The singer’s newly hired attorney, Mathew Rosengart, filed a petition last week seeking to remove her father as conservator of the estate. The filing said the situation has become “toxic” between the pop star and her father and that he was “guilty of misfeasance or malfeasance.”
In response to the request, Spears’s father called the assertions made by Rosengart “unclear” and pointed to a recent call from Jodi Montgomery, the conservator of person for the singer, in which she allegedly called her “mentally sick.”
But while acknowledging concerns for the mental health of Spears, an attorney for Montgomery told CNN in a statement that her father misrepresented the phone conversation the pair had and accused him of manipulating the discussion in an attempt to gain an advantage in upcoming court proceedings.s
Jamie Spears said Montgomery sounded distraught and said she was concerned about the singer’s “behavior and overall mental health.” He added Montgomery told him the singer was not “timely or properly taking her medications,” not listening to recommendations of her medical team and refused to see some of her doctors.
“Ms. Montgomery said she was very worried about the direction my daughter was heading in and directly asked for my help to address these issues,” Jamie Spears stated in his response. “Ms. Montgomery acknowledged that many of my daughter’s statements at the last hearing were not true and attributed her statements to the fact that my daughter is ‘mentally sick.’ After Ms. Montgomery shared her detailed concerns about my daughter’s recent behavior, safety, and overall health, she raised potential options including a 5150 psychiatric hold, which raised my concerns.”
Montgomery’s attorney, Lauriann Wright said in a statement to CNN her client “does have concerns about Ms. Spears’ ‘recent behavior and overall mental health,'” but that Jamie Spears misrepresented what Montgomery “said to him in relation to a potential 5150 psychiatric hold.”
“At no time did Ms. Montgomery express to Mr. Spears that Ms. Spears would currently qualify for such a hold,” Wright said. “The concern that Ms. Montgomery did raise to Mr. Spears during their telephone call is that forcing Ms. Spears to take the stand to testify or to have her evaluated would move the needle in the wrong direction for her mental health.”
The singer has clearly expressed her desire to remove her father from this role as the conservator of her estate and said last month she wants him charged with “conservatorship abuse.”
Disputing much of the elder Spears’s most recent filing, Wright accused him of manipulating the phone conversation “to gain some sort of tactical advantage in the pending proceedings to remove him as Conservator,” and urged him to step down from his role.
“It is in Ms. Spears’ best interests that her father step down as her Conservator, so he can go back to just being Ms. Spears’ father, and working on a healthy, supportive father-daughter relationship,” Wright’s statement said.
Spears’s father agreed to the idea of an earlier hearing on whether to remove him from his role in the conservatorship, but with the stipulation that the hearing happen after August 23. It’s currently set for September 29.
His attorneys maintain there are “no grounds whatsoever” to suspend him from his role as co-conservator, using the financial growth of the estate as evidence, along with his personal relationship.
“Throughout his service as Conservator, Mr. Spears sole motivation has been his unconditional love for his daughter and a fierce desire to protect her from those trying to take advantage of her,” the court documents state.
CNN has reached out to representatives for both Britney and Jamie Spears.
