cw8YBtPU6jUZ3xAzH4dQ=/0x0:2537x1672/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1BdkqpkZVZ91pbiaJ-JF681E3Go=/0x0:2537x1672/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SJwCO94ljuyozLW1LQAnMHr_NZE=/0x0:2537x1672/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_GnnRgF7O2xxEGtGhqCbAxNk0QE=/0x0:2537x1672/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5VgtoJ4K2_EInCS-WHTsol3Hn2A=/0x0:2537x1672/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/34iFvh0NsGtC6beCu2Sjg1ybmwo=/0x0:2537x1672/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/b51pmmZ7lnlkGt5SXfn4IvokoRM=/0x0:2537x1672/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/X9EHIGkzdd8E8MBVHYL6AOdIUcE=/0x0:2537x1672/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1920w" sizes="90vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="2537" sizes="90vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Pvs8Np6CmGdDuMvZ7liyoi31lE8=/0x0:2537x1672/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FmZayuwRB_TFAzbznQzIFM3dtB0=/0x0:2537x1672/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/46THFApNGYNkwttum0L-AEcUbgA=/0x0:2537x1672/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/a9uvuIELSJcUCfTzoBIzrk1931Y=/0x0:2537x1672/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sxOI189Lbc4P5ZU82n5XL_rislU=/0x0:2537x1672/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C4x9YpNDCfumlCWLXJdJYnr10FU=/0x0:2537x1672/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EBZaeAE9v7QM2k5L9mfEzLEh8u0=/0x0:2537x1672/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5WD-FxxM0Qv5kximNLSrK8VRFpE=/0x0:2537x1672/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hIMV0ql7PPCN1gF0ORLjlLd9VKg=/0x0:2537x1672/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_vsubKBbtzK7rrXlcRu4TDtmIj8=/0x0:2537x1672/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2537x1672):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718326/GettyImages_1013753532t.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Britney Spears performs during her “Piece Of Me” summer tour on August 4, 2018, in Brighton, England.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Dave Hogan/BCU via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> </div> <p>None of those rumors were officially confirmed by reputable sources. So when news outlets discussed Britney Spears, everything had to come with caveats. The only person who knows the truth of all of this for sure is Britney, we said, and she isn’t talking. Maybe she likes the conservatorship! Maybe it’s helpful for her. Maybe she feels safer that way. We just don’t know. We can’t know.</p> <p>Now, we do know.</p> <p>There’s been a series of revelations in the Britney Spears saga over the past few months. A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/arts/music/britney-spears-conservatorship.html">June 22 article in the New York Times</a> revealed damning new evidence of how controlling the conservatorship has been, and showed that Spears has been actively trying to get out of it since 2014. A <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/britney-spears-conservatorship-nightmare">July 3 article in the New Yorker</a> painted a picture of Jamie Spears as an emotional abuser obsessed with the control he has over his daughter’s life, with Britney a hapless victim forced to play out spy-movie-style heists just to gain access to an unmonitored cellphone from time to time.</p> <p>Most explosively, on June 23, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22547857/britney-spears-speaks-court-testimony-conservatorship-free-britney">Britney Spears spoke before the court in public for the first time</a>. Spears made shocking claims about her conservatorship: She has an IUD she’s not allowed to take out, she said; she’s been put on lithium against her will; she’s been forced to perform against her will.</p> <p>She made it very clear, once and for all, that she is not happy living in her conservatorship.</p> <p>“I’m so angry it’s insane,” Spears told the judge.</p> <p>The world appears to have taken notice. For most of the conservatorship, Spears has worked with a court-appointed lawyer. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/entertainment/live-news/britney-spears-conservatorship-hearing-07-14-21/index.html">But on July 14</a>, the court ruled that she would finally be allowed to retain her own. Spears hired former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart, who called on Jamie Spears to voluntarily step down from the conservatorship in accordance with his daughter’s wishes. On August 12, Jamie complied, <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2021/08/12/britney-spears-jamie-spears-conservator-step-down/">filing papers</a> announcing his intent to work with the court to “prepare for an orderly transition to a new conservator.” Then, on September 7, Jamie filed a petition <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/07/entertainment/britney-spears-conservatorship-petition-to-end/index.html">to permanently end the conservatorship</a>, citing “recent events” that have “called into question” whether grounds for the conservatorship still exist.</p> <p>“As Mr. Spears has said again and again, all he wants is what is best for his daughter. If Ms. Spears wants to terminate the conservatorship and believes that she can handle her own life, Mr. Spears believes that she should get that chance,” the filing said.</p> <p>On November 12, it all finally ended. Britney Spears’s conservatorship has finally terminated.</p> <p>Like Jamie, the rest of us no longer have the excuse or the luxury of ignorance when it comes to Britney Spears and what she wants. We have a clearer idea of what happened to her and how she feels about it, and the way we talk about her can never be the same.</p> <p>Here’s what we used to know, what we’ve recently learned, and how it changes everything.</p> <p>Britney Spears was not always a mystery. At the beginning of her career, she tended to be candid with the public to a fault.</p> <p>“Part of the Britney narrative and part of the persona that seems to be authentic — and you always have to be careful about this,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22280627/britney-spears-conservatorship-free-britney-explained-framing-britney-spears">media studies professor Moya Luckett told me in 2020</a>, “is that she seems to want to speak directly to her public because she thinks they’ll understand what she’s going through.”</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636769036_9862_169230" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22718134,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lMqOORNxMHSbL7ozeb11qE7xXe4=/0x0:2000x1312/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VLofy8gQfFBwofdpU3LwWlATjrg=/0x0:2000x1312/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-M-leuThjI4Y_OD9De3B-4d4qhU=/0x0:2000x1312/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mrNp0khdSrZXnHDELOBwSSvSeWA=/0x0:2000x1312/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sRtN3RaM0cy8Pu1a5TmaMfG4zyo=/0x0:2000x1312/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cigkIhHsOHxBrwl5ITGQcW6mz4Q=/0x0:2000x1312/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/M6JuGJPUoyHTXpqejaVJyZQa1ns=/0x0:2000x1312/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FmFk8X-0LRMdhc5gBN9rDZnC0_M=/0x0:2000x1312/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gIyRA8sBzEY-I7T87LsFShToQhM=/0x0:2000x1312/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="2000" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0FSlB0YAot_3-qfJUarPnqBp5Z0=/0x0:2000x1312/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fxweJGxvDOX4gZXgAlmoWy9akes=/0x0:2000x1312/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/f2FfJLP2ykGoXYMArBSviCST1fA=/0x0:2000x1312/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hHp1sqSzB53AtIidOtkYi6Kd6XY=/0x0:2000x1312/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vpbPaXBXQne98WURhPq77nqaJSE=/0x0:2000x1312/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YhA8IBS9JN70jyB39JNyX5Nf4V4=/0x0:2000x1312/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/84_w7Rf6tV1Cr4n2yHckoM1mTJ4=/0x0:2000x1312/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NLQOM8aR8DBptGFqhJEWualnjyc=/0x0:2000x1312/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/T6DV_Qv3qN1AbjVadf8Tw67-tvw=/0x0:2000x1312/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ycSpaMF2zu7uCp2q_ukLH-HRe3M=/0x0:2000x1312/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2000x1312):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718134/GettyImages_98713070tt.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Britney Spears appears on TRL with Carson Daily on November 6, 2001.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>KMazur/WireImage via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <p>Luckett pointed to Spears’s <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/britney-i-do-not-care-what-people-think-wbna13329706">infamous 2006 interview with Matt Lauer</a>, for which Spears did her own makeup and during which she broke down in tears, as well as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney:_For_the_Record">her 2008 documentary</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_and_Kevin:_Chaotic">her short-lived reality TV show with then-husband Kevin Federline</a>. In those moments, Spears appeared confessional, authentic. She wept when she told Lauer she wanted the paparazzi to leave her alone. <a href="https://www.slantmagazine.com/tv/britney-and-kevin-chaotic/">One critic called her reality show “disturbingly intimate.”</a> She appeared to be an open book.</p> <p>After the conservatorship was established, when Spears no longer did interviews or reality shows, she still seemed to be, more or less, candid on her social media. She filled her Instagram with selfies and videos of herself dancing and joyous, emoji-laden captions. And all those posts were, depending on whom you asked, either very obviously blandly happy or riddled with hidden darkness.</p> <p>“Because the videos are a kind of art brut expressionism, empty of context, they fill viewers with questions,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/magazine/britney-spears-instagram-freebritney.html">wrote Caity Weaver of Spears’s Instagram videos for the New York Times in 2019</a>. “What does she want us to feel when we watch? Is she to be viewed as an innocent girl playing dress-up? An empowered stylish woman stomping across marble floors she bought herself? A sexy human Barbie with an infinite closet? Regardless of intention, the clips are illegible, generating primarily a voyeur’s guilty, mystified confusion.”</p> <p>“We either can never think what she’s thinking, or we know <em>exactly</em> what she’s thinking,” said the hosts of the Britney-centric podcast <a href="https://britneysinstagram.libsyn.com/"><em>Britney’s Gram</em></a> in <a href="https://britneysinstagram.libsyn.com/britneys-instagram-the-veranda-video">their inaugural episode</a>. “That’s the enigma of Britney.”</p> <p>The confusion over Britney, and the question of what, exactly, was going through this girl’s head, began in 2004 when she married her backup dancer, Kevin Federline, to widespread mystification from her fans. The pair divorced in 2007, following the birth of their two children, and Spears began to act erratically. And because she was constantly tailed by paparazzi, most of her erratic behavior was made very public immediately.</p> <p>The paparazzi followed her around for upskirt shots. She started yelling at them in <a href="https://people.com/celebrity/britney-spears-lapses-into-a-british-accent/">a British accent</a>. She <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/a29681281/britney-spears-shaved-head-reason-2007/">shaved her own head</a>, allegedly telling a nearby tattoo artist that she was sick of people touching her hair, while paparazzi photographed every angle through the windows of the hair salon. <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1892685_1892691_1892788,00.html">She attacked a paparazzo’s car</a> with an umbrella. She went <a href="https://www.today.com/news/britney-spears-checks-herself-rehab-wbna17243855">in and out of rehab</a>. She sleepwalked through her performance at the 2007 VMAs so badly that Perez Hilton lectured her for <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/2760492/an-open-letter-to-britney-spears/">being “disrespectful” to her fans</a>.</p> <p>Gossip coverage of Spears became even more pantingly furious as her appearance changed. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/8/25/12630692/britney-spears-glory-career-history">She went brunette</a>, and then lost her hair entirely and turned to wigs. After injuring her knee, giving birth to two children, and taking a multi-year break from live performances, she’d gained weight, which the press treated as a salacious betrayal: <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=3582432&page=1">ABC News’s postmortem of those 2007 VMAs</a> quoted a celebrity publicist describing Spears as “heavy” before bracingly noting that an anonymous internet commenter had said of the starlet, “I’d hit it.”</p> <p>“It was a collapse on a scale that we’d really never seen,” Luckett says. “And it was clearly abetted by the fact that gossip blogs had established themselves as very popular. With cameraphones, there was more access to this kind of information than we’d ever had before — both in terms of receiving the information and in terms of how many people could get on their phones and sell their pictures to the likes of TMZ.”</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636769036_1098_169231" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22718221,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7FiJWJ789HSEAZcgU0aCUMTAmAw=/0x0:3100x2067/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tfOO4yrnbYBOSV-OdSRI5Ux0Fpc=/0x0:3100x2067/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6rCfda7iesZCC0pwrgk-9anxINE=/0x0:3100x2067/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6pQhUwIpMdjni3IXNEwxUlYkDP0=/0x0:3100x2067/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RIRh1ZIXSxEIU2fvFB3-zTha8-k=/0x0:3100x2067/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UKqMymFS71LmQkyoMWd_oGI0sz0=/0x0:3100x2067/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BcUYhFtRRk43gnBJYdzfTqCI-ns=/0x0:3100x2067/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gm4oyVqCn4uiAFIH7vHE2S2MMgk=/0x0:3100x2067/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YpP687aKR6aKaxYVoesRSyasRVw=/0x0:3100x2067/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="3100" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iJ0ZZ_oVEJYjujylE1eLbnMHEXE=/0x0:3100x2067/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XUgr47C_ACNegk_aKfbu0Eqx0e8=/0x0:3100x2067/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/i7PfdoxLtId-vv623lZ8u7Vzvxk=/0x0:3100x2067/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cqqdbkR4n1Te-osaPQbskeR_s2c=/0x0:3100x2067/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/05BUGbEcFW0ns3_pvdXLPfweKDY=/0x0:3100x2067/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7W0pmzJdq68eJe7yqfDmts7-0v4=/0x0:3100x2067/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RC8zg11tV5TzEYNHHd0BGWjfiS0=/0x0:3100x2067/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3En8uPWr7j2Wxh7mdorX0woWUV0=/0x0:3100x2067/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RduPWQ5k-URtaYUgQsZ9V8tnKrw=/0x0:3100x2067/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VQ2bsBh9GNVUcaN-l01oYkZObN0=/0x0:3100x2067/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2067):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718221/GettyImages_77529470t.