Britney 2 Documentary: Controlling Britney Spears
In The New York Times Presents: Controlling Britney Spears 24 September 2021 (Friday night)
7 Most Shocking Claims From the "Controlling Britney Spears" Documentary
Britney Spears was heavily monitored, including at home, according to shocking new claims made in the documentary The New York Times Presents: "Controlling Britney Spears."
https://www.eonline.com/news/1303855/7-most-shocking-claims-from-the-controlling-britney-spears-documentary
As Britney Spears continues her battle for independence, shocking new claims about her formerly secret life under a more than decade-long conservatorship have been made in a new documentary.
In The New York Times Presents: "Controlling Britney Spears," the follow-up to February's episode "Framing Britney Spears" and which was released on Hulu and FX on Friday, Sept. 24, a former member of her security team alleges that the firm he worked for, which was hired by the singer's father and co-conservator, Jamie Spears, monitored her phone activity and even planted a listening device in her bedroom, both seemingly without her knowledge.
"I heard Britney's testimony and I think that was the final indicator that I wanted to come forward with what I know," said Alex Vlasov, who says he worked for Black Box Security and its president Edan Yemini, referring to comments Britney made as she spoke publicly about what she called her "abusive" 13-year conservatorship for the first time in a virtual court hearing on June 23.
Edan, whose company's website describes him as having a background in the Israeli Special Forces, said in a statement shown in the documentary, "Black Box have always conducted themselves within professional, ethical and legal bounds and they are particularly proud of their work in keeping Ms. Spears safe for many years."
In response to detailed questions from The New York Times, Jamie's lawyer said in a statement, "All of his actions were well within the parameters of the authority conferred upon him by the court. His actions were done with the knowledge and consent of Britney, her court-appointed attorney, and/or the court. Jamie's record as conservator — and the court's approval of his actions — speak for themselves."
Britney's attorney Matthew Rosengart, who she hired earlier this year, told The New York Times, "Any unauthorized intercepting or monitoring of Britney's communications — especially attorney-client communications, which are a sacrosanct part of the legal system — would represent a shameful violation of her privacy rights and a striking example of the deprivation of her civil liberties."
"Placing a listening device in Britney's bedroom would be particularly inexcusable and disgraceful, and corroborates so much of her compelling, poignant testimony," the attorney continued. "These actions must be fully and aggressively investigated."
Britney was placed under her conservatorship in 2008, months after she underwent a psychiatric hospitalization following years of personal turmoil. Following her recent court testimony, the singer hired a new lawyer of her own choosing and he filed to remove Jamie as her co-conservator.
Jamie recently petitioned the court to end the conservatorship entirely. Britney's father has maintained he has always wanted what is best for his daughter. After her June testimony, his lawyer said in statement, "Mr. Spears is sorry to see his daughter suffering and in so much pain. Mr. Spears loves his daughter and misses her very much."
A hearing on the star's case is scheduled for Sept. 29.
Read some of the most shocking accusations made in "Controlling Britney Spears":
1. Britney's Phone Was Allegedly Monitored
In The New York Times Presents: "Controlling Britney Spears," released on Hulu and FX on Sept. 24, 2021, Alex Vlasov, a former Black Box Security employee who said he worked with the star's team for almost nine years, said Britney was granted a request to have an iPhone that he alleged was later heavily monitored. He said Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group employee Robin Greenhill, a member of Britney's management team, came up with the idea of using an iPad signed into the same iCloud that the pop star used on her iPhone. This would allow others to see all her messages, Facetime calls, Notes, browser history and photographs.
According to the documentary, a lawyer for Tri Star Sports & Entertainment said all allegations involving Robin, as well as Tri Star founder Lou Taylor, were false.
"Edan would bring me text messages of conversations that Britney would have and he would ask me to encrypt those messages and give it to him so he could pass it on to Robin and Jamie," Alex alleged. "They openly talked about monitoring her. Their reason for monitoring was looking for bad influence, looking for potential illegal activity that might happen. But they would also monitor conversations with her friends, with her mom, with her lawyer Sam Ingham."
