Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's guest producer who's
Speaker 1: actually a real producer too, Dave Kustin. So guest producer
Speaker 1: in your mind means ghost producer. And no, I don't
Speaker 1: think he's dead, are you dead, Dave? Well, not a
Speaker 1: real producer? What's going on here? So he is the
Speaker 1: producer of short Stuff, which is technically a spinoff of
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know. But he's here sitting in for
Speaker 1: Jerry on Stuff you Should Know, which would make him
Speaker 1: a guest in this particular context. But enough about that.
Speaker 1: I was just saying all that to welcome everybody. Now
Speaker 1: it's ruined forever. Sorry, Instead, Chuck, I think that we
Speaker 1: should talk about conservatorships. And before you saying thing, Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: what are you saying? Inhale? Yeah, I understand. I think
Speaker 1: everybody who didn't realize what episode they were listening to
Speaker 1: just Inhaled too. Um. I searched high and low for
Speaker 1: something to relate this too. In the real world. It
Speaker 1: could find like nothing. So this is probably gonna be
Speaker 1: a fairly boring, dry episode on you know, legalities and
Speaker 1: the legal system, with no no application to to real
Speaker 1: life and certainly no application to pop culture whatsoever. So
Speaker 1: buckle up, everybody, I guess what I'm trying to say. Oops,
Speaker 1: you did it again. Oh I happened to be wearing
Speaker 1: a Catholic schoolgirls skirt right now too. Uh. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this obviously came to me because of the Britney Spear situation. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know a lot about Britney Spears and didn't
Speaker 1: know a lot about her situation other than loosely hearing
Speaker 1: about it in the news. But the more I poked around, uh,
Speaker 1: the more I was like, man, this really this really
Speaker 1: smacks of sort of the old days, you know, like
Speaker 1: your honor, my wife or my daughter is crazy and
Speaker 1: we need to do something about this. And uh, I
Speaker 1: use that terminology because that's that's kind of how it
Speaker 1: used to go back in the day. And sadly that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff still happens through things like conservatorships. And
Speaker 1: so it turns out that it's a pretty straightforward thing.
Speaker 1: But in her case, the waters are pretty muddy. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: she's a really rare case. The only other person I
Speaker 1: can think of that even comes close to fitting the
Speaker 1: bill for this very rare type of conservatorship that Britney
Speaker 1: Spears has is a Manda Binds, who is another child
Speaker 1: star who kind of publicly melted down. I guess you
Speaker 1: could put in whose mother got her into conservatorship, which
Speaker 1: I think she's still under today. Um, and Bristles under
Speaker 1: it publicly too. So UM. Most of the time, when
Speaker 1: you're talking about conservatorships, which is basically one person legally
Speaker 1: have think the ability and authority to make this decisions
Speaker 1: on behalf of somebody else. You're talking about somebody who
Speaker 1: has gone into a coma, UM, somebody who has had
Speaker 1: um uh cognitive um difficulties maybe for life. UM, somebody
Speaker 1: just suffering from Alzheimer's something like that. Much much more
Speaker 1: more often than not, it's it's something that's part of
Speaker 1: elder law. A conservatorship is. So it's really we it's rare, weird,
Speaker 1: you can just say weird. It's very weird that Britney
Speaker 1: Spears very healthy, um with it active. UM Like, I
Speaker 1: think she's like thirty somethings early thirties right now, Um, No,
Speaker 1: late thirtis. I think she's thirty nine. Um, she that
Speaker 1: that she would be in a conservatorship, but she has,
Speaker 1: she has been since she was twenty six and and
Speaker 1: it may maybe she's coming out of it. No one
Speaker 1: can say for sure. That it's kind of looked like, well,
Speaker 1: of course they're going to let her out of it
Speaker 1: multiple times in the past, but it seems like from
Speaker 1: what I understand now, she might actually finally get out
Speaker 1: from the conservative ship at this point. Who knows. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: just a little quick background if you didn't know, uh,
Speaker 1: and not to get too in the weeds. But in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, Britney Spears had uh what people
Speaker 1: have described online as a kind of a public melting
Speaker 1: down her. Her family was worried about her, She was
Speaker 1: hospitalized for mental health issues a couple of times. She
Speaker 1: famously shaved her head and was very aggressive with the paparazzi.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's very easy for some people, I
Speaker 1: guess in her family, to say, hey, she has some
Speaker 1: mental issues, she needs some help, Um, let me step
Speaker 1: in and establish a conservatorship. But it's also easy as
Speaker 1: an outsider to look back now and say, hey, she
Speaker 1: went through some stuff. The paparazzi is awful and terrible
Speaker 1: and what might you do in that situation? And maybe
Speaker 1: she just needed a little assistance to get through a
Speaker 1: recular time in her life. And here we are in one,
Speaker 1: all these years later, and she still has her father
Speaker 1: basically in charge of the decisions of her life financially
Speaker 1: and with her health and uh and in certain cases
Speaker 1: or career, and she's she's trying to get him out
Speaker 1: of there first and foremost as her conservator, and also
Speaker 1: trying to get the conservator ship itself dissolved. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that makes her case
Speaker 1: so gut wrenching is that basically her worst enemy, her father,
Speaker 1: was put in charge of her life against her will,
Speaker 1: and she's lived like that for thirteen years. Um. So well,
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll like, we'll talk about how her case applies,
Speaker 1: you know, um, throughout the episode for sure, but just
Speaker 1: to kind of like lay down the groundwork for what
Speaker 1: a conservatorship is, um. There Apparently there's not one set
Speaker 1: legal definition like you could very easily just basically say
Speaker 1: it's where somebody's legally in charge of somebody else's decisions. Um.