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Britney Spears drives through a crowd of photographers on her way to the street outside the Family Court building in Los Angeles, on October 26, 2007.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <p>In January 2008, <a href="https://people.com/celebrity/britney-spears-hospitalized-again-for-evaluation/">Spears was twice placed under a psychiatric hold</a>. A month later, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/02/musicnews.usa">her father petitioned the courts</a> for emergency “temporary conservatorship” over his daughter. The order was granted.</p> <p>More than a decade later, Spears is still under conservatorship. And that is about all the public officially knew about how she got there, up until the summer of 2021.</p> <p>“If you’re an adult, there is a legal presumption that you are competent to make decisions about a range of things, good, bad, or indifferent,” says Josephine Gittler, a law professor and the author of “Reforming the Guardianship and Conservatorship System: An Introduction.” “Your decisions can be good or bad, but you are entitled as an adult to make decisions about your finances and your property and your medical care. But all states have laws that recognize that some people have diminished decision-making capacity.”</p> <p>Conservatorship is designed to be the solution to the problem of a legal adult who has a brain injury or mental health condition that renders them unable to properly care for their lives — so the courts assign someone else to do so for them. (Some states distinguish between conservatorship as covering financial matters and guardianship as covering personal matters, but California, where Spears lives, calls both conservatorships. Spears’s conservatorship covers both her finances and her day-to-day life.)</p> <p>Proving that an adult is no longer competent to run their own life is a long and drawn-out process. Someone has to file a petition with the court, often Adult Protective Services or its equivalent. (In Spears’s case, it was her father who filed.) The courts will send an investigator to observe the subject’s life and to see whether there’s really enough evidence to warrant a conservatorship, and the judge assigned to the case will hear testimony from experts to see if the subject’s behavior meets the criteria for that state’s statutes. In California, in cases where the stated reason for the petition is mental health concerns, as it was for Spears, a psychiatrist would have to testify that the subject has a DSM-recognized diagnosis.</p> <p>Once the conservatorship is in place, the conservator assumes final control over the subject’s decisions, which is where Spears is now.</p> <p>“Anything she wants to do, she has to ask permission, as if she were a child,” says Elaine Renoire, president of the National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse. “She doesn’t have the legal right to engage in a contract. That has to be done through a conservator.”</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636769036_5209_169232" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22718248,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Qjdtmgjer8_OXDJJIdK9J99i1OU=/0x0:3500x2203/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5UXSniFBqHSxd1Ey20HEaHD_FDk=/0x0:3500x2203/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KwvdzaAofWcrC53P3bkQzNdqF-k=/0x0:3500x2203/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sBlGlJwLqysqKUynedH-miRLFVs=/0x0:3500x2203/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HPShGa1oe9JEce9Utm3xPV_nILk=/0x0:3500x2203/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dzSjdnmGxD1eJFgvgedGU24Fa1k=/0x0:3500x2203/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cCydVc3RsgqEJCOo7ogUJe67qRM=/0x0:3500x2203/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Iee1SPFNlwvtPyxH0wodvbg0CDo=/0x0:3500x2203/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/P4yzp48sa7T3rQyJ5_7D1MMvrmc=/0x0:3500x2203/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="3500" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WgZLWPiZJ2qwhwnEoQicM6ZXxSw=/0x0:3500x2203/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/d2XS5dZN-hL5D3eZtOaIH-yCqnk=/0x0:3500x2203/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/V5vgi62ID9Am7WBC5pL5DMjgi9w=/0x0:3500x2203/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NctHXRCy-tURYCmNZgHNDB3ckAo=/0x0:3500x2203/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6_ZBHEWXzpp-qZ0pEwMXRzYiOM8=/0x0:3500x2203/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/251O5a_dDyxcqgQsm2ZdUdKPKks=/0x0:3500x2203/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5lDa2np7PEjoUaVbGziEZhvTs-8=/0x0:3500x2203/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qWW2GlIlf2N8NXte3tWZaD1U3d4=/0x0:3500x2203/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/spavNjXEvnlSyh4OtamescAd9EQ=/0x0:3500x2203/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C2GKsCdUnXn2THTriHeJrD3Qh6A=/0x0:3500x2203/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3500x2203):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718248/GettyImages_1308644132t.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Britney Spears performs onstage at Wembley Arena on October 10, 2000, in London.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Jo Hale/Redferns via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <p>The exact details of Spears’s conservatorship were private for a very long time. It was hard to know how far, exactly, her conservators were pushing their control. Most of what we knew was that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/arts/music/is-britney-spears-ready-to-stand-on-her-own.html">the New York Times reported in 2016</a> that her financial conservators — at the time, her father Jamie and lawyer Andrew M. Wallet — kept track of “her most mundane purchases, from a drink at Starbucks to a song on iTunes.”</p> <p>Putting someone under conservatorship means giving someone else enormous power over them. So the potential for abuse can be high. “The check on that can and should be court monitoring of the conservatorship,” says Gittler. “Routine monitoring occurs through reports that the conservator has to make to the court, which the court has a very high responsibility of reviewing in detail. Not all courts always do what they should do, and that’s been a concern that’s led to reform of guardianship.”</p> <p>There’s another aspect that makes court monitoring of the conservatorship vexed, which is that <a href="https://www.coloradoelderlaw.com/blog/2016/10/does-a-ward-have-the-right-to-hire-a-private-attorney/">in many states</a>, people under conservatorship aren’t guaranteed the right to hire their own lawyers. <a href="https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/handbook.pdf">Under California conservator law</a>, conservatees have the right to be represented by an attorney, but not necessarily the right to choose that attorney. And although Spears tried to select her own, until recently the court ruled that she did not have the capacity to do so. So for most of her conservatorship, Spears has worked with the lawyer Sam Ingham, who was appointed for her by the court. Although she was not allowed to choose Ingham, Spears was required by the terms of her conservatorship <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/britney-spears-conservatorship-nightmare">to pay him an annual salary of $520,000</a>. <a href="https://variety.com/2021/music/news/britney-spears-samuel-ingham-resign-conservatorship-1235012511/">Ingham resigned from the role on July 6</a>, shortly after Spears’s explosive testimony.</p> <p>Her lawyer wasn’t the only person on her payroll. Spears is also required to pay her conservators. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/arts/music/is-britney-spears-ready-to-stand-on-her-own.html">the 2016 New York Times report</a>, Jamie makes an annual salary of $130,000 and took home 1.5 percent of the gross revenues from the Las Vegas residency that Spears held from 2013 through 2017.</p> <p>Under her father’s supervision, the Britney Spears financial empire flourished. After releasing four studio albums, doing a stint as a judge on the <em>The X Factor</em>, and playing nearly 250 performances during her Vegas residency since her father took over running her life in 2008, plus establishing multiple lucrative merchandise deals, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/britney-spears-net-worth-money-spending-fortune-conservatorship#:~:text=Britney%20Spears'%20net%20worth%20is,she%20spends%20it%20-%20Business%20Insider">Spears is now worth $59 million</a> — and none of the money she has earned, or the life that it funds, is under her control.</p> <p>For much of the past 13 years, that fact has not seemed to particularly trouble the world. On the contrary: Spears appeared to be a success story. After publicly and dramatically spiraling, she now seemed stable and healthy. Up until 2019, she was producing so much music, performing so constantly, making so much money. Didn’t that obviously mean the conservatorship was a good thing?</p> <p>The world is full of former child stars who ran wild as adults and ended up living brief and tragic lives: the Judy Garlands, the Michael Jacksons. Shouldn’t someone have done something to help them? And wasn’t Spears’s family, whatever their personal shortcomings might be, stepping up and actually doing the work that the Garlands and the Jacksons failed to do, and taking responsibility for their kid?</p> <p>“Typically when a pop star as big as Spears sinks as low as she did, there’s little that can be done to rescue them,” <a href="https://www.elle.com/fashion/g18431/britney-spears-fashion-history/?slide=9">opined Elle in 2013</a>. “But Britney Spears is nothing if not a fighter: Only months after being slapped with the conservatorship, she was back looking healthy and vocally stronger than ever. … In the past few years, Britney Spears has slowly but surely regained her role as America’s pop-music sweetheart.”</p> <p>This conservatorship could help Spears at last escape the inevitable doom of the child star! Didn’t it seem like she was benefiting from having someone else control her life?</p> <p>Wasn’t it just possible that she was glad the conservatorship was there?</p> <p>While the outside world remained largely indifferent, Spears’s fans have been suspicious of her conservatorship for as long as it has existed. Many of them point accusingly to all the work Spears has done over the past 13 years: If she is so unstable that she can’t be in control of her own life, they say, why was she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/arts/television/26britney.html">guest-starring on <em>How I Met Your Mother</em></a> just two months after the emergency conservatorship was established? Doesn’t that seem to suggest the conservatorship exists less to safeguard Spears’s well-being than to maximize her income and, by extension, the income of those in control of her life?</p> <p>Conservatorship reform advocates, too, have eyed Spears’s situation with a suspicious gaze. “The public has the right to know that the state is taking care of the citizens that need help,” says Renoire. “Everything’s so quiet with this case that it’s very disconcerting.”</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636769036_8743_169233" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22718275,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iVTkZVLFtnBacNPzerincSYtUuY=/0x0:4200x2800/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VcIqR17TDFv-JlBgxN6TY-oGkZc=/0x0:4200x2800/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0JRSmWN0AmYhUwKydWreAjXsfNg=/0x0:4200x2800/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xH1n0YL5XINrNoQWIyBAHtUN_ak=/0x0:4200x2800/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZKBGIF2iQGRzz4z63XjeLD-a0Yo=/0x0:4200x2800/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wysCPwGq-lH8a1q0nscg-1O6QuQ=/0x0:4200x2800/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wWNA2noB8QnCZM0Q3-j3owv-3jw=/0x0:4200x2800/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/T4wHEJRy9ixsmNT9WlHkIGhoSK4=/0x0:4200x2800/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5X6cQqvppEAcn3ck5mWACuxk4cM=/0x0:4200x2800/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="4200" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MlYA4TR2ayCccHm1cGUR89mKvyo=/0x0:4200x2800/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5gAk950yonxFuhLVTvCoCDxK-lQ=/0x0:4200x2800/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ea_JojjwKETgda_FhF5J-0vGpfw=/0x0:4200x2800/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VuFtl1Ccf5_xfysbfg8G0Y1sJSs=/0x0:4200x2800/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MYhqaeL9BPMZemuqDz2Cm33UGEI=/0x0:4200x2800/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/USc-5B_ejj4_7H3Gptm6DA5mzaw=/0x0:4200x2800/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4hmamLhod6eSMKR2mossgQpuNJg=/0x0:4200x2800/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8ztP4-LtFiJOKRCJe1lMxJL7mdM=/0x0:4200x2800/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RFm78M9zHh0OVJCXmcgrDrZWtUg=/0x0:4200x2800/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lGXe8oWGVejGcUm9uHmlbajwF3Q=/0x0:4200x2800/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4200x2800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718275/GettyImages_1325116754t.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Supporters of Britney Spears gather outside the County Courthouse in Los Angeles during her conservatorship case hearing on June 23, 2021.