Alex said that in 2019, after Britney completed a stint at a mental health facility, her security team was asked to prepare for her an iPhone "that would only be allowed to make phone calls."
In the documentary, Alex showed an email allegedly forwarded from Edan and which Britney's then-lawyer, Sam, allegedly sent to two lawyers representing Jamie while also CCing Edan, the singer's current co-conservator of her person, Jodi Montgomery, and Jodi's attorney.
Sam states in the email, whose date is not shown, that the singer asked him to tell her dad and security that she wants to keep her old phone, and that she is also requesting a new one. Britney's lawyer added that with regard to any new phone, he required written confirmation that no one other than the singer can access data on it. An alleged response from one of Jamie's lawyers is shown and states that Britney's father "confirms that he has no access to her calls, voicemails and texts."
2. Britney's Bedroom Was Allegedly Bugged
Alex said, "Edan had an audio recording device put into Britney's bedroom."
Alex added that days before the singer was due to meet with a court investigator, "Edan and one of the agents working with him came into my office and handed me the audio recording device and a USB drive and asked me to wipe it."
"I had them tell me what was on it," he said. They seemed very nervous and said that it was extremely sensitive, that nobody can ever know about this and that's why I need to delete everything on it so there's no record of it. That raised so many red flags for me and I did not want to be complicit in whatever they were involved in. So I kept a copy because I didn't want to delete evidence."
The documentary states that the recordings captured over 180 hours of audio, including Britney's interactions and conversations with her boyfriend and her children, and that it is unclear if the court was aware of such surveillance. It is illegal in California to record a confidential conversation without consent.
3. Britney's Social Life Was Allegedly Controlled
Alex said that the men in Britney's life had to sign contracts or non-disclosure agreements. The documentary also quoted from a court investigator's confidential 2016 report on the singer, which stated that Britney "cannot drive alone, she cannot befriend people, especially men, unless they are approved by her father," and that these men are "followed by private investigators to make sure their behaviors are acceptable to her father."
4. Britney Allegedly Feared Not Being Allowed to See Her Sons
The people interviewed in the documentary also talk about how fearful Britney seemed about doing anything or being accused of anything that could jeopardize her custody arrangement regarding her sons, Sean Preston, 16, and Jayden James, 15, who live primarily with their father, the singer's ex-husband Kevin Federline.
"We were told that the conservatorship was there for her own good," Alex explained. "That it was there to protect her from influence, from her losing money, that it was a way for her to have custody of her kids. The same thing was always repeated that this is something she wants."
Tish Yates, Britney's former head of wardrobe, recalled an alleged incident that demonstrated Britney's fear of being accused of doing something that would jeopardize her chance to see her sons. She said the singer became "distressed" after riding in a road case that she said "smells like pot." She quoted Britney as screaming, "I cannot breathe this. I'm going to fail a drug test. I won't see my boys."
5. Britney Has Long Called for the Conservatorship to End
While Britney spoke out about the matter publicly for the first time in her June 2021 court hearing, according to legal documents obtained by The New York Times, the singer went on the record in expressing her desire to end her conservatorship many years ago.
In 2014, the singer's court-appointed lawyer told then-judge Reva G. Goetz in a closed-door hearing about the conservatorship that "Britney wanted me to impress on the court the urgency in which she views the termination of the conservatorship. She expressed to me a desire to marry, have children, and to retire and to change her lifestyle, and she believes the conservatorship precludes her from doing that."
6. Security Was Allegedly in Charge of Britney's Meds
Alex says in "Controlling Britney Spears" that one of his co-workers told him they were ordered to hand Britney pre-packaged envelopes containing medication, saying, "We have to hand them to her and she can't leave, she has to take it there.'"
Alex added, "Every time that was brought up or discussed, it was like, 'This is what security should be doing because this is what the client is asking for and this is what the client needs.' The client is Jamie."