Speaker 1: Some states call guardianship, other states call it conservator ship. UM.
Speaker 1: But the whole point of it is that somebody has
Speaker 1: been deemed unable to make good decisions for themselves to
Speaker 1: some sometimes physically take care of themselves or maybe even both,
Speaker 1: and so the court um has been petitioned to kind
Speaker 1: of give someone else the ability to make those decisions
Speaker 1: to take care of that person. And the point of it,
Speaker 1: if you really, if you take away the whole Britney
Speaker 1: Spears thing and any kind of um sketchiness that can
Speaker 1: kind of pervade this whole kind of this, this this
Speaker 1: legal weirdness. UM, it's kind of an act of love
Speaker 1: to step in and say, this person is in really
Speaker 1: bad dire straits right now, and um, I will help
Speaker 1: them while they're going through this or possibly for the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives. I'm willing to take care of
Speaker 1: their needs and see to it that they're taken care of.
Speaker 1: That's what it's supposed to be about at base sure,
Speaker 1: and ideally that's how it goes down. UM. There is
Speaker 1: not a lot of data about conservatorships and how often
Speaker 1: they are petitioned to get uh UM uninstated. I think
Speaker 1: it's removed like uninstated. I like it too. It's a great,
Speaker 1: great word. Now Okay, I just made up a new Wordever,
Speaker 1: you could win boggle with that. Chuck uh. And we'll
Speaker 1: get to the you know why that is a little
Speaker 1: bit later. But Um, when you petition a court, what
Speaker 1: happens is there's an evaluation that the court orders of
Speaker 1: this person who is known as a conservative, and the
Speaker 1: person in charges the conservatore, and there's an attorney appointed
Speaker 1: to represent them, and they hold a hearing and they
Speaker 1: decide whether or not this is something that they should
Speaker 1: move forward with. There's an evaluation done. Um, the person
Speaker 1: is allowed to speak on their behalf at this time. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not the kind of thing where you can, uh
Speaker 1: just be railroaded. And I'm not exactly sure the details
Speaker 1: of Britney Spears and when it first happened as far
Speaker 1: as if she was like, yeah, this is for the
Speaker 1: best right now, or if she thought him in the beginning,
Speaker 1: but I think she was. Um, you're saying no, no
Speaker 1: to which one to to the first that or that
Speaker 1: she was she was in favor of I'll tell you
Speaker 1: a second, all right, we'll goad you want me to
Speaker 1: tell you now we have to wait a second. Any longer. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll fill you and Chuck get that. I watched some
Speaker 1: of the documentary, but I had other things to do.
Speaker 1: I saw the documentary two was surprisingly ho hum and
Speaker 1: totally one sided. I thought it was really kind of
Speaker 1: gross in a lot of ways, but interesting for sure. UM.
Speaker 1: But I also read a I read a really good
Speaker 1: New Yorker um article, a recent one from July three,
Speaker 1: I think called Britney Spears Conservative Conservatorship Nightmare by Ronan
Speaker 1: Pharaoh and Jia Tolentino to reporters, and it is just
Speaker 1: a moment by moment breakdown on well Brittney's breakdown, and
Speaker 1: then also like how she ended up in it, And
Speaker 1: from this and other sources, I saw that basically she
Speaker 1: was not informed um that she was being placed into
Speaker 1: conservatorship beforehand, which from what I can tell, is a
Speaker 1: gross violation of her rights in that sense, and that
Speaker 1: she didn't have a chance to petition the court to
Speaker 1: basically say no. And then by the time she found
Speaker 1: out about it and tried to petition it, she was
Speaker 1: told that she was not in any kind of mental
Speaker 1: state to hire her own counsel, and so she had
Speaker 1: counsel appointed to her so she never had an evaluation
Speaker 1: from so the judge in this case is now retired.