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <p>Despite those conversations occurring in the fringes of the internet, however, the Free Britney movement did not take off in earnest until April 2019. That’s when comedians Tess Barker and Barbara Gray, hosts of <em>Britney’s Gram</em>, <a href="https://britneysinstagram.libsyn.com/75-freebritney">received a voicemail</a> from someone who said he used to be a paralegal at the law firm handling Spears’s conservatorship.</p> <p>Earlier in the month, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BvziBzUgQoz/?hl=en">a post on Spears’s Instagram</a> had announced that the singer had checked herself into a mental health facility for “a little ‘me time.’ :)” Months before that news broke, Spears had canceled her planned second Vegas residency, ostensibly to spend time with her gravely ill father.</p> <p>“What is going on is disturbing, to say the least,” the former paralegal said in the voicemail on <em>Britney’s Gram</em>. He alleged that Spears had been committed to a mental health facility against her will and that there was no timeline for her release. The trigger, he claimed, was that Spears had been seen driving with her boyfriend to pick up some fast food, even though her conservatorship forbids driving. Moreover, he said that she had begun to refuse to take her medication. Jamie Spears had decided to take drastic action and blame his own illness for it.</p> <p>Barker and Gray have said they spoke to the paralegal separately and found him credible. It appears that no other outlet was able to verify his claims.</p> <p>Meanwhile, Spears’s camp maintained that the conservatorship remained necessary to keep Spears’s life on track. “The conservatorship is not a jail,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-battle-of-britney-spears/2019/05/17/edcc826c-7681-11e9-bd25-c989555e7766_story.html">Spears’s former manager Larry Rudolph told the Washington Post in 2019</a>. “It helps Britney make business decisions and manage her life in ways she can’t do on her own right now.” Those successful Vegas residencies, for instance, were courtesy of the conservatorship: Part of Spears’s contract demanded that she remain under conservatorship for as long as she was in residency to ensure that she wasn’t a flight risk. Without the security of the conservatorship in place, the thinking went, Spears would go off the rails again, and she would surely lose the business advantages and the stable, happy life she had worked so hard to build.</p> <p>In September 2019, Jamie temporarily stepped down as conservator of Spears’s person, though not her finances, <a href="https://people.com/music/britney-spears-father-jamie-steps-down-as-her-conservator/">after a physical altercation with one of Spears’s sons</a>. Jodi Montgomery, Spears’s longtime caregiver, assumed the role on a temporary basis. In August 2020, Spears asked that Montgomery become her permanent conservator. Jamie Spears had heretofore remained in control of Spears’s financial affairs, but Spears also requested in August 2020 that he step down and be replaced by a “qualified corporate fiduciary.” The court declined to remove Jamie from either of his roles.</p> <p>Starting with that August 2020 hearing, things appeared to be changing rapidly in the world of Britney Spears, and the public was beginning to pay attention. The attention would come roaring into focus in February 2021 when the New York Times/Hulu documentary <em>Framing Britney Spears</em> made the case that the world owed Spears an apology for the way it treated her in 2008 — and that it should also be looking into everything that had happened with her conservatorship since. The documentary was a sensation, and the public sat up and took notice.</p> <p>Months later, the New York Times and the New Yorker would publish their articles. And Spears would, at last, speak in public.</p> <p>The revelations came in rapid succession: First <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/arts/music/britney-spears-conservatorship.html">the New York Times report</a>, the next day <a href="https://variety.com/2021/music/news/britney-spears-full-statement-conservatorship-1235003940/">Spears’s testimony</a>, and a few weeks later <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/britney-spears-conservatorship-nightmare">the New Yorker article</a>. Together they paint a disturbing portrait of Britney Spears’s life. They rewrite it as a sort of gothic novel, with Spears trapped by her father in the mansion she paid for with her own money, unable to control anything, including her own body.</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636769036_5493_169234" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22718290,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/a5aFp3APvTdiAkV5Z5lymgyfDYs=/0x0:3600x2400/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YDvtGYWiVprVeYqF7RfQ4H4fpTc=/0x0:3600x2400/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_ASKvvKFZKdc0WiKEvCq5gNzD6c=/0x0:3600x2400/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NGbKGjHA_NQH0K8JZBTQuhB96aQ=/0x0:3600x2400/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NCZ_g8SnGvZutwHefrjGPqUHcwk=/0x0:3600x2400/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4Zap3QKlladerP8tWU1ZPwJWu44=/0x0:3600x2400/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0SoYwT9zd33T-1QtvrsGI_P6F14=/0x0:3600x2400/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4OKFtDkLHLya4cnnS56yUg5nhXI=/0x0:3600x2400/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1Q3tn8dmxxpxebToVtm1hi3bDoc=/0x0:3600x2400/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="3600" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hKaBkcp1tZF4BWtV17V3GJeP1pI=/0x0:3600x2400/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ALNt--mFUJR96RcaGzGbQ_FE0mg=/0x0:3600x2400/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JKB3SZ9QtoIBfaoDeFCQ08VRvOc=/0x0:3600x2400/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nuORpGCu7lkD0xRPh6welhKAGhk=/0x0:3600x2400/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8J8ZWGMrZRJe7Kw3DehoCiMRWCw=/0x0:3600x2400/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uBzC8I7BjXj-XW2kKXULceWWmwY=/0x0:3600x2400/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bhErSjXgjo5cyY9Ev5izslF9lKM=/0x0:3600x2400/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fMO9Wca0AViJDj5PVY-gZvd9KhI=/0x0:3600x2400/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/phn_q0i-HOwJwukyM9iQlGrhG4A=/0x0:3600x2400/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XOF_ZXhAGkLVyw3iK3NjmCFN8ok=/0x0:3600x2400/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3600x2400):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718290/GettyImages_597572572t.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Britney Spears performs onstage during the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards at Madison Square Garden.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Kevin Kane/FilmMagic via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <p>In the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino reported that as Spears appeared to spiral in 2007, she was apparently under severe stress because of her custody battle with Federline, and experiencing what her companions at the time now suspect was postpartum depression. The infamous time when she shaved off her hair and the time she beat a paparazzo’s car with an umbrella, they reported, were both preceded by incidents of Spears driving to Federline’s house, tailed by paparazzi, and then being refused access to her kids.</p> <p>The kids were also apparently at the center of Spears’s first involuntary commitment. At the end of one custody visit, Spears, in tears, took her youngest son into the bathroom with her and said she wouldn’t come out. Federline’s lawyer called the police, and Spears was placed under emergency psychiatric hold. Those who were close to Britney at the time have maintained to the New Yorker that the children were in no danger. Spears just wanted to spend more time with them.</p> <p>Jamie Spears, meanwhile, comes across in these new narratives not as his daughter’s savior but as an abuser. Liz Day, Samantha Stark, and Joe Coscarelli reported in the New York Times that Jamie went to rehab for alcoholism in 2004, and court documents reveal multiple sources who suspect that he has relapsed while serving as Britney’s conservator. But when Britney shared similar suspicions with the court through her lawyer in 2014, and suggested that he take a series of random alcohol tests, Jamie’s lawyer condemned the request as inappropriate. “Absolutely inappropriate,” the judge agreed. “And who is she to be demanding that of anybody?”</p> <p>According to the New Yorker, Jamie seems to have understood his role as conservator to require prioritizing not his daughter’s mental health so much as her Barbie doll public image. In the article, family friend Jacqueline Butcher recalls witnessing an exchange between father and daughter in 2008, in the first days after Britney was released from the hospital into her father’s care.</p> <p>“Jamie said, ‘Baby,’” Butcher recalled, “and I thought he was going to say, ‘We love you, but you need help.’ But what he said was ‘You’re fat. Daddy’s gonna get you on a diet and a trainer, and you’re gonna get back in shape.’”</p> <p>Butcher added that Jamie repeatedly told Britney she was a whore and a terrible mother in the early days of the conservatorship as he pushed her to come to terms with the new shape of her life. He was adamant that it would be he who called the shots in the new world order, and whenever someone questioned his edicts, he took to shouting, “I am Britney Spears!”</p> <p>“The control he had over someone as powerful as me — he loved the control to hurt his own daughter, 100,000 percent,” Spears said in her testimony.</p> <p>Under Jamie’s regime, Spears’s control of her cash was severely restricted. No matter how much she earned, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/britney-spears-conservatorship-nightmare">she was limited to a weekly allowance of $2,000</a>, which meant her annual living expenses were smaller than the stipend she paid Jamie or the salary she paid Ingham. She found herself at dinners with friends and unable to cover her share. When she asked for more money <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/arts/music/britney-spears-conservatorship.html">to refinish her kitchen cabinets</a>, Jamie denied her request.</p> <p>While Spears wasn’t allowed to spend her own money as she pleased, she was obliged to keep making it. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/arts/music/britney-spears-conservatorship.html">The New York Times reports</a> that according to court documents, she was forced to perform with a 104-degree fever, leaving her in fear for her life. In her court testimony, Spears compared her working conditions — performing seven days a week, with no passport and no way of escaping — to sex trafficking.</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636769036_1888_169235" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22718302,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kHtvFdPg_QcC5StiLrp-s_vGFog=/0x0:5568x3712/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wd2scIy8UtboUJV5eH7rK6PUUWM=/0x0:5568x3712/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9uCKyVG8UJhJWgcubfsGC-CgBv4=/0x0:5568x3712/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UCjN2J0uyI1mtW2-LdkClgl6LmM=/0x0:5568x3712/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lk1UmmMD9FQQIHhszWRgDpDBJIU=/0x0:5568x3712/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/meTeyYE4yVK-X4dxbTGDXCzz0_k=/0x0:5568x3712/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KchYT8ZQjXDadD-u9_DfeJGwPQ4=/0x0:5568x3712/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/D1H4FIRQ4lv_5-olJVXM0kKdRGA=/0x0:5568x3712/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SeZ1m1plzuDYhrJRDz94uFFcYoA=/0x0:5568x3712/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="5568" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/je0ft1geMLw7_Yfmqzsai2vrOlw=/0x0:5568x3712/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FyDLQS_6wkWMf_kFzdhY75v-2Ug=/0x0:5568x3712/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5m_e00k4G7bcEX9J-LqR8uhjzYE=/0x0:5568x3712/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m14FTQh0VeuAy3tJKrZQR3tFiYc=/0x0:5568x3712/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-eOMfthrzv8DtYWWZFH6xiXElrw=/0x0:5568x3712/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xQTEmi859iZ3VwyU0gTHQ2plNL8=/0x0:5568x3712/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8xUL8Qsme8uOCQJ4MbsYGIAwFxo=/0x0:5568x3712/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MqGXKwmv2P28E_kx6VuXoT7gpeo=/0x0:5568x3712/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JNxZ2ZaO3Hdx9C3o0Bar9u8k9-g=/0x0:5568x3712/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/G5KXZeVzIBcJQ3nYPqcOptAI5vY=/0x0:5568x3712/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5568x3712):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718302/GettyImages_1233980347t.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Fans of Britney Spears hold posters and rally outside the pop star’s scheduled hearing at the Los Angeles County Courthouse on July 14, 2021.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <p>At all turns, it seems Spears has been isolated from people she is close to and surrounded by those loyal to her father. Jamie fired her household staff and hired his own loyalists, who would alert him if Spears got hold of contraband, like a cellphone. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/britney-spears-conservatorship-nightmare">He apparently orchestrated her breakup with one of her boyfriends</a> after he purchased a video of the man kissing another woman and showed it to Spears. He forbade her from spending time with old friends unmonitored.</p> <p>In part two of <em>Framing Britney Spears</em>, released in September, a former employee for Spears’s security team says that her father mirrored her phone to an iPad and tracked her activities that way. He added that he put surveillance cameras in Spears’s bedroom. The New Yorker article also quotes figures who’ve found themselves wrapped up in extreme spy-movie-style heists to get Spears a cellphone: someone slipping one to her in the steam room of her gym, or letting her sneak in a call at a doctor’s office.</p> <p>The new reports have corroborated other rumors that have been floating around in Free Britney circles for years. Much of the infamous paralegal’s call to <em>Britney’s Gram</em> has been vindicated: In her testimony, Spears said that she was committed against her will in January 2019. (She maintains, however, that she did not refuse her medication.)