7. The #FreeBritney Movement Was Allegedly Monitored
Alex said Edan was initially "very worried" about the #FreeBritney movement "because it was something out of their control." Alex said that in its early days, "undercover investigators were placed within the crowds to talk to fans, to ID then, to document who they were."
He added, "It was all under the umbrella of, 'This is for Britney's protection.'"
'Horrifying': Britney Spears' lawyer slams dad Jamie for allegedly bugging her home
Publish 5.23pm, 25 September 2021 l Update ET 27 September 2021 8.40pm
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2021/09/25/britney-spears-staff-speaks-new-controlling-britney-documentary/5864835001/
Britney Spears' assistants, security members and tour managers are speaking out in the second FX and New York Times documentary installment "Controlling Britney Spears" (now streaming on Hulu). Now, Spears' attorney is responding to new allegations of bugging Britney's home and slamming her father, James "Jamie" Spears for what he calls abuses of power.
Spears' lawyer Mathew Rosengart filed a supplemental motion Monday to remove and suspend her father from her conservatorship. In court documents obtained by USA TODAY, Rosengart calls for the immediate suspension of Jamie Spears "no later than September 29, 2021," the date of the next hearing in the singer's conservatorship case.
"Mr. Spears has crossed unfathomable lines," wrote Rosengart in the petition.
In the court filing, Rosengart added that Jamie Spears "suspension will not impede the ultimate termination of the entire conservatorship" and "the only thing Mr. Spears will 'lose' is something he should not have ever had — the ability to further harm his daughter."
Earlier this month Spears' father filed a petition to end his daughter's conservatorship that he has controlled at least in part for the last 13 years. The move was a dramatic change by Jamie Spears, who has argued in court documents for years that his daughter was not ready to be free of guardianship
The documentary streaming on Hulu comes as several other media outlets, including CNN and Netflix, have announced their own programming surrounding Spears ahead of Wednesday's hearing to end the conservatorship. The New York Times' first investigative look into the conservatorship, "Framing Britney" sparked conversation around the nation.
"The first rule of the conservatorship was that you don't talk about the conservatorship," Spears' Circus tour manager Dan George said in the documentary.
"Controlling Britney" includes interviews revealing the private details of Spears' life under what is now a very public conservatorship. Here are some of the biggest revelations.
Security monitored Spears' iPhone via iPad
The same day "Controlling Britney" premiered, The New York Times published a bombshell expose, titled "The Surveillance Apparatus That Surrounded Britney Spears," which Rosengart references in his latest court filing. The Times' report detailed how Jamie Spears allegedly "secretly monitored her communication and secretly captured audio recordings from her bedroom, including interactions and conversations with her boyfriend and children."
"Mr. Spears engaged in horrifying and unconscionable invasions of his adult daughter's privacy," Monday's court petition from Rosengart states, adding that surveillance allegedly put in place by Spears' father also "evidently captured attorney-client communications with her prior lawyer, which communications are a sacrosanct part of the legal system."
In the documentary, Alex Vlasov spoke about his tenure, which lasted from 2012 to 2021, as a member of Spears' security team. Her father hired Black Box Security, headed by Edan Yemini, to provide around-the-clock safety for Spears.
Vlasov remembered Spears wanting an iPhone while under the conservatorship.
"She saw her assistants have iPhones, dancers, team, Edan (Yemini) even, and she wanted an iPhone," Vlasov says. "Everyone was worried."
The worries came from security concerns, according to Vlasov, who remembers Yemini asking if iPhones come with "parental controls." Vlasov said Robin Greenhill, a member of Spears' business management team, came up with the idea of monitoring her phone with an iPad with the matching iCloud account linked toSpears' phone.
"You would be able to see all messages, all facetime calls, notes, browser history, photographs," Vlasov says. "They would also monitor conversations with her friends, with her mom, with her lawyer Sam Ingham."
Spears' assistants were isolated during Circus tour
Individuals who worked on the Circus tour described the environment as "toxic" and "yucky."
Felicia Culotta was Spears' long-time personal assistant. When the Circus tour was gearing up she returned to her assistant role but with different rules.