Speaker 1: And she said that that is not true. Of course
Speaker 1: she was evaluated, and I talked to her and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. But the way that this is described as
Speaker 1: it was a ten minute thing, and it was they
Speaker 1: went in and and as far like on the surface,
Speaker 1: the her parents went in and petitioned the judge in
Speaker 1: ten minutes later, the judge granted full I guess temporary
Speaker 1: conservatorship um without any any other formalities. That's how it
Speaker 1: That's how it is, you know, on its face. And
Speaker 1: then the judges denying that there was any back room
Speaker 1: um eels or anything made beforehand. So it doesn't really
Speaker 1: make sense and it kind of stinks to high heaven
Speaker 1: in that respect. Yeah, what did she think was going on? Then?
Speaker 1: Who Brittany? When she was evaluated? That's the thing. I
Speaker 1: don't know that she was evaluated. She had just undergone
Speaker 1: two fifties, where the the basically the states van Halens too,
Speaker 1: not just one too, she had a fifty one fifty
Speaker 1: and an o U eight one too. Oh man, she
Speaker 1: um she no. So the fifties where somebody can basically
Speaker 1: say this person is is um is mentally unstable right now,
Speaker 1: they may be a harm to themselves or others, And
Speaker 1: the fire department comes and gets you and takes you
Speaker 1: off to the hospital where you're kept against your will
Speaker 1: for seventy two hours. That happened to her twice, and
Speaker 1: upon the second one, her parents went and petitioned the
Speaker 1: court to to grant them conservatorship, and the court did.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about an evaluation that actually took
Speaker 1: place as part of the conservatorship. I get the impression that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: she said to Fies, that's enough for me. Interesting, by
Speaker 1: the way, we can't say that without shouting out, listener,
Speaker 1: Aaron Hagar, Oh yeah, that's right to yeah, alright. So
Speaker 1: there are some different types of conservator ships. One is financial,
Speaker 1: and they often work hand in hand and sometimes kind
Speaker 1: of have to. Financial obviously is when you are in
Speaker 1: charge of someone's finances. The conservative themselves have autonomy, but
Speaker 1: they don't have financial autonomy. Um, they can't, you know,
Speaker 1: go out and buy a house or rent a house,
Speaker 1: or make any big purchases or maybe even any kind
Speaker 1: of purchases without the conservatory sort of being there along
Speaker 1: the way saying it's fine. Yeah, and I think they
Speaker 1: also have, like they generally have spending money. They're given
Speaker 1: an allowance, um, so they'll have that at least, But yeah,
Speaker 1: for the big purchases, no way, uh. Physical is when
Speaker 1: their health and basically medical decisions, their health, their life
Speaker 1: kind of everything is controlled by the conservativetour and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna mess it up at some point, um, whether or
Speaker 1: not they want to go to a therapist, or whether
Speaker 1: or not they wanted to have certain medications. Supposedly they
Speaker 1: you know, you can't make someone take medication um legally,
Speaker 1: but it again, especially in her case, it gets very
Speaker 1: murky with some of the charges she's levied against her
Speaker 1: father as far as that stuff goes, Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: mean on that in particular, what I saw was that
Speaker 1: the carrot and the stick that her father uses against
Speaker 1: her is visitation rights for her to see her kids.