</p> <p>Most shockingly, Spears said that her control over her own body was severely, viciously limited. Although she would like to have more children, she said she has an IUD she is forbidden to remove. She said she was put on lithium against her will. Even that involuntary psychiatric hold, Spears said, was precipitated by a minor bodily rebellion: She said she didn’t want to do a specific dance move during rehearsal, and that’s why she was put away.</p> <p>But perhaps the most important thing to come out of all of these revelations is the sure knowledge that Britney Spears did not want to keep living under a conservatorship. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/arts/music/britney-spears-conservatorship.html">The New York Times reports</a> that she has been expressing opposition to the conservatorship in court since as early as 2014. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/britney-spears-conservatorship-nightmare">According to the New Yorker</a>, on the day before her 2021 testimony, she called 911 to report herself as a victim of conservatorship abuse.</p> <p>“I’m not lying. I just want my life back. It’s been 13 years,” Spears said in her testimony. “And it’s enough. It’s been a long time since I’ve owned my money. And it’s my wish and my dream for all of this to end.”</p> <p>It is impossible any longer to say we don’t know what Britney thinks of her conservatorship, because she has made herself very clear.</p> <p>With the past few months of revelations, much that was mysterious about Britney Spears becomes clear. The reason she looked so lost and trapped in those Instagram videos is that she did feel trapped. The reason there were so many disturbing rumors about the conservatorship is that disturbing things really were happening within the conservatorship.</p> <p>In all of Spears’s 23-minute testimony, one moment is exceptionally striking. After observing that the younger generation of pop stars faces much looser expectations than she herself did, she notes that Miley Cyrus is allowed to publicly smoke pot without getting stuck in a conservatorship. Then she turns back to herself, her voice goes viciously angry, and she seems to step outside of her own body for a moment.</p> <p>“But my precious body, who has worked for my dad for the past fucking 13 years, trying to be so good and pretty. So perfect,” she says. “When he works me so hard.”</p> <p>Spears does not seem to understand her body as belonging to herself. Which makes sense because under the terms of her conservatorship, it does not seem to have belonged to her. She was not allowed to control what medication her body took, or what birth control was inserted into it. She was not allowed to control how fat her body can get. She was not even, apparently, allowed to decide what dances her body did.</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636769036_6315_169236" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22718312,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2DH-2paTJkhBACqJezg7B0zz984=/0x0:1940x1532/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-9gZkoSejsFaOg32Knp9-syUlk8=/0x0:1940x1532/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dwGHU0_Fwtn2lPxJW0ly37JvtL0=/0x0:1940x1532/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GGNAQH6f9TpxyK529S0lIl5_zAU=/0x0:1940x1532/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8tnsLZV9zqps5ANt_dqzb6TbHps=/0x0:1940x1532/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KOPIx5nsV005_812i8vuTWwjuh4=/0x0:1940x1532/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rZw3dqEqk7JzeS_i7alZKCxozmg=/0x0:1940x1532/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ugpxMFMN5_Kc0co_Dm_Tgv8F1lg=/0x0:1940x1532/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kJryPu495kzz-dXzcj2t6xgTOpE=/0x0:1940x1532/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="1940" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/COsCFnnH1BwfFZTeUV1e8lk5bAg=/0x0:1940x1532/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4ZR3ucthx0bhXH7TGSuntriuAhU=/0x0:1940x1532/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0hWtj0INudGouxjUIxcJ2ZmrsaQ=/0x0:1940x1532/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5Gjl6F25jTyvIxaVJ1y4nD6wyh4=/0x0:1940x1532/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/haCjiXHLLzyQJz1-wZLgCt8MTf8=/0x0:1940x1532/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qscEs8hhXAf8t9op6Sdv4fWMR1A=/0x0:1940x1532/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_bOSsbg6fZKbUQuTwVxsH_FY6ic=/0x0:1940x1532/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7YRRjr14LBBC3WDLCDvWO7W-9nc=/0x0:1940x1532/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dZckOjglF9dBKPh4AIpsOpT-uSs=/0x0:1940x1532/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KvnouYIMglJ76ZAN2fZzy5SPp4g=/0x0:1940x1532/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1940x1532):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718312/GettyImages_1304879t.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Britney Spears performs at Six Flags Darien Lake on June 23, 2000, in New York.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Liaison via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <p>The question of how much control Spears has over her body and her sexuality has been central to her image from the beginning of her career, when she danced down the corridors of a high school in her sexy schoolgirl outfit, age 16, and sang, “Hit me, baby, one more time,” in her signature sexy baby coo. The play of that moment depended on the idea that Spears didn’t know, couldn’t possibly know, how sexy she was.</p> <p>“All I did was tie up my shirt!” <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/britney-spears-teen-queen-rolling-stones-1999-cover-story-254871/">Spears told Rolling Stone</a> of the video. She was incredibly hot, was the narrative Spears and her handlers were selling, and she was also unaware of her hotness because she was still a child. That meant her body was no threat to the presumed male viewer who watched her. She could not use it to manipulate them. It could be appreciated and desired without fear.</p> <p>In 1998, the idea that Spears was unaware of what she was selling was used to discount her as an artist. “Seventeen-year-old actress Britney Spears couldn’t land more than a role in an off-Broadway update of <em>The Bad Seed</em> until she scored a contract with the Backstreet Boys’ record company,” begins <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131211231544/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/baby-one-more-time-20030113">a capsule review of Spears’s debut album</a>, ... <em>Baby One More Time</em>, in Rolling Stone that year. But then mega-producer Max Martin got his hands on Spears and transformed her “into a growling jailbait dynamo.”</p> <p>Over the past decade, there’s been a growing attempt from other critics to reclaim Spears’s narrative on her own behalf, and to make the case for her as a legitimate artist, rather than the product of her producers. That reclamation has often involved the argument that Spears was in full control over her displays of sexuality as a teen.</p> <p>Spears, those critics note, was the one who came up with <a href="https://www.theringer.com/music/2020/5/14/21258289/britney-spears-oops-i-did-it-again-20-year-anniversary-retrospective">the iconic Catholic schoolgirl and cheerleader motif</a> in the “... Baby One More Time” video. And she exuded such confidence and control when she danced. Part of the argument of <em>Framing Britney Spears</em> is that the teenage Spears was naturally expressing her vision of herself, and the vision she was expressing happened to be extremely sexy, and America responded with a puritanical backlash.</p> <p>For her part, Spears has suggested a certain ambivalence about her teen-sex-bomb image. In a GQ interview in 2003, she brought up a Rolling Stone photo shoot in 1998 that showed Spears, provocatively dressed in bra, shorts, and cardigan, standing next to a doll collection.</p> <p>“I was back in my bedroom, and I had my little sweater on and he was like, ‘Undo your sweater a little bit more,’” <a href="https://spears.proboards.com/thread/17/gq-magazine-november-2003">Spears said</a>. “The whole thing was about me being into dolls, and in my naïve mind I was like, ‘Here are my dolls!’ and now I look back and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what the hell?’ But he did a very good job of portraying me in that way. It certainly wasn’t peaches and cream.”</p> <p>“Even young women who are not megafamous have typically picked up on what makes them appear valuable by the age of 15,” <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2021/02/tavi-gevinson-britney-spears-was-never-in-control.html">Tavi Gevinson wrote in an essay on Spears for The Cut</a> shortly after the release of <em>Framing Britney Spears</em>. “There is no need to believe it’s either <em>Everything was Britney’s choice, and therefore she was always a sex-positive feminist</em> or <em>Nothing was Britney’s choice, and the evil adults made all her decisions</em>. Both assertions sound desperate to protect her respectability — another version of her purity, in fact — as a prerequisite for compassion.”</p> <p>We don’t know how much control over her own body Spears felt she had as a teenager. That is, perhaps, one of the things about Spears that we still can’t know. We know that Spears looked like a woman in complete control of herself as she danced. We also know that she was under immense pressure to embody a certain standard of sexuality that was designed to appeal to men first. We don’t know which of those two things seemed more important to her.</p> <p>In her 2021 testimony, Spears seemed to still be stuck on those same two irreconcilable ideas. She described rehearsing for a new show, that second Vegas residency that would never happen, and assured the judge, “I take everything I do very seriously.” She taught her dancers all the new choreography. She led them through it. “I wasn’t good,” she says fiercely. “I was great.”</p> <p>Spears knows that she is still a great performer, a star. She’s absolutely positive of that. She even allowed herself a touch of flair in her testimony, an echo of the sizzle that used to come out of Spears when she drawled, “It’s Britney, bitch,” over a dance beat.</p> <p>But it’s hard to hold on to the idea of Britney, bitch, when you also have the knowledge that Jamie Spears was in the habit of yelling, “I am Britney Spears,” whenever anyone questions his decisions.</p> <p>How far did Spears’s dancer’s acumen actually take her when she wasn’t even allowed to choose her own dances? When her precious body has worked not for herself for the past 13 years, but for her dad? When it was trying to be so good and pretty, so perfect, with the full knowledge that the person defining “perfect” is Jamie Spears?</p> <p>For years, we’ve been using our collective, one-sided image of Britney Spears to work through questions about girls and sex and control and who is allowed to control the ways in which they think about sex. But the fact is, we don’t know who was in control of Britney Spears when she first got famous. We do know who’s been in control of Britney Spears for the past 13 years, and it wasn’t her.</p> <p>As of November 12, that fact has finally changed. Britney Spears is walking free, in control of her own body at long last.</p> <p><s>Spears has scored a major victory in her fight to escape the conservatorship. She has gotten her father to step down from his role, and she has gotten him to join her in calling for the end of her conservatorship. Spears has also told us, very clearly, that what she wants is to leave the conservatorship entirely. We owe it to her to take that knowledge seriously.</s></p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636769036_995_169237" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22718321,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/S0TRnJHDJhhT7co3VismCOCN1OA=/0x0:4500x3000/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ex_ilSIv526HYhIq_ue0K40giM8=/0x0:4500x3000/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Xi2z6I3uh6u_MTxtzUsI56SVEP0=/0x0:4500x3000/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cGJmLHpqAw-0IIsn1i2qzEPFj3I=/0x0:4500x3000/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nm-D7ARKwz2lxC5nKYH6G0uwS-w=/0x0:4500x3000/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jAfAYcPyebRSHMp4c3QcuPQK3fo=/0x0:4500x3000/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/d54bAOCQ5mXPIwAjlVVdTVsoQvQ=/0x0:4500x3000/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NDf66WHL_fwyAJLFNe-4R9-uBzQ=/0x0:4500x3000/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Es56CkpQwwLz2dANXFvNahG6JSM=/0x0:4500x3000/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="4500" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bjEmwQr2ITITaJTeNBUDyp1K3WI=/0x0:4500x3000/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XSMn85lADN_QdXZ6xrFkTylD7ZI=/0x0:4500x3000/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ya7jXfmlVW-zM1EswY0TZCDRcnA=/0x0:4500x3000/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/o_AdmejHWrX_cBhwJud-jETu_lU=/0x0:4500x3000/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iJHDjLFsyS2gADyNqjsoNwSqYeE=/0x0:4500x3000/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Sz3G3Or0VypuXnAo7wexEbQ05RU=/0x0:4500x3000/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uOX6to4OtS1BNaB-36Hb2V12SI4=/0x0:4500x3000/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KJYjFheDm0vJxqqu2N1mRpXKbTQ=/0x0:4500x3000/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/o6Bs16eKRjhOWzd80Y51hmG94AE=/0x0:4500x3000/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4sN8nrQMXGaxeS4nwk6LKvEFDJI=/0x0:4500x3000/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4500x3000):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22718321/GettyImages_1233979606t.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">A man waves a “Free Britney” flag during a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial protesting the conservatorship of Britney Spears on July 14, 2021.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <hr class="p-entry-hr" /> <p><strong>Update, November 12</strong>: This story was updated on November 12 to reflect the end of the conservatorship. It was previously updated on September 8 to reflect Jamie Spears’s petition to end the conservatorship, and on August 12 to reflect Jamie Spears’s announced intent to step down from the conservatorship.</p> <br /> <br /> source <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22565683/britney-spears-conservatorship-testimony">https://www.vox.com/culture/22565683/britney-spears-conservatorship-testimony</a>