"It slowly became where I wasn't allowed to be by her side and wasn't allowed to have a conversation without having other people present, which was very odd," Culotta says.
One day she was called into a meeting by Jamie Spears where he told Culotta she wasn't going to be work the tour in Europe.
"He said 'if (Britney) sees you she won't go on stage," Culotta recalls.
Despite instructions, she went on the tour but tried to keep out of the pop singer's eyesight. However backstage during the last show, she made eye contact with Spears.
"She took a full running leap and ran all the way down the hall and leapt (sp) onto me and she went 'Fe! ... Where have you been'," Culotta says." I was moved away from being part of the support system is that I simply said 'If I see something with my eyes, I will tell it'."
Security surveilled The 'Free Britney' movement
The 'Free Britney' movement gained traction in 2019 when news of Spears' conservatorship began to spark public conversation. Renewed interest was further ignited after the first FX and New York Times installment "Framing Britney Spears," which launched on Hulu in February.
"Edan initially was very worried about the "Free Britney" movement because it was something out of their control, it was something that was shaping on its own," Vlasov says.
Vlasov says the movement was "heavily investigated" when it first kicked off.
"Undercover investigators were placed within the crowds to talk to fans, to ID them, to document who they were. It was all under the umbrella this was for Britney's protection," he says.
Vlasov later added that Spears' testimony in July encouraged him to walk away from Black Box Security.
"It was the complete opposite of what we've always been told working there," he says. "I heard Britney's testimony and I think that was the final indicator that I wanted to come forward with what I know."
Contributing: Amy Haneline, Pamela Avila
‘Controlling Britney Spears’ Doc: Former Security Reveals Singer’s Private Conversations Were Recorded and Monitored
The documentary, which debuted on FX and Hulu Friday night, sees insiders who had knowledge of Spears’ life while in the conservatorship discuss openly how it controlled her life and react to the singer’s emotional testimony.
Those among Britney Spears’ inner circle are coming forward to share how they’ve witnessed the pop star be treated under her conservatorship in The New York Times Presents: Controlling Britney Spears, a documentary which debuted on FX and Hulu Friday night.
In the follow-up to Framing Britney Spears, Controlling Britney Spears is directed by Samantha Stark with Liz Day as a supervising producer and reporter, and features interviews with insiders who had knowledge of Spears’ life while in the conservatorship. In their interviews, they speak openly about how Spears’ life was controlled and react to the singer’s emotional testimony. Those featured include Spears’ former longtime assistant Felicia Culotta, her former head of wardrobe Tish Yates, promotional tour manager of Spears’ Circus Tour Dan George, and Alex Vlasov, a former executive assistant, operations and security manager of Spears’ longtime security company Black Box Security.
The documentary opens with the scene outside Spears’ June 23 court hearing in which the singer spoke publicly for the first time and requested her conservatorship come to an end. While appearing virtually in court, Spears read from a prepared statement to offer insight into her life while in the conservatorship, which she said has led her to feel like she can’t “live a full life.” Among the grievances she shared were having her medication changed without her consent, being forced to perform on a 2018 tour and given no break, and not being allowed permission to visit a doctor to remove her IUD so she can have a baby and get married.
“I was extremely proud of her and the bravery that it took to take up for herself,” Culotta says of Spears’ testimony. “Once Britney started telling her story, I felt like there were going to be many people and many memories that would need to be talked about to put all the puzzle pieces together and make the truth of the story come out.”
Now Culotta and others are helping give insight into the full story behind the scenes and the control they witnessed Spears be under.
“I’ve never spoken about what we’ve witnessed. We signed those NDAs and it has been hard to come forward knowing there are people in her management that could stop me from making a living. But this is important. This is a human life that’s been tortured,” Yates said.
Meanwhile, George added, “I had to muster the courage to speak out because if not me, then who?” He also shared that “the first rule of the conservatorship was you don’t talk about the conservatorship” and he was warned at one point by management, “Be careful. Don’t get too close. People have a way of disappearing.”