Speaker 1: Because that was definitely one thing that came through and
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff I've been reading is that like
Speaker 1: she is super dedicated to her kids and they've been
Speaker 1: just kept from her for you know, they're basically their
Speaker 1: whole lives, and that that was ultimately what really led
Speaker 1: to her meltdown. You know, the pop rocks. He didn't
Speaker 1: help and you know, it's being a star. All of
Speaker 1: that stuff did not help um. But that don't it
Speaker 1: was you know, it's her kids that is really like
Speaker 1: the dagger that just gets turned in her chest every time,
Speaker 1: like she she had to like leave or they had
Speaker 1: to leave um, and that her father dangles that over her,
Speaker 1: like if you don't do this, if you don't sign
Speaker 1: this contractor and do these performances, you know, I can't
Speaker 1: let you see the kids or whatever. So that's apparently
Speaker 1: that's because he gets a cut. He does. He gets
Speaker 1: one point five percent of all new deals too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she's made a lot of money in the past,
Speaker 1: you know, years that she's been blocked down. She's had
Speaker 1: a very successful Vegas run. She had a couple of
Speaker 1: big albums. She's been guest judges on a couple of
Speaker 1: the big competition shows. So she's not she's out there
Speaker 1: earning a lot of money still for her and Pops. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's general conservator ships and that is when it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of everything and these are more common. It's kind
Speaker 1: of rare. It seems like for there to be uh
Speaker 1: only a physical conservatorship without being a financial because those
Speaker 1: things are probably kind of go hand in hand. So
Speaker 1: general is all encompassing, and then you have your limited
Speaker 1: conservatorship where it's uh. Usually this is a case where
Speaker 1: it may be like, um, let's say an adult that's
Speaker 1: disabled in some way that still wants to have and
Speaker 1: can have autonomy, physical autonomy, and maybe hold down a
Speaker 1: job and have their own apartment, but there's just certain
Speaker 1: parts of their life that a conservator will handle, right. So, um,
Speaker 1: the everything I saw is that limited is what you're
Speaker 1: ultimately going for. When you're establishing a conservatorship, you want
Speaker 1: to you want to minimize the number of restrictions necessary
Speaker 1: to help the person through their life while maximizing their
Speaker 1: individual liberties. Yes, so, so when it goes down, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's not supposed to be a one size fits
Speaker 1: all like boom, this person has all control over them.
Speaker 1: It's like how much do you need? How much? How
Speaker 1: much do they need to give up? That's supposed to
Speaker 1: be the goal of a conservatorship hearing Yeah, uh, and
Speaker 1: then you've got Sometimes they're categorized by their length. You
Speaker 1: can have short term, temporary, or permanent. With short term, um,
Speaker 1: usually it's not more than a few months than ninety days,
Speaker 1: and it's because of something that happened. It's an immediate need. Um,
Speaker 1: these can sometimes go down without that formal hearing that
Speaker 1: we were talking about because it is short term and
Speaker 1: and you know, capped off at a certain point. That
Speaker 1: is different than temporary though. Um, temporary can turn into permanent,
Speaker 1: whereas I don't think short term can. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: temporaries where they're like, Okay, this person may get better
Speaker 1: at some point, but we have no idea when. But
Speaker 1: when they do get better, they're gonna want to have
Speaker 1: their life back, So let's just make this temporary. Short
Speaker 1: term is where I saw. I saw that it's frequently
Speaker 1: used for when somebody is going into like drug rehab
Speaker 1: or something like that and they have like a lot
Speaker 1: of plates in the air or a lot of finances. Um.
Speaker 1: Although one of the things that I saw is that
Speaker 1: finances are not supposed to be a reason for conservatorship, right,
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be to help. I'm afraid they'll spend
Speaker 1: all their money. Yes, that's supposed to not be a
Speaker 1: justification for conservatorship. And the problem that I have from
Speaker 1: the outside with Britney Spears conservatorship is that it seems
Speaker 1: to be predicated on that that it's almost like this poor,
Speaker 1: this poor person, her brand grew bigger than her, and
Speaker 1: so to protect the brand from potentially her, you know,
Speaker 1: spending it into the ground or whatever, they placed her
Speaker 1: in conservative conservatorship so that she can't she can't make
Speaker 1: decisions about her own brand, and then that's being kind
Speaker 1: of reflected on her own life. So she's being held
Speaker 1: hostage against well and also being forced to perform. It's
Speaker 1: one of the most bizarre things I think that's ever
Speaker 1: happened in the legal systems, and especially it's nuts that
Speaker 1: it's been ongoing for so long too and so public. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting case. Uh all right, let's take
Speaker 1: a break. Yeah, yeah, alright, no name is Steve's not
Speaker 1: saying nay, what if they've just piped in. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: keep going, keep going, I'm the conservative here. We'll be
Speaker 1: back right after this. Learning's stop with Joshua John Stop.
Speaker 1: If you want to know then you're in luck. Just
Speaker 1: listen up to Chuck Fuson. So, Chuck, there was one
Speaker 1: other type of conservatorship by duration that we didn't mention.
Speaker 1: That is apparently pretty typical, which is permanent. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that. I guess I thought it was self explanatory.
Speaker 1: It's permanent. Go on, well, it's permanent in spirit. Um.