vox Britney Spears is finally free

Britney Spears is finally free. At a court hearing on Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny ruled that the conservatorship ...

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How Taylor Swift’s 10-minute “All Too Well” surpasses her original

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QKr_sYVMCJWNiN8crR5xdW8FhrY=/0x0:3392x1776/fit-in/1200x630/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009753/1350495866.jpg" /></div> <p>After almost 10 years, it’s finally here. Taylor Swift’s long-rumored, never-before-heard 10-minute version of her 2012 hit “All Too Well” is finally seeing the light of day <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22278732/taylor-swift-re-recording-fearless-love-story-master-rights-scooter-braun">as Swift releases her fully re-recorded <em>Red</em></a>. The full version is a strikingly vulnerable piece of songcraft, even for heartbreak queen Taylor Swift. It surpasses the original.</p> <p>“All Too Well” has always been a bit of an oddity as a Taylor Swift hit. <em>Red</em> was the album in which Swift began transitioning from country pop star to pure pop star, collaborating with Swedish pop master Max Martin to turn out sharp-edged earworms like “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble.” “All Too Well,” in contrast, is shaggier and looser than its peers on the album, and was never released as a single. It was in a way a throwback even in 2012: It saw Swift returning to her early songwriting partner Liz Rose, with whom she wrote her first singles “Tim McGraw” and “Teardrops on My Guitar” as a teenager and with whom she hasn’t worked since.</p> <p>Regardless, “All Too Well” became a fan favorite and a popular choice for Swift’s best song. It’s a breakup song, rumored to be about Swift’s split with Jake Gyllenhaal, and it shows off Swift’s ability to build a whole love story around a single telling detail — in this case, the scarf Swift’s narrator leaves with her ex, still in a drawer at his sister’s house. (That would be, I suppose, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlNC8Q62imU">Maggie Gyllenhaal’s house</a>. And I would be remiss not to note that <a href="https://store.taylorswift.com/products/the-all-too-well-knit-scarf">Swift is selling a version of the much-mythologized scarf</a>.) What’s most touching about the song is Swift’s insistence on her own dignity even at age 21, her repeated assertion that even if her older ex refuses to admit their relationship was meaningful, “I was there, I remember it all too well.”</p> <p>In the years since “All Too Well” first dropped, both Rose and Swift have talked about a longer version of the song, a first draft that clocked in at 10 minutes long, that served as a catharsis for all that Swift wanted to get out about her ex. And now, she’s finally given it a proper studio recording and included it as a bonus track on the newly re-released <em>Red</em>. Improbably, it lives up to the years of teases and hype-building.</p> <p>While the first “All Too Well” worked because it demanded that we give Swift the respect she is due, the 10-minute “All Too Well” improves upon the original by making us privy to her humiliations first. The new verses include descriptions of her ex condescending to her about their age gap, of him charming Swift’s dad “like you’re on a late-night show” before standing her up on her 21st birthday, of Swift crying in the bathroom at a Hollywood party. “That made me want to die,” she sings, and it’s hard not to believe her.</p> <p>Swift has written a lot of songs about the ways her exes have wronged her, but she’s rarely been quite as vulnerable and open as she is here. Like: Imagine dating a movie star when you were 20 and he was 30, feeling really grown-up and sophisticated and like maybe you’d found the one, and then having him tell you that maybe it would have worked out if you weren’t 10 years younger than him. <em>God!</em> The sheer cringing awfulness of the idea, the infuriating passing of the blame. She says, “You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath,” and, well, <em>right</em>? That’s how those relationships work, in those moments when one person is fully invested and the other ashamed and wary.</p> <p>There’s just enough detail in Swift’s songwriting to give her story the ring of truth — and the ex she’s conjuring up here is so condescending, so glib and casually cruel, that it lands harder than ever when Swift insists, with understandable fervor, “It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well.” She’s shown herself to us at her lowest, and that means the respect she demands in the chorus feels absolutely fully earned.</p> <br /> <br /> source <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22778502/taylor-swift-all-too-well-10-minutes-red-rerelease-taylors-version">https://www.vox.com/culture/22778502/taylor-swift-all-too-well-10-minutes-red-rerelease-taylors-version</a>

vox How Taylor Swift’s 10-minute “All Too Well” surpasses her original

After almost 10 years, it’s finally here. Taylor Swift’s long-rumored, never-before-heard 10-minute version of her 2012 hit “All Too Well” ...

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Why Biden has disappointed on immigration

<p><em>This is an excerpt from the newsletter for</em> The Weeds<em>. To sign up for a weekly dive into policy and its effects on people,</em> <a href="https://www.vox.com/weeds-newsletter"><em>click here</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p>Less than one year into his first term, President Joe Biden has so far disappointed one significant part of the Democratic base: immigration advocates.</p> <p>As Nicole Narea <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudm94LmNvbS9wb2xpY3ktYW5kLXBvbGl0aWNzLzIyNzA5MzUzL2JpZGVuLWJvcmRlci1pbW1pZ3JhdGlvbi10cnVtcC1oYWl0aS10aXRsZS00Mg/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089Bcbcdfb34">explained for Vox</a>, Biden hasn’t rolled back even some of the most criticized policies carried out by former President Donald Trump. And it’s clear Biden hasn’t prioritized immigration reform broadly, with Covid-19, the economy, and climate change all taking priority. Even as some Democrats tried, in a long-shot effort, to get immigration reform into the infrastructure and Build Back Better bills, Biden has mostly left the issue to Congress to work out.</p> <p>As disappointing as this is to some progressives, there’s a political calculation behind Biden’s moves: The research suggests that immigration leads to a potentially huge political backlash, and Biden might have decided that neglecting immigration is the price he has to pay to try to get the rest of his agenda done.</p> <p>A recent <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaGJzLmVkdS9mYWN1bHR5L1BhZ2VzL2l0ZW0uYXNweD9udW09NTkyMTQ/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089Bdb1eb812">review of the evidence</a> by Alberto Alesina and Marco Tabellini found that “immigrants often, but not always, trigger backlash, increasing support for anti-immigrant parties and lowering preferences for redistribution and diversity among natives.” The shift, the study concluded, seems to arise as a result of cultural, rather than economic, backlash.</p> <p>Another recent <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY2FtYnJpZGdlLm9yZy9jb3JlL2pvdXJuYWxzL2JyaXRpc2gtam91cm5hbC1vZi1wb2xpdGljYWwtc2NpZW5jZS9hcnRpY2xlL2Ficy9kb2VzLWltbWlncmF0aW9uLXByb2R1Y2UtYS1wdWJsaWMtYmFja2xhc2gtb3ItcHVibGljLWFjY2VwdGFuY2UtdGltZXNlcmllcy1jcm9zc3NlY3Rpb25hbC1ldmlkZW5jZS1mcm9tLXRoaXJ0eS1ldXJvcGVhbi1kZW1vY3JhY2llcy9CNzBGOTNENUNBQjlFNkRGNTkzNTcyNEVCQkQ1MTI2Qg/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089B52be12d2">study</a>, from Christopher Claassen and Lauren McLaren, focused on immigration in European countries. They found “public backlash in the short to medium run, where mood turns negative and concern about immigration rises.”</p> <p>But there was some good news for immigration advocates: As people get used to immigrants, the backlash seems to fade over one to three decades.</p> <p>Of course, that good news is of little interest to Biden and the current Democratic Party. They’re interested in the next year, with the 2022 midterm elections in front of mind. And even the more optimistic study finds a public backlash in the short and medium term.</p> <p>You don’t really need studies to see this in the real world, especially in recent years. Trump’s rise in 2016 was built on concerns about immigration. And as the evidence indicates, that backlash was largely cultural in nature — that’s what the warning of <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudm94LmNvbS8yMDE2LzkvMi8xMjc2ODc3NC90cnVtcC10YWNvLXRydWNrcw/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089Bedf9e192">“taco trucks [on] every corner”</a> was all about.</p> <p>But it’s not just the US. As Europe dealt with a large influx of refugees in recent years, far-right politicians managed to take advantage of the situation to build power. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed 1 million refugees into the country, the far-right AfD won enough seats to become the largest opposition party in the country’s legislature. Things <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyMS8xMC8yMi9vcGluaW9uL2FuZ2VsYS1tZXJrZWwtcmVmdWdlZXMtZ2VybWFueS5odG1s/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089B61927059">ultimately worked out</a> for Merkel and Germany, but notably only after she took steps to stop the flow of refugees <em>and</em> adopted some hardline rhetoric about immigration — going as far as declaring, “Multiculturalism is a sham.”</p> <p>That suggests an uncomfortable possibility for many progressives: Backlash to immigration seems like a staple of most modern Western democracies.</p> <p>For Democrats, this conclusion means uncomfortable questions: Is action on immigration now really worth the return of Trump or the rise of other Trump-like figures over the next two or four years? If that backlash leads to Republicans in power, would immigration reform mean less action on a host of other issues, from health care to climate change? And would immigration reform simply be repealed in that backlash scenario anyway?</p> <p>This has already led some progressive leaders around the world, from <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY25uLmNvbS8yMDIwLzA3LzIwL2V1cm9wZS9kZW5tYXJrLWdoZXR0by1yZWxvY2F0aW9uLWludGwvaW5kZXguaHRtbA/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089Bda9b57e4">Denmark</a> to <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmV1dGVycy5jb20vYXJ0aWNsZS91cy1uZXd6ZWFsYW5kLXBvbGl0aWNzL2hhcmQtbGFib3VyLW56cy1hcmRlcm4tdGFrZXMtdG91Z2hlci1saW5lLW9uLWltbWlncmF0aW9uLWlkVVNLQ04xQjEySFA/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089Bc99c71d3">New Zealand</a>, to take a tough stance on immigration. They appear to have decided that sacrificing one cause is worth carrying out other priorities.</p> <p>The Biden administration isn’t quite into “tough on immigration” territory yet. But he’s working within a framework in which immigration has to be treated cautiously, as he tries to balance his whole agenda with campaign promises about a very divisive, volatile issue.</p> <p>A recent <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cua2ZmLm9yZy9jb3JvbmF2aXJ1cy1jb3ZpZC0xOS9wb2xsLWZpbmRpbmcva2ZmLWNvdmlkLTE5LXZhY2NpbmUtbW9uaXRvci1tZWRpYS1hbmQtbWlzaW5mb3JtYXRpb24v/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089B9b3bbc60">analysis</a> from the Kaiser Family Foundation confirmed there’s still a lot of misinformation about Covid-19 and the vaccines out there.</p> <p>A team led by Liz Hamel surveyed Americans on their views about the coronavirus. They found that 78 percent of adults in the US have heard at least one false statement about Covid-19 (of eight surveyed) and either believe it or don’t know if it’s true or false.</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636767176_655_185008" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23009379,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OEVgyDk9aPYZ_JMieOCxBqyL9YQ=/0x0:1220x1424/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vFpWdvw_GglY717_-ooAjJZPYFI=/0x0:1220x1424/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OY8hNl-2MVkch5ONiAQaIVDl8Qg=/0x0:1220x1424/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QVzoHf1kOrXgEdWhyq60MS_WvBI=/0x0:1220x1424/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/M2OXWr-UQvhQVA1p1MYNmsBltuI=/0x0:1220x1424/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hQLcVOjNZxbHT8-GIOH0p7rd6n8=/0x0:1220x1424/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8CigrdIGd1H4YEeprAKwefCfjv0=/0x0:1220x1424/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/r8lXtQWywAJRsWCkqa_TUvA7MVU=/0x0:1220x1424/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/eqcydxCVitt85zTC2NeVi6jBjBg=/0x0:1220x1424/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="A chart from the Kaiser Family Foundation analysis on Covid-19 misinformation." data-upload-width="1220" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aqLRn9HZbXngfxBIRyl_SIuKOBg=/0x0:1220x1424/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WTuTW27Np-MNgLAACu6_ur2ePj8=/0x0:1220x1424/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/r4EGe_JrZdpG3C3w7spdzCbTjOM=/0x0:1220x1424/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aNNJqa-jn4Vh72UjUOfMTYLP5ro=/0x0:1220x1424/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/E2_14yvN-ACJWHn_IkeX2owGH3c=/0x0:1220x1424/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yDwh5bdjXQ2yBhA5NZnSiUb4lAw=/0x0:1220x1424/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BQHddMrsXzM1GvJsd6lUZoBruo4=/0x0:1220x1424/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bYAzrh6B1Pen-dKwHgj0I7oKGY4=/0x0:1220x1424/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aaBeuBdtd6ctOtdm-MyFlqrKtiM=/0x0:1220x1424/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6m8B6EPZIxM6yE_ItFEmr7T30uA=/0x0:1220x1424/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1220x1424):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009379/nearly_eight_in_ten_believe_or_are_unsure_about_at_least_one_common_falsehood_about_covid_19_or_the_vaccine.png 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-media-and-misinformation/" target="_blank">Kaiser Family Foundation</a></cite></span></figure> <p>The researchers also found that the news sources people relied on correlated with their Covid-19 beliefs. “The share who hold at least four misconceptions is small (between 11-16%) among those who say they trust COVID-19 information from network news, local TV news, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR,” they wrote. “This share rises to nearly four in ten among those who trust COVID-19 information from One America News (37%) and Fox News (36%), and to nearly half (46%) among those who trust information from Newsmax.”</p> <p>It’s not clear if right-wing media sources are fueling the misconceptions, or if people who already believe the misinformation are more likely to go to right-wing media for their news, the researchers noted.</p> <p>But right-wing media, it’s safe to say, isn’t helping — with Fox News segments, for example, <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZmFjdGNoZWNrLm9yZy8yMDIxLzA1L3NjaWNoZWNrLXR1Y2tlci1jYXJsc29uLW1pc3JlcHJlc2VudHMtdmFjY2luZS1zYWZldHktcmVwb3J0aW5nLWRhdGEv/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089B11d0e59f">baselessly questioning</a> the efficacy and safety of the Covid-19 vaccines on a regular basis.</p> <p>Unfortunately, it’s not clear what the solutions to all of this are. Officials across the country, including <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vd2F0Y2g_dj1oN1BCMS02NnVlcw/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089B29983af0">some</a> <a href="https://link.vox.com/click/25680663.19015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmV1dGVycy5jb20vd29ybGQvdXMvbWNjb25uZWxsLXN0cml2ZXMtY291bnRlci1iYWQtYWR2aWNlLWJvb3N0LXVzLXJlcHVibGljYW4tdmFjY2luYXRpb24tcmF0ZS0yMDIxLTA3LTI4Lw/608adc1d91954c3cef02b089B6bbedd11">Republicans</a>, have spent much of the past two years trying to counter Covid-related misinformation. Yet those efforts have clearly struggled — as shown by Kaiser’s findings.</p> <br /> <br /> source <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-weeds/2021/11/12/22778387/biden-immigration-reform-politics-backlash">https://www.vox.com/the-weeds/2021/11/12/22778387/biden-immigration-reform-politics-backlash</a>