Of the bigger accounts shared were from Vlasov, who assisted Black Box Security Inc. president Edan Yemini for nine years. “I was the only person at Black Box who knew everything,” he shared. “Edan was so relieved when he saw the first documentary [Framing Britney Spears]. He was so relieved that he wasn’t mentioned, Black Box wasn’t mentioned, Tristar wasn’t mentioned. It was his biggest fear that security would somehow draw any attention.” Yemini declined to answer questions about his firm’s work with Spears for the documentary.
Vlasov explained that he would see Spears “very briefly” but everything he knew about the conservatorship would be from Yemini. “We were told the conservatorship was there for her own good. That it was there to protect her from influence, from her losing money, that it was a way for her to have custody of her kids. The same thing was always repeated, ‘This is something she wants.” He was also told that 24/7 security was part of the conservatorship.
Vlasov detailed that security’s duties included providing Spears with her medication which would be in pre-packaged envelopes and they’d have to hand it to her to take while they were present. When it was questioned or discussed as to why that would be a security duty, Vlasov said it would be reiterated, “This is what security should be doing because this is what the client is asking for and this is what the client needs.” However, the client asking was not Spears but her father Jamie, Vlasov said.
“It really reminded me of somebody that was in prison. Security was put in a position to be the prison guards essentially,” he said.
He later shared that everyone grew worried when Spears wanted an iPhone and Yemini asked him whether there were any monitoring services that he knew of or a way to put parental controls on the phone for her “protection,” all things he was told the court and Spears’ lawyer was aware of.
Robin Greenhill, a staffer of Tri Star Sports & Entertainment, which handle Spears’ business management, was closely involved in the pop star’s account. “Jamie, Edan and Robin were basically a part of every step Britney took,” Vlasov said. “Britney could not have someone in the privacy of her house without those three people knowing.” According to the documentary, a lawyer for Tri Star Sports & Entertainment said all allegations involving Greenhill and Tri Star founder Lou Taylor were false.
Vlasov said it was Greenhill’s suggestion that they sign in on an iPad with the same iCloud account Spears would use for the iPhone so her activity would be mirrored and they could see her messages, Facetime calls, notes, photographs, browser history, and more.
“They openly talked about monitoring her,” Vlasov said as he added that even her conversations with friends, mom and former lawyer Samuel D. Ingham III would be monitored. Vlasov adds, “Her own phone and own private conversations were used so often to control her. I know for a fact that Jamie would confront Britney and say, ‘Hey why did you text this person?’ … It didn’t feel like she was being treated like a human being.”
“Working at Black Box, I saw so much… Ethnically it was just one big mess,” Vlasov said. He later revealed that Yemini had a recording device put into the singer’s bedroom. Vlasov recalled being handed the audio recording device and a USB drive and asked to wipe it. “That raised so many red flags with me and I did not want to be complicit in whatever they were involved in so I kept a copy because I don’t want to delete evidence. I don’t think it was a coincidence that it was done, days before she was due to meet with a court investigator.”
In Spears’ testimony, she details how she was forced to enter a mental health treatment facility in 2019. Vlasov confirms that Spears did not want to be there: “I heard this from multiple people including Robin and Jamie themselves when they would talk on the phone with Edan.” He also shares that it was “orchestrated” for Spears to be photographed walking out of a hotel to show she was okay as the #FreeBritney movement grew and it was speculated the pop star was being held against her will.
When Spears was eventually released from the facility, Vlasov said security was asked to prepare an iPhone for her that would only be allowed to make phone calls and not allow text messaging or internet access. Other security measures included any men in Spears’ life having to sign contracts and NDAs and the #FreeBritney movement was also monitored in its early days. “Undercover investigators were placed within the crowds to talk to fans, to ID them, to document who they were. It was all under the umbrella of ‘This is for Britney’s protection.’ “
“I heard Britney’s testimony and I think that was the final indicator that I wanted to come forward with what I know,” Vlasov said. He also showed an e-mail thread he was forwarded from Yemini in which Ingham emailed the legal team to inform them that he needed written confirmation that no one other than Spears could access her calls, voicemails or texts to which they responded and confirmed Jamie would have no access.