Speaker 1: But you can, as we're seeing now, file to have
Speaker 1: it removed or I don't even know that word I
Speaker 1: coined earlier, unreinstated. I don't even think um, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: re uninstated, so um noninstated. See the whole point of
Speaker 1: coining new words, you gotta be able to use them
Speaker 1: at the you know, drop of the hat. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean you gotta take some practice, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So the reason permanent, though um is so typical,
Speaker 1: and as far as conservatorships goes because most of the
Speaker 1: time when you end up in conservatorship, it's because you
Speaker 1: suffered some sort of very debilitating problem or you've had
Speaker 1: it your whole life, like it's just it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a long term issue that you're dealing with. So you're
Speaker 1: this is a long term solution of permanent conservatorship, right,
Speaker 1: And that really ties hand in hand with kind of
Speaker 1: the next part about how to get one um. It
Speaker 1: is usually almost always because of some sort of mental
Speaker 1: incapacity of some form, whether that's temporary or like you
Speaker 1: said earlier, for a temporary like you know, someone's in
Speaker 1: an accident and there in a coma, but they come
Speaker 1: out of the coma in two weeks and then you know,
Speaker 1: work their way back to good health again and they
Speaker 1: wake up and there like Ricky Lake, we're engaged now, Lake. Wow,
Speaker 1: you really pulled that one out of some thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you. Uh, you know we
Speaker 1: mentioned stuff like dimension Alzheimer's. That is a very very
Speaker 1: common case um for conservator ships. Or if you have,
Speaker 1: like you said, from birth, if you have some sort
Speaker 1: of um, permanent disability, um, no matter how that came about,
Speaker 1: then that's you know, oftentimes like parents or some other
Speaker 1: family member just from the time you're a kid, had
Speaker 1: that conservatorship. Yeah, and and basically there's like a two
Speaker 1: pronged tests to applying a conservatorship. I'm gonna say it
Speaker 1: correctly the first time one of these one of these
Speaker 1: times in this episode, I can't even say conservatives I can't.
Speaker 1: That's great. Check. Um, so is the person unable to
Speaker 1: basically meet their own basic needs like care for themselves,
Speaker 1: feed themselves, that kind of stuff, um, in which case
Speaker 1: there would be a conservatorship of the person where you
Speaker 1: can make like medical decisions for them, maybe living arrangements,
Speaker 1: like decide if they're going to live in a long
Speaker 1: term care facility something like that, or and or um.
Speaker 1: Can they make decisions for themselves which are um sound
Speaker 1: financially like can they understand a contract that they're signing.
Speaker 1: Can they understand that if they, you know, buy this house,
Speaker 1: that they have to pay this amount of money or
Speaker 1: something like. And if they can't do either or both
Speaker 1: of those things, then a conservatorship might be just the
Speaker 1: thing to kind of help them make it through life,
Speaker 1: especially again if they have um substantial wealth or if
Speaker 1: they are just totally unable to care for themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know the way this goes down ideally and
Speaker 1: I think more typically than what we're seeing in Britney
Speaker 1: Spears cases. You know, medical records are presented there, the
Speaker 1: probate or family court is handling this, the conservaty is
Speaker 1: either understands and goes along with it because they know
Speaker 1: it's for their own good or um isn't you know,
Speaker 1: it is clearly not capable, which is why they need
Speaker 1: the conservatory to to begin with of making these decisions.
Speaker 1: And again, it's just super rare for this kind of
Speaker 1: case where someone is having something done seemingly against their will,
Speaker 1: kind of from the kid go yeah, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: for the most for the most part, if you're in
Speaker 1: a conservatorship, like you might not even be conscious, you
Speaker 1: might have no idea that you're under a conservatorship. Um,
Speaker 1: you might not be able to work or hold down
Speaker 1: a job or remember to feed yourself. You're certainly not
Speaker 1: going on world tour and releasing four albums, two of
Speaker 1: which go platinum, and then maintaining a Vegas residency and
Speaker 1: generating a hundred thirty million dollars in income over you know,
Speaker 1: ten thirteen years something like that. It just makes it's
Speaker 1: just so bizarre. It's so bizarre. And I have to say, also,
Speaker 1: one other thing, I don't want to give the impression
Speaker 1: that I'm just like a like a hashtag free Brittany person.
Speaker 1: Like I understand that those people have um just the
Speaker 1: best intentions, and my hat is off to them. But
Speaker 1: I also think it's very very wise to remember, like
Speaker 1: we're seeing all this from the outside, most of the
Speaker 1: court documents involved are sealed and so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like t leaf reading and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what's really going on here. And it's it's entirely possible
Speaker 1: that that this conservatorship has kind of helped Brittany. Like
Speaker 1: the people who defend who been involved and defend it, say,
Speaker 1: you know, she had a couple of million dollars left
Speaker 1: some of the worst people in the world surrounding her. Um,
Speaker 1: her money was going fast, her brand was starting to go,
Speaker 1: and now she's worth like sixty to eighty million dollars.