vox Why Biden has disappointed on immigration

This is an excerpt from the newsletter for The Weeds . To sign up for a weekly dive into policy and its effects on people, click here . L...

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Hating work is having a moment

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DtdGZFOI2f1rbcZsj-TvxaeH9go=/0x251:5181x2964/fit-in/1200x630/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23009115/GettyImages_1352496991.jpg" /></div> <p>Workers are fed up and fighting back against low pay, poor conditions, and the general idea that work is the center of their lives.</p> <p>That fighting back is taking on many forms, from the performative to the transformative. Posts about standing up to abusive bosses have become their own genre on TikTok, Reddit, and other platforms. Some workers are participating in collective actions, and approval of unions is at its highest rate since 1965. Others are finding alternative sources of income or committing to getting by on less. Perhaps, most directly, people are quitting their jobs at <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm">record rates</a> in what’s become known as the Great Resignation.</p> <p>Many had expected people to return to the workforce en masse after federal unemployment benefits expired in September. While that’s happened <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/05/business/economy/october-2021-jobs-report.html">to some degree</a> — the economy added more than half a million jobs last month — there are still many more Americans holding out, thanks to a variety of reasons, from savings to lack of <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22605612/working-mothers-pandemic-childcare-ideal-parent-worker-remote">child care</a> to the ongoing risks of the pandemic.</p> <p>Importantly, the pandemic — as well as government social safety nets like extended unemployment benefits — gave people the time, distance, and perspective to reevaluate the place of work in their lives. This is especially notable for Americans, for whom work is considered a part of their identity and who put in <a href="https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm">more hours than most other industrialized nations</a>.</p> <p>There’s also an element of retribution to workers fighting back. When Covid-19 hit, millions of Americans found themselves suddenly jobless. Companies to which people had given years of their lives and labor dropped them in an instant. Now, as the economy recovers and these companies are again hiring, many Americans are angry and don’t want to go back.</p> <p>“Sources of outrage right now are not lacking,” Heidi Shierholz, president of Economic Policy Institute, told Recode. “It’s against the backdrop of your employer making all kinds of profits, and we’ve all just gone through total hell. I would guess it ups the outrage factor.”</p> <p>There are still more than 4 million fewer people in the workforce than there would be if labor force participation were at pre-pandemic levels. There are <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm">10.4 million open jobs</a> and just <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm">7.4 million unemployed</a>, according to the latest data. Of course, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22673353/unemployment-job-search-linkedin-indeed-algorithm">many of these open jobs are bad</a>: They have bad pay, dangerous working conditions, or just aren’t remote (remote positions on LinkedIn get 2.5 times more applications than non-remote, according to the company).</p> <p>The result is a situation where many employers — especially those in industries with notoriously bad pay and conditions — are having difficulty finding and retaining workers. To <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22748448/service-food-hotel-workers-pay-raise-resignation-jobs-wages-benefits">counter it</a>, they’re raising wages, offering better benefits, and even altering the nature of their work. Depending on their strength and duration, these various actions could have long-lasting impacts on the future of work for all Americans.</p> <p>The most obvious sign of worker power is how many of them are quitting. In September, a high of 4.4 million people quit their jobs, according to the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm">latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>, which has been tracking this data since 2000. That’s 3 percent of all employment and follows a summer of record quit numbers. Quitting has been especially prevalent in lower-paying, lower-status jobs like those in leisure, hospitality, and retail.</p> <p>Those quits are showing up elsewhere, too. Searches for a variety of resignation-related topics have spiked recently. At one point, searches for how to send a resignation email in the last three months were up about 3,500 percent, both in English and in Spanish, compared to the previous three months, according to Google’s trends newsletter.</p> <p>And seeing how others quit their jobs and respond to bad bosses has become a veritable pastime online. Posts about quitting are proliferating across the internet, including on <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90685975/great-resignation-why-i-quit-my-job">TikTok</a>, YouTube, and Twitter. To wit, a TikTok product manager recently <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90685975/great-resignation-why-i-quit-my-job">went viral</a> on YouTube with her post on why she left. Groups on Reddit are also using the platform to mobilize.</p> <p>The subreddit <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/">Antiwork</a> — whose tagline is “Unemployment for all, not just the rich!” — swelled from just a couple hundred thousand subscribers at the beginning of the year <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/reddit-antiwork-viral">to over 1 million</a> by November. The popular forum is full of screenshots of people telling off bad bosses and asserting their own worth as workers. Some of its <a href="https://subredditstats.com/r/antiwork">most upvoted posts</a> are screenshots of employees talking back to ridiculous employer demands, and they provide clear illustrations of why these workers want to quit. Members, called “Idlers,” give each other confidence to leave what they see as toxic work environments. The Antiwork community has also been organizing a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/qd1hh3/antiwork_megathread_blackout_black_friday/">Black Friday boycott</a>, asking retail workers to “withhold their labor” and consumers to “withhold their purchasing power” on what’s traditionally the biggest retail spending day of the year.</p> <p>This is evidence of how, instead of just leaving their jobs or complaining about them online, a growing number of people are actively fighting to make their jobs better.</p> <p>In 2021, approval of labor unions grew to 68 percent of Americans, its <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/354455/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">highest rate in more than 50 years</a>. This is happening as many American workers are attempting to unionize their workplaces. Recent unionization efforts include <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/historic-unionizing-efforts-underway-starbucks-upstate-york/story?id=81081045">Starbucks</a>, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-employee-group-seeks-worker-vote-on-unionization-11634806801">Amazon</a>, and meal-kit delivery service <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/11/hellofresh-employees-union-claims-abuse">HelloFresh</a>. Last month was dubbed “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58916266">Striketober</a>,” as more than 100,000 workers across industries, including workers at John Deere and in film and TV crews, participated in various labor actions. This is one of the many worker trends bulwarked by social media, which is rampant with support for unions.</p> <p>Shelly Steward, director of the Future of Work Initiative at the Aspen Institute, sees unionization efforts on social media as a more modern version of how workers have always organized: by talking to each other. But social media’s scale, she says, could be contributing to redoubled unionization efforts that could have more permanent effects on labor.</p> <p>“For a long time, the focus was on individual problems and individual solutions, so if your job isn’t good, walk away from it — it’s that worker’s responsibility to get training and get a better job,” Steward told Recode. “But changing that whole situation, changing the power dynamics between workers and large employers, is going to set everyone up for longer-lasting change.”</p> <p>While <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm">as of 2020</a> only 11 percent of Americans are part of a union — a statistic that’s been trending downward for decades — Steward believes that declines are slowing and that we may begin to see unionization numbers tick upward when the 2021 dataset is released.</p> <p>Other workers are employing the timeworn (albeit less savory) tactic of slacking to fight back against their employers or to assert that work is simply not the most important aspect of their lives. So-called “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/12/time-millionaires-meet-the-people-pursuing-the-pleasure-of-leisure">time millionaires</a>” steal time back from their employers by pretending to work or otherwise shirking their responsibilities. They use that time in pursuit of what they consider more important things in life, like family and leisure. People who hold <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-people-who-work-from-home-have-a-secret-they-have-two-jobs-11628866529">multiple remote jobs</a> but only put in one job’s worth of work are doing something similar.</p> <p>And then there are people looking to opt out of work entirely by finding alternate sources of income. Many Americans are ascribing to lifestyle trends like FIRE (<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/financial-independence-retire-early-fire.asp">Financial Independence, Retire Early</a>) — a financial movement in which people use a combination of extreme cost-cutting and passive investments to leave the workforce early. One could also see the rise of <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22264303/wallstreetbets-reddit-gamestop-stocks-language-community">WallStreetBets</a>, where regular people discuss using free trading platforms like <a href="https://www.vox.com/business-and-finance/2020/7/9/21314119/stock-market-day-trading-reddit-dave-portnoy-barstool-robinhood">Robinhood</a> to trade stocks, as a rejection of typical forms of employment.</p> <p>These trends as well as the fact that more Americans are quitting their jobs than ever recorded are signs of a robust job market that’s squarely in workers’ favor. How long the situation can last depends on a number of factors and whether workers are able to enact long-term changes soon.</p> <br /> <br /> source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22776112/quit-jobs-great-resignation-workers-union">https://www.vox.com/recode/22776112/quit-jobs-great-resignation-workers-union</a>

vox Hating work is having a moment

Workers are fed up and fighting back against low pay, poor conditions, and the general idea that work is the center of their lives. That f...

