Britney Spears was invited to Congress to testify about her yearslong conservatorship, according to a post on the pop star’s Instagram.
In the post, Spears doesn’t say whether she will accept the invitation from Florida Representative Charlie Crist and California Representative Eric Swalwell. The Democrats wrote a letter to Spears dated Dec. 1, 2021, that congratulated her and her lawyer, Matthew Rosengart, on their legal victory. A judge freed Spears from conservatorship on Nov. 12, ending the agreement that had allowed her father and the courts to run her life and her $60 million estate for more than a decade.
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“I was immediately flattered and at the time I wasn’t nearly at the healing stage I’m in now,” Spears wrote. “In the mean time thank you to Congress for inviting me to the White House.”
Crist and Swalwell highlight in the letter that Spears was allegedly unable to hire her own counsel and forced to work against her will. They ask Spears to share her experience in her own words.
“There is no doubt that your story will empower countless others outside the millions that are already inspired by you and your art,” they wrote.
In a November video posted to her social media channels, Spears, 40, said she would use her nearly 14-year ordeal as an example to effect change. She also thanked fans who used the #FreeBritney hashtag to amplify her situation when she couldn’t.
“I’m here to be an advocate for people with real disabilities and real illnesses,” she said. “I’m a very strong woman so I can only imagine what the system has done to those people. Hopefully, my story will make an impact and make some changes in the corrupt system.”
There are at least 1.3 million active guardianship or conservatorship cases in the U.S., according to a 2018 report by the National Council on Disability. These cases also affect an estimated $50 billion in assets. It’s difficult to establish a firm number because of the various ways states record individual cases makes, according to Brenda Uekert, the director at the Center for Elders and the Court, which works on judiciary issues related to aging.
Spears’ case pushed conservatorship into the spotlight. Politicians from Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida to Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom have weighed in on changing the laws surrounding these kinds of arrangements.