Speaker 1: She's back on top. She doesn't have a bunch of
Speaker 1: scummy people hanging around her UM. And then the scummy
Speaker 1: people are like no, these people came in and wrestled
Speaker 1: control of Brittany's own life and now they're in charge
Speaker 1: of her and they're they're builking her for money. So
Speaker 1: it's it's really impossible to tell who to trust at
Speaker 1: this point in time. So I think it's it's wise
Speaker 1: to to at least keep something of an open mind,
Speaker 1: even if it seems totally on the surface like this,
Speaker 1: this pop star is being held prisoner in public. You know, well,
Speaker 1: when you need those TV's ready, you know, you get
Speaker 1: hold on hold on. I don't know, you get run
Speaker 1: in Pharaoh. That's right, Frank Sinatra Jr. That's right? Is no,
Speaker 1: he's junior junior right? Oh well, I'm he supposedly no,
Speaker 1: I mean he's supposedly what the Allan's son? But that's right.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not the first person. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a big thing online, like come on,
Speaker 1: that's that's Frank's kid. Sure, but who knows supposedly not?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, we're just hitting the celebrity beat
Speaker 1: all over the place. Uh do you remember kids beat
Speaker 1: on Nickelodeon? Ye see you next. That popped into my
Speaker 1: head the other day out of nowhere, and I was like,
Speaker 1: did I just make that up? That was a thing though,
Speaker 1: h yeah, I I don't remember anything but that catchphrase.
Speaker 1: That's same here here, nothing else. Maybe we had a
Speaker 1: group hallucination. It's possible, like the Bear and Stain bears.
Speaker 1: Uh oh yeah, that's right. What's that called? Uh yeah? Alright?
Speaker 1: So uh in her case in California and this House
Speaker 1: to Works article that we got a lot of this
Speaker 1: from highlights this um it is different in every state
Speaker 1: with with a lot of legalities like this, So it
Speaker 1: will differ depending on where you are. But in California
Speaker 1: they have something called the Judicial Council of California's Handbook
Speaker 1: for Conservatories, where it does lay out about a dozen
Speaker 1: rights of someone like Britney Spears, which one of which
Speaker 1: is they can directly receive their salary. So supposedly she
Speaker 1: like it's it's not like the checks getting written to
Speaker 1: Jamie Spears and he doles it out. Supposedly, by law,
Speaker 1: she is receiving her salary. Still, oh oh that's not
Speaker 1: at all what I heard. Oh really, she has her
Speaker 1: living expenses met and they total about four hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars a year um. So she has
Speaker 1: everything she wants, but she doesn't pay for anything herself.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that doesn't mean that the check isn't
Speaker 1: made out in her name. Oh no, no, no, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you're right, you're right. But the whole, the whole, her
Speaker 1: dad doling it out. That's yeah. Yeah. What I'm just
Speaker 1: saying is is like the check doesn't come name, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's all it's all in her name. Still, the right
Speaker 1: to receive calls and mail and see people. Uh, you
Speaker 1: can change your will Um, legally, you can get married,
Speaker 1: you can hire your own lawyer, which was has been
Speaker 1: a big bone of contention with the Britney Spears case
Speaker 1: because she had this court appointed lawyer for many, many
Speaker 1: years until very recently when she was finally like, can
Speaker 1: I at least hire my own person? And the whole
Speaker 1: Free Brittany crew has basically been like that that lawyer
Speaker 1: is chummy with her dad, like he's working for her
Speaker 1: dad rather than her you know. Um, so yeah, it
Speaker 1: might have been. That's why at the beginning I was saying,
Speaker 1: like she might finally be getting out from under this
Speaker 1: conservatorship because she has a new lawyer of her own choosing.
Speaker 1: There's a new sheriff in town, there is, and everybody's
Speaker 1: running for the hills. Uh. What we're seeing play out
Speaker 1: now or another couple of things on the list the
Speaker 1: request to either change conservators or in the conservatorship, they
Speaker 1: are allowed to out, Um, they're allowed to control their
Speaker 1: own allowance, but it doesn't you know that very clearly
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they're allowed to establish their own allowance, yeah,
Speaker 1: or what the amount is or anything. Yeah. Uh, their
Speaker 1: medical decisions and business transactions are should be under their
Speaker 1: control and uh was there one more UM. So basically,
Speaker 1: anything you're allowed to do at the at the beginning
Speaker 1: of it the conservatorship, you should be able to throw out. UM.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of things in there that that
Speaker 1: and that was I think California's rights, right, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this is a California case. She's under a California conservatorship,
Speaker 1: so all of those should very much apply to her. UM.