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Animals need infrastructure, too

<p>Fifty miles east of Seattle, a bridge crosses a steep stretch of Interstate 90 known as Snoqualmie Pass. This is no ordinary bridge, meant for automobiles or pedestrians. Covered in topsoil, boulders, and seedlings, it is intended to convey wild animals from one side of the highway to the other — and it’s working.</p> <p>Since 2018, when the bridge opened and the first animal, <a href="https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/dec/06/coyote-crosses-i-90-using-new-animal-overpass-east/">a coyote</a>, scampered over the six lanes below, the structure has carried creatures as large as elk and as small as toads. And it should attract even more users as the seedlings grow into trees and animals acclimate to its presence.</p> <p>“As we get more shade, it’s going to be different,” Patty Garvey-Darda, a Forest Service wildlife biologist, told Vox during a recent visit to Snoqualmie Pass. “Hopefully someday we’ll see the exact same species up here as we see in the forest.”</p> <p>The Snoqualmie Pass bridge is one example in a broader category of infrastructure, known as wildlife crossings, that help animals circumvent busy roads like I-90. Crossings come in an array of shapes and sizes, from <a href="https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/banffs-famed-wildlife-overpasses-turn-20-world-looks-canada-conservation-inspiration">sweeping overpasses</a> for grizzly bears to <a href="https://www.lewiscreek.org/monkton-wildlife-crossing">inconspicuous tunnels</a> for salamanders. A body of research demonstrates that crossings can <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2013.1705">reconnect fragmented wildlife populations</a>, while <a href="https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wsb.650#:~:text=Recently%2C%20the%20Wyoming%20Department%20of,cross%20U.S.%20Highway%20191%E2%80%94an">protecting human drivers and animals alike</a> from dangerous vehicle crashes. “This structure is paying for itself because of the accidents we haven’t had,” said Garvey-Darda, as trucks roared by 35 feet below.</p> <p>The construction of such crossings has never been more urgent. Roadkill rates have risen over the past half-century; today, around <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340504350_A_50-year_increase_in_vehicle_mortality_of_North_American_mammals">12 percent</a> of North American wild mammals die on roads. And new satellite-tracking and genetic technologies have revealed subtler harms<em>.</em> Busy interstates <a href="http://www.migrationinitiative.org/sites/migration.wygisc.org/themes/responsive_blog/images/RS_deer_report_final.pdf">prevent herds of elk and mule deer from migrating</a> to low-elevation meadows in winter, occasionally causing them to starve. In California, freeways have thwarted mountain lions from mating, leaving the cats so inbred that they’ve fallen into an “<a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2016.0957">extinction vortex</a>.” Wildlife crossings allow animals to find food and each other across sundered landscapes, and help them access new habitats as climate change scrambles their ranges.</p> <p>But despite crossings’ benefits, they remain scarce in the US. Around 1,000 wildlife crossings currently dot America’s 4 million mile road network. (For comparison, the Netherlands’ road system is only 2 percent as large but boasts over 600 crossings.) The reason for their rarity? Money. The Snoqualmie Pass bridge cost $6.2 million, and even <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lake-jackson-ecopassage">humble turtle tunnels</a> can run up multimillion-dollar price tags. This kind of expense explains why wildlife crossings were once a punching bag for some conservative politicians, who decried animal passages <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/no-crossing-guard-for-turtles-but-white-house-claims-worthwhile-stimulus-projects">as government waste</a>.</p> <p>Now that’s beginning to change. Earlier this month, the House passed the INVEST in America Act, a $1.2 trillion <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text">infrastructure bill</a> that President Joe Biden is expected to soon sign into law. The bipartisan package earmarks billions of dollars in funding for highway maintenance, broadband internet, and airport upgrades — as well as $350 million for animal-friendly infrastructure like bridges, underpasses, and roadside fences. Although that provision is a tiny slice of the bill, it’s easily the largest investment in wildlife crossings in national history.</p> <p>These innovations are not only wildly effective at preventing roadkill, they’re also an underappreciated way to protect people. Hundreds of Americans die annually in car crashes with animals, and tens of thousands more are injured. “Whether it’s human safety or habitat connectivity or fiscal responsibility, there’s something in this bill for you,” said Renee Callahan, executive director of ARC Solutions, a group that studies and promotes crossings. “This has become a staunchly bipartisan issue.”</p> <p>When the US interstate highway system was constructed more than half a century ago, ecosystems were damaged in ways we’re only now beginning to fully understand. Wildlife crossings and other animal-friendly infrastructure help mend that damage, and accommodate the creatures <a href="https://twitter.com/ben_a_goldfarb/status/1458143488806060036">whose lives our highways have disrupted</a>. Even within a bitterly divided Congress, it’s a rare area of consensus. One of the few things uniting some fiscal conservatives with climate-concerned Democrats is a literal bridge.</p> <p>Roads have few equals as a destroyer of animal life. Vehicles claim more wild terrestrial animals — perhaps more than <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10344-019-1357-4">a million per day</a> in the US alone — than <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geb.12881?casa_token=y2bavBT4GAsAAAAA%3A1Fh6DYx5xrpaEvfQDrk6RjlhWBJ7zQnTPiweq3DG2nDzg7RnGxoQ-ZqRx8zkBr2tLKtIL9NZbBx2MSz_">any other form</a> of direct human-caused mortality, like hunting, oil spills, or wildfires. And it’s not just common critters like squirrels that get flattened (though we should <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22325435/animal-welfare-wild-animals-movement">worry about their welfare</a>, too). At least 21 species are <a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08034/exec.cfm">imperiled</a> by cars in the US, and one recent study found that collisions <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.13375?af=R">may soon wipe out</a> globally threatened creatures like maned wolves, brown hyenas, and leopards. We are, quite literally, driving some of the world’s rarest animals to extinction.</p> <p>For more than half a century, countries have attempted to solve this problem using wildlife crossings. France constructed the world’s first crossings, known as passages à faune, in the 1950s, followed by Germany and the Netherlands. During the 1970s and ’80s, a handful of American states, including Wyoming, Florida, and New Jersey, built their own crossings. Many showed promise: After a 100-foot passage was installed beneath I-70 in Colorado, for instance, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3799915">hundreds of mule deer</a> trotted through each summer.</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636767500_2999_177034" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23006431,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7sagu_pHJrqd8fx2l--FPX0YE6Y=/0x0:4800x2773/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/t6nV_2LoMR9F4vvyaKRJWSwYY_w=/0x0:4800x2773/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6wj807rc7dkUOz6yyjx4XBwNy-E=/0x0:4800x2773/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pHTTF9YQIOfuqgQRo2NtGRsIRDk=/0x0:4800x2773/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JSGVWg-Q3fJnCPDJ76XY9v0eKsY=/0x0:4800x2773/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JrQbX-0mI94PQRBeGfj-kkOJa1o=/0x0:4800x2773/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RKJcQ_8yo8N6RZa0zGhLhD8SVLQ=/0x0:4800x2773/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ppUidRE5MESAADcsukFkFpOVJZI=/0x0:4800x2773/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4z8lTG7SYGQoRLuyTIrDVpRO2fY=/0x0:4800x2773/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="A highway with forest on both sides and a broad bridge designed for wildlife across it." data-upload-width="4800" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-E3nUbK70zTQ9DF7Sj9h-wuCDg0=/0x0:4800x2773/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/F50tQk9P72yGsYyCGOrTlCioyVk=/0x0:4800x2773/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9kIMWWLquoWCjosnUK52t0gOsCU=/0x0:4800x2773/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/x-j6odeVMjZWoErh-Cyv7AAlcn4=/0x0:4800x2773/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Bj30dLKZIEJQaK0w7iIdr-KpIXQ=/0x0:4800x2773/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gQkJ6HqwQIzaxY73F1h00Mm9bZg=/0x0:4800x2773/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QV1DpxRY4jW74UbvByqdQ-beFY4=/0x0:4800x2773/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-s-U3L967bWgF_I11ngDjO5PHiU=/0x0:4800x2773/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8lb8jKJZrgHs3sfedN5HKSYCCCM=/0x0:4800x2773/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2KKOegQVEcgw-clRdg6_9ssIWwo=/0x0:4800x2773/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:4800x2773):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006431/1228510051.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">A new section of the German Autobahn 14 and a wildlife overpass between the Colbitz and Tangerhütte junctions.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Ronny Hartmann/Picture Alliance via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <p>Yet crossings were slow to catch on in the US, for several reasons. Few states rigorously collected data on animal collisions, <a href="https://www.virginiadot.org/vtrc/main/online_reports/pdf/18-r16.pdf">masking the problem’s severity</a>. Some early structures were poorly designed or monitored, casting doubt on their efficacy. And even when agencies did document successful crossings, tight budgets rarely had room for more. “The unfortunate thing to date is that the most effective solution is also the most expensive,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Vtd0dX7dx1EC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%E2%80%9Cthe+problem+warrant+the+expenditure+required+to+incorporate+this+type+of+mitigation%22&source=bl&ots=N9iY6wvx6K&sig=ACfU3U1qsu0VvnYQI8f5mNFG7B2hHUMp0g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfqsyvtpDpAhUkMn0KHQuqDFcQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false">wrote one California official</a> in 1980.</p> <p>Over time, though, collisions became impossible to ignore. As human populations grew, traffic spiked in rural areas. Meanwhile, elk, bear, moose, and especially deer were bouncing back after centuries of exploitation. When speeding cars struck these hefty mammals, the crashes could be catastrophic for both parties. In 1995, researchers <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3782947">estimated</a> that deer collisions caused 29,000 injuries and around 200 human deaths every year in the US. Animal crashes had become a public safety crisis.</p> <p>In 2005, Congress ordered the Department of Transportation to study the situation. Its <a href="https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08034/exec.cfm#sec01">report</a>, published three years later, put some firm figures on the issue. The authors tallied all the expenses of a crash — the hospital bills, the vehicle damage, the value of the animal itself, and so on — and found that the average deer strike dinged society more than $6,000. Moose and elk were even pricier. All told, animal crashes were estimated to cost America over $8 billion a year.</p> <p>Against that backdrop, wildlife crossings were no longer viewed as frivolous expenditures, but vital public safety measures. In Wyoming, underpasses on Highway 30, paired with roadside fencing that guided animals toward them, cut mule deer collisions within a critical migration corridor by more than 80 percent, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264777020_Mitigating_Roadway_Impacts_to_Migratory_Mule_Deer-A_Case_Study_With_Underpasses_and_Continuous_Fencing">offsetting construction costs</a> in just five years. In Arizona, underpasses and fences <a href="https://wafwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Gagnon_HWI_2015_I-17_Fencing.pdf">prevented enough elk crashes</a> to do the same.</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636767500_1641_177035" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23006438,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/R5-z2hUX6TY_1OWhlHOPrQLD_R4=/0x0:7360x4912/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ECg7z2IuGX-C--fq4dpABCQAXTk=/0x0:7360x4912/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/41hF-R2qdZiK3U31SHC3_Y1S0JA=/0x0:7360x4912/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qT26Kp7ECJ0wO2yaJekzVEnabCs=/0x0:7360x4912/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YUNB89o5s1l57bT8jLda9JFPceU=/0x0:7360x4912/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0KIPK-lihpJS5ad6OqrtAqQ-hPM=/0x0:7360x4912/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Nkz2KPOyRvK15nHNEMsYkar5YmM=/0x0:7360x4912/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UgJ1y76OCljUQGP6JvaaVOgh2lA=/0x0:7360x4912/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DqxGtHlzfO9EsNpjQm2cLeDv-w4=/0x0:7360x4912/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="USA - Wyoming - Wildlife Overpass" data-upload-width="7360" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ieeNhbLCh00_K-pBHHehGh_bGdg=/0x0:7360x4912/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IUj7OsWk3qT_0iwLEaHndN69C3s=/0x0:7360x4912/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nOcNE69zQux1aL9VvYgxEUnsiTw=/0x0:7360x4912/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ys1iPsWhhLkTJv58zx48HyYs12s=/0x0:7360x4912/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/f7mqC7groA6J23ZYSQ1aSs6AXMI=/0x0:7360x4912/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5C04gvNdqj_N-fqZsdOiWCCB5Xc=/0x0:7360x4912/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oicsyX8Y1MvCzLYhk9Q_XiQ23KI=/0x0:7360x4912/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C4OQrbQm0qdMJpeNQi_itGvdxc8=/0x0:7360x4912/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wf4i_peqf2vZx45hooBT2qsV28Y=/0x0:7360x4912/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/k7E5Ft_v3oa7aMpHbfRTIKQIkBM=/0x0:7360x4912/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:7360x4912):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006438/525139168.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Prongorn antelope approach a wildlife overpass across route 191 at Trapper’s Point near Pinedale, Wyoming.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>William Campbell/Corbis via Getty Images</cite></span></figure> <p>New technology advanced the cause, too. Motion-activated cameras snapped high-quality photographs of animals moving through crossings, winning over skeptics, says Patricia Cramer, an ecologist who has studied crossings in Florida, Utah, and other states. “We could finally show the engineers that structures work,” she said. “Suddenly, they believed us.”</p> <p>As wildlife crossings proved their worth, transportation agencies took a new interest. Highway acts in 2012 and 2015 expressly allowed states to spend federal dollars on wildlife infrastructure. New overpasses and underpasses popped up, particularly in western states like Wyoming and Montana, where deer and elk followed predictable migration routes that highways happened to bisect. Their approval ratings soared, too: One poll found that more than <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2020/02/27/nevadans-support-protecting-wildlife-migration-routes-which-often-cross-roads">90 percent of voters</a> in Nevada — hardly a state that habitually embraces government interventions — were in favor of more crossings.</p> <p>But crossings remained underfunded. Wildlife projects drew from the same pots as basic transportation needs, like lane repaving and highway repairs. Pitted against <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/2/10/8012211/infrastructure-crumbling-more-spending">America’s crumbling infrastructure</a>, animals got short shrift. (This was especially true for small species that didn’t endanger drivers — it’s likely no one has ever totaled their truck by slipping on a salamander, for example.) In 2013, when researchers asked nearly 500 officials why crossings weren’t more common, <a href="https://arc-solutions.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/FINAL-ARC-DOT-Survey-Results-and-Tool-Jan-2014.pdf">two-thirds</a> chalked it up to money.</p> <p>In the face of chronic fiscal shortfalls, some states got creative. Colorado allocated lottery revenue. Wyoming sold specialty license plates. In California, where engineers will soon break ground on a <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-largest-wildlife-bridge-could-save-mountain-lions/">massive bridge for mountain lions</a>, the conservation group National Wildlife Federation solicited private donations. (Leonardo DiCaprio was an early contributor.) But these revenue streams were piecemeal and unreliable, and many otherwise worthy crossings never got built.</p> <p>In 2013, road ecologists, led by ARC Solutions and a group called the Western Transportation Institute, began to discuss securing more permanent funds. Conservationists and scientists wrote policy papers, met with congressional aides, and hammered out the basic framework for wildlife-crossing legislation. As the proposal developed, it gained supporters. Animal welfare groups like the <a href="https://blog.humanesociety.org/2021/08/heres-what-the-infrastructure-bill-could-mean-for-animals.html">Humane Society</a> backed crossings to reduce wildlife deaths and suffering. Conservation organizations like the Wildlands Network touted crossings as a way of stitching up fragmented ecosystems. Even pro-hunting organizations <a href="https://www.trcp.org/2021/08/10/senate-passes-bipartisan-infrastructure-package-major-conservation-investments/">trumpeted the restoration of healthy deer and elk herds</a> as a selling point.</p> <div class="c-float-right"> <aside><q>“We use the lingo ‘win-win’ a lot, but in this case this was truly a win-win-win-win” —Susan Holmes</q></aside> </div> <p>“We use the lingo ‘win-win’ a lot, but in this case this was truly a win-win-win-win,” said Susan Holmes, federal policy director for the Wildlands Network. “Almost everyone could see the value in this.”</p> <p>With backing from hunters and highway safety advocates alike, animal-friendly infrastructure racked up unlikely congressional support. In <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4806392/user-clip-barrasso-wildlife-crossings">a 2019 hearing</a> on crossings, Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming and a former surgeon, said that he’s taken care of patients injured in collisions with wildlife. “It happens every year,” he said. Although Barrasso has a history of impeding climate-friendly initiatives — and a <a href="https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/john-barrasso">7 percent lifetime score</a> from the League of Conservation Voters — he <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/2302/text">included a wildlife crossing program</a> in the highway bill that he sponsored later that year. (That version of the bill never passed.) Crossings also garnered support from Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator who chairs the chamber’s Environment and Public Works Committee — perhaps because Capito’s home state of West Virginia <a href="https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/west-virginia-ranked-no-1-in-nation-for-animal-collisions-according-to-study/article_d476b218-6362-5238-872c-e684c3519272.html#:~:text=by%20Jan%20Branscome-,According%20to%20a%20State%20Farm%20study%2C%20West%20Virginia%20ranks%20No,animal%20in%20the%20Mountain%20State.&text=CLARKSBURG%2C%20W.Va.&text=Nationwide%2C%2067%25%20of%20the%20collisions,animals%20and%20other%20following%20suite.">leads the country in deer crashes</a>.</p> <p>The years of lobbying paid off this month, when the $350 million wildlife-crossing provision made it into the final infrastructure bill — the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/06/us/politics/infrastructure-black-caucus-vote.html">largest federal public works program</a> since President Dwight D. Eisenhower kick-started the interstate system in the 1950s. (Thirteen GOP House members and 19 senators voted for the bill; despite Barrasso’s affinity for crossings, he <a href="https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=BD0CF655-318D-421E-8FD2-365724055352">wasn’t one of them</a>.) The funding will be disbursed through a five-year competitive grant program, through which states, Native tribes, and other entities will submit proposals for new crossings within their jurisdictions. Now animals will have a separate pool of money from which officials will be able to draw.</p> <p>“This is finally approaching a scale that’s needed nationwide,” said Rob Ament, road ecology program manager at the Western Transportation Institute. “We can’t treat every mile of highway, but we can take care of a lot of the areas that are seriously affecting wildlife populations.”</p> <p>The new funding comes at a crucial moment. As the climate warms, it’s imperative that animals are able to move freely around landscapes. Think of moose <a href="https://www.doi.gov/blog/9-animals-are-feeling-impacts-climate-change">shifting their ranges</a> northward to escape infestations of hungry ticks, or <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/16/1028335326/california-bear-cub-dixie-fire">bears fleeing wildfires</a> intensified by drought. Crossing structures allow these creatures to navigate roads in search of novel habitat.</p> <p>Then again, crossings only go so far: An elk migration corridor might drift northward over decades, but a bridge or tunnel can’t follow. At least, not yet — but that, too, may change.</p> <p>According to the INVEST Act, the wildlife crossing program will prioritize structures that incorporate “innovative technologies” and “advanced design techniques.” Among those techniques, says Callahan, might be the use of <a href="https://westernconfluence.org/wildlife-crossing-innovation/">fiber-reinforced polymer</a>, or FRP, a plastic that’s lighter and stronger than regular concrete, and should soon be cheaper as well. The Western Transportation Institute and the California Department of Transportation are currently designing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa-95u0lGKk">America’s first FRP wildlife bridge</a>, and experts say that future iterations could someday be modular and mobile, capable of being disassembled and relocated in response to changing animal movement patterns. “That would be a game changer,” Callahan said.</p> <figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__inner"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1636767500_6195_177036" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23006443,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fmSKFDa95yLVKSQyal-Mq73DOdM=/0x0:5214x3192/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mU-LyOgeaSdTOBIr6BGnRjCdGts=/0x0:5214x3192/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9vxfHKmYx6MJjW_e35q63y9glTE=/0x0:5214x3192/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GtzzkXLxXLdAyLwYRihdF_AWtyo=/0x0:5214x3192/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QrwngaUloLBpd9lzo4co3Evfi8c=/0x0:5214x3192/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/a_SzkYT9UB7D605KBlflfw7Hzp4=/0x0:5214x3192/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HVdRGCF_LD0V6JKq3V9f1xPyImg=/0x0:5214x3192/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2Wua62aubeOsoQ0QZDSt26LHH1o=/0x0:5214x3192/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7zxJDqT0rtsHsTea3VV6K4Kqqe4=/0x0:5214x3192/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="A semi truck drives on a highway under a bridge." data-upload-width="5214" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xvrMNcYrNfW3RlPoQJrXK8I6Pm4=/0x0:5214x3192/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KDtREwjEIqmSIPpXifvx4dAd3VA=/0x0:5214x3192/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/u6YSBhLHPIEP66Yg8E23Xu3Cdbw=/0x0:5214x3192/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hP6F-7qT8kdb1XqTHwGxawpJ2A8=/0x0:5214x3192/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KJYsRQLFbM-QKUcXD94NmDvmAZ8=/0x0:5214x3192/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/79B_VHv8POw7q5s9-LroAc8J-CI=/0x0:5214x3192/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/eTPuiFfCvW5M5rYQ8iGFnjRxUJ8=/0x0:5214x3192/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/F2h_QySDqS9CskePKvblmbNMTdc=/0x0:5214x3192/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/el5uYLfooLdQzNX22fR5-qO9crI=/0x0:5214x3192/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/M6a73fUEDgxz565bycO1mpNM4kk=/0x0:5214x3192/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:5214x3192):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23006443/crossing.jpg 1920w" /></picture></span></span> <figcaption><span class="e-image__meta">Eastbound Interstate 90 traffic passes beneath a wildlife bridge under construction on Snoqualmie Pass, Washington.</span></figcaption> <span class="e-image__meta"><cite>Elaine Thompson/AP</cite></span></figure> <p>As exciting as all that may be, it’s important to remember that the new funding for wildlife crossings is merely a good start. While $350 million may sound substantial, it is, as Cramer puts it, “decimal dust” compared to national transportation budgets. It’s also a fraction of what’s ultimately needed: According to one recent report, it would cost <a href="https://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk8611/files/files/CA_Roadkill_Hotspots_2021_0.pdf">$175 million to deal with roadkill hot spots in California alone</a>. What’s more, wildlife crossings can’t do much about traffic noise, salt pollution, stormwater runoff, or many of the other byproducts of roads — some of which will, ironically, be exacerbated by the infrastructure bill, which allots millions to highway expansion projects. And all the crossings in the world won’t help unless we get better at protecting the habitats that animals must move between.</p> <p>“We can build a bridge,” said Matt Skroch, project director for public lands and rivers conservation at the Pew Charitable Trusts, “but let’s not build a bridge to nowhere.”</p> <p><strong>Correction, November 12, 10:40 am</strong>: A previous version of summary text for this story misstated the amount of INVEST in America Act funding that is related to wildlife crossings. It is $350 million.</p> <br /> <br /> source <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2021/11/12/22774958/animals-wildlife-crossings-bridges-infrastructure">https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2021/11/12/22774958/animals-wildlife-crossings-bridges-infrastructure</a>