When leaving Black Box, Vlasov explained that he vocalized that he disagreed with how their business was run and how they operated ethically. He alleges that when speaking with Yemini in his office, Yemini took his gun from his holster and put it on the table and said, “So you don’t like the way I run my business?” “It’s not a threat, but it’s a threat,” Vlasov said. The documentary states that through his lawyer, Yemini denied the incident occurred.
When speaking of her experience with Spears, her longtime assistant Culotta said “it slowly became where I wasn’t allowed to be by her side and wasn’t allowed to have a conversation without having other people present.” During a leg of Spears’ Circus tour, Culotta said she was eventually told by Jamie Spears in a meeting that his daughter no longer wanted her there and “never wanted” her on the tour. “She says if she ever sees you, she won’t go on stage,” Culotta recalled Jamie Spears telling her. Though she wondered whether Spears was upset with her, she still stayed but wouldn’t see the singer. However, when she accidentally ran into Spears, “It’s almost like the very air was sucked out of the hall,” Culotta recalled. “Everybody knew that I wasn’t supposed to be there.” She said once Spears saw her she immediately “took a full running leap” and gave her a hug asking where she had been.
“It was at that point that I thought, ‘Now wait a minute, were they trying to turn the two of us against each other?’ ,” she said. “I, being part of the support system, was not welcomed. I feel like at some point the reason that I was moved away from being part of the support system is that I simply said, ‘If I see something with my eyes, I will tell it.'” She also recalled Greenhill telling her, “You just don’t know who she is anymore.”
“Maybe I didn’t know the person that they were trying to make her be, but I knew the person that she was and I knew the heart. Your heart stays the same no matter what,” Culotta said.
While speaking about Spears’ conservatorship, Yates said, “I really do not think that Jamie is the one that was controlling everything. Who I dealt with was Robin Greenhill… I thought she was Britney’s assistant.” She explained that she had to have Greenhill’s approval before speaking with Spears about a question Spears would have and Greenhill controlled “little things.” She recalled a moment Greenhill told Spears she couldn’t have sushi for dinner since it was “too expensive” and she just had it the previous day.
“If she [Spears] pushed back a little bit, they pushed harder and then the yelling got louder. Then Jamie would come up … it would escalate to not having the boys,” Yates explained.
When discussing Spears’ allowance, Yates recalled the singer liking a pair of shoes she saw while walking through the mall in Vegas but wasn’t allowed to buy them. “They said, ‘No, she doesn’t have any money to be spending on sketchers,'” Yates said, adding that she eventually bought them herself and expensed it through the wardrobe department.
Yates also explained that Spears would be forced to always carry on with meet and greets at the Vegas show — which reportedly cost fans $2,500. “I witnessed management telling her if she did not do the meet and greets that it would be a huge loss of money.”
“There’s so many of us that were in the background that did see the truth. This isn’t a ‘he said, she said.’ These are things that we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears,” Yates said.
Culotta and Yates say that they have no way of getting in touch with Spears given all her previous numbers have been changed. As an end-of-tour gift, Yates says she gave Spears a necklace with her phone number engraved on it “in case she needed me.”
Controlling Britney Spears arrives just days ahead of the Tuesday release of a secret Netflix documentary about the conservatorship from director Erin Lee Carr called Britney vs. Spears, and a high-profile hearing on the arrangement. Earlier this month, Spears’ father asked the court to end his daughter’s conservatorship, with Spears’ attorney previously filing a petition to have her father removed as conservator of her estate.
Stark and Day previously indicated in interviews with The Hollywood Reporter that they were working on a follow-up. While appearing on Good Morning America, Day said that Spears’ testimony inspired people to speak out. “A lot of people who had been involved over the years felt motivated to come forward to support her story and say, ‘Here’s what I witnessed and it backs up some of the serious stuff she said,’ ” Day said.
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