Speaker 1: But she has said recently that like her father won't
Speaker 1: let her get married, he decides who she can date
Speaker 1: or not date. And again I don't think that's that's legal,
Speaker 1: but I think he can threaten like um uh um,
Speaker 1: not just visitation like UM, restraining orders. He can take
Speaker 1: out restraining orders in her name against whomever he deems
Speaker 1: um like inappropriate, and I guess can demonstrate to the
Speaker 1: court that this person might be a bad influence on
Speaker 1: her UM and that that that's probably how he is
Speaker 1: has been able to decide who she dates or doesn't
Speaker 1: date because she wants to marry a dude right now,
Speaker 1: she says, and have more kids. And the other big
Speaker 1: the really truly shocking revelation that she she revealed recently
Speaker 1: is that she has an I U d that her
Speaker 1: father won't let her remove she can't have kids, so
Speaker 1: her reproductive rights are being infringed upon under this conservatorship,
Speaker 1: and that is a very big deal. Yeah. And again
Speaker 1: this is the kind of stuff where there's there's two
Speaker 1: two sides talking and we don't know the real truth
Speaker 1: on the inside. But at the very least, like when
Speaker 1: an accusation like that big is is levied, you have to,
Speaker 1: as a I would think as the court, have to
Speaker 1: look into that kind of thing. Yeah. And there there
Speaker 1: have been court appointed in instigators before um, and one
Speaker 1: of them I read concluded like she should probably not
Speaker 1: be under this conservatorship anymore. It wasn't like you know,
Speaker 1: they joined the Free Brittany crowd or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but like that was their report and their recommendation. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's like you're saying, you know, we're seeing this
Speaker 1: from the outside. So like the people who who are
Speaker 1: on the inside in this conservatorship point out, like you know,
Speaker 1: she wasn't worth very much, um then and she's now,
Speaker 1: so she's kind of thriving under this arrangement, which is
Speaker 1: apparently a way that a conservators somebody could end up
Speaker 1: in a conservatorship for the rest of the life, thriving
Speaker 1: under the conservatorship, and then conversely, if you struggle under
Speaker 1: the conservatorship and have a really hard time, that can
Speaker 1: be used as evidence that you need to be under
Speaker 1: the conservatorship as well. So you kind of get this
Speaker 1: impression that it's like a if you're if you're like
Speaker 1: a with it, person able to make your own decisions,
Speaker 1: and you find yourself in a conservatorship, you probably feel
Speaker 1: like you're just totally out of your mind and just
Speaker 1: can't believe this is happening to it sounds nightmarish. If
Speaker 1: if if it's like as bad as from what Brittany
Speaker 1: is saying it is, you know, well yeah, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure she's in a case where she's trying to establish
Speaker 1: something a little more nuanced, like emotional well being, rather
Speaker 1: than like someone can a judge can say, look at
Speaker 1: all this money you've made since this has happened, and
Speaker 1: you know it's there's a lot more to it than that, though,
Speaker 1: it's to be a whole human well that's another thing
Speaker 1: too though. So the original co conservator, along with Jamie Spears,
Speaker 1: Brittany's father was a guy named Andrew Wallett and he
Speaker 1: was court appointed. Terrible name for a conservator, terrible, like
Speaker 1: he should have just been like, I can't be a
Speaker 1: conservator because of my last name. But he was Andrew C. O. D.
Speaker 1: And he was for many many many years actually, and
Speaker 1: actually it was under under his conservatorship or co conservatorship
Speaker 1: that she kind of like came back and started working
Speaker 1: again and um started making money again. Uh, and I
Speaker 1: guess kind of thrived at least as a business um.
Speaker 1: And he was basically run out of the conservatorship on
Speaker 1: a rail because he asked for a salary towards the
Speaker 1: end of four hundred and twenty six thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of money. The thing is, his
Speaker 1: point was like, look, if you're a conservator, basically under
Speaker 1: normal circumstances, you're just kind of keeping up with somebody's
Speaker 1: quiet life, one one everyday person and their quiet life
Speaker 1: and their little finances and making sure they're taken care of.
Speaker 1: As as conservator of Britney Spears, the state, he was
Speaker 1: like running basically a international business that had all these
Speaker 1: fingers and all these pots. And he said, most people
Speaker 1: who are in that position make millions of dollars a year.