vox Animals need infrastructure, too

Fifty miles east of Seattle, a bridge crosses a steep stretch of Interstate 90 known as Snoqualmie Pass. This is no ordinary bridge, meant f...

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Eight Big Cats Tested Positive For Coronavirus In US: Report

<div class="ins_instory_dv"> <div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Eight Big Cats Tested Positive For Coronavirus In US: Report" src="https://i.ndtvimg.com/i/2016-01/snow-leopard-istock_650x400_41452349256.jpg" title="Eight Big Cats Tested Positive For Coronavirus In US: Report" /></div> <p class="ins_instory_dv_caption sp_b">The animals had mild symptoms, although some had a cough and nasal discharge. (Representational)</p> </div> <b class="place_cont">Washington:</b> <p>Days after a pet dog in the UK tested positive for COVID-19, now eight big cats in a zoo in the United States detected positive for coronavirus.</p> <p>Citing St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Hill reported that the infected cats include two African lions, two snow leopards, an Amur tiger, a puma and two jaguars. These animals had mild symptoms, although some had a cough and nasal discharge.</p> <p>Apart from them, none of the other 12,000 animals in the St. Louis Zoo have tested positive, the local newspaper reported. Staff have not traced the source of the infection among the cats.</p> <p>The zoo has been vaccinating its animals with an animal-specific vaccine for more than a month against the disease that has wreaked havoc on the global human population, The Hill reported.</p> <p>In September, six big cats tested positive for the coronavirus at the Smithsonian National Zoo.</p> <p>According to the CDC, the risk of animals spreading the coronavirus to humans is low, but people have been documented spreading the virus to animals across the world, according to The Hill.</p> <p><i>(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)</i></p> <br /> <br /> source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/eight-big-cats-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-in-us-report-2609078">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/eight-big-cats-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-in-us-report-2609078</a>

news world Eight Big Cats Tested Positive For Coronavirus In US: Report

The animals had mild symptoms, although some had a cough and nasal discharge. (Representational) Washington: Days after a pet dog in th...

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