Speaker 1: I'm asking for four d so like that to me
Speaker 1: was a real reminder, like, oh yeah, there's actually two
Speaker 1: sides of this coin, Like this is an unusual situation
Speaker 1: for anybody. Um, and it kind of makes sense in
Speaker 1: that respect, although if you look at the normal amount
Speaker 1: that it can would would charge for their time. Um,
Speaker 1: he was asking for a lot. Actually, yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: a good point as far as your obligation as conservator
Speaker 1: you uh, And again put Britney Spears aside for a second,
Speaker 1: and these ideal situations, they are genuinely taking care of
Speaker 1: these people, meeting their daily needs and necessities, making sure
Speaker 1: all their bills are paid and their checkbook is balanced,
Speaker 1: and you know, they don't go in the whole financially. Um.
Speaker 1: The big hooking point here, though, is is that if
Speaker 1: you're a financial conservator, you're not supposed to be using
Speaker 1: that person's money for your own benefit. Like you said,
Speaker 1: you are allowed to take a salary, and it says
Speaker 1: in this article somewhere between forty and a hundred dollars
Speaker 1: per hour, which means Jamie Spears uh is taking a
Speaker 1: hundred dollars per hour at forty hours a week. Because
Speaker 1: he's getting sixteen thousand dollars a month and that that's
Speaker 1: what it comes to, like the basically the top rate
Speaker 1: at forty hours per week, which when you look at that,
Speaker 1: I mean if that he, like you said, though, he
Speaker 1: also gets a cut of her stuff, um to play
Speaker 1: devil's advocate. He is taking a salary commisserate with what
Speaker 1: a conservator historically can take. Yeah, so Andrew Walllett, if
Speaker 1: you look at it from the from the perspective, well
Speaker 1: he's a conservator and not actually like running the business,
Speaker 1: then he'd yeah, he'd have to work more than eighty
Speaker 1: hours a week, fifty weeks a year at a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars an hour. But again his point was, this isn't
Speaker 1: a normal conservatorship. This is running the Britney spears in
Speaker 1: multinational enterprise for her benefit, you know. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: you're the conservatory, you also you know you're gonna at
Speaker 1: some point probably have to answer to the court, especially
Speaker 1: in some case like this. So you've gotta have all
Speaker 1: your ducks in a row, you've got to keep receipts,
Speaker 1: and you've got to have a paper trail to kind
Speaker 1: of back up everything. You can't just waltz in there
Speaker 1: and say like, trust me, everything's going fine. Um, supposedly
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to have pretty robust records for kind
Speaker 1: of every financial decision you're making on behalf of your
Speaker 1: conservative So that's ideally, Um, now we reached the reality
Speaker 1: and that's this is one good thing of Britney spears
Speaker 1: um uh conservatorship and all the light she's shining on
Speaker 1: conservatorship abuse right now is like this is an issue
Speaker 1: in normal, like non celebrity society where people can get
Speaker 1: preyed upon by basically a professional conservator um. And there's
Speaker 1: a General Accounting Office report that basically said, the states
Speaker 1: have no idea how many people, how many of its
Speaker 1: citizens or residents are under conservatorship right now, how much
Speaker 1: money is being held in conservatorship right now. They might
Speaker 1: have a good idea in some cases, and other cases
Speaker 1: they have no idea. And as part of the report,
Speaker 1: the g a O basically made up UM identities in
Speaker 1: like four different states around the country and applied for
Speaker 1: conservatorship and they were granted in all four cases. Are
Speaker 1: all four states conservatorship to to be to go out
Speaker 1: and be a conservator to a stranger and take control
Speaker 1: of some strangers finances as part of like as their career,
Speaker 1: and the states didn't check their background, didn't run their
Speaker 1: social Security numbers, didn't do a credit check, didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: They just basically rubber stamped it. Like this person wants
Speaker 1: to be a conservator. There you go. You're a state
Speaker 1: licensed conservator now, who can go take control of the
Speaker 1: finances of someone who's never even met you before? And like,
Speaker 1: in that respect, this is ripe for abuse. This is
Speaker 1: the kind of situation where a judge is morally obligated
Speaker 1: to give as much attention to to each case as
Speaker 1: needed to make sure hundred and ten percent sure that
Speaker 1: the person under conservatorship is not being exploited, is not
Speaker 1: being taken advantage of financially, is not being kept I
Speaker 1: think they call it isolated UM, medicated and liquidated UM
Speaker 1: and kept away from their family and their loved ones UM.
Speaker 1: It can be a nightmare unless the court is overseeing
Speaker 1: this properly, and apparently in all cases they don't, which
Speaker 1: is just unconscionable, and judges who dropped the ball on
Speaker 1: that should be run out of town right into jail themselves.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break. Thanks, thanks for me,
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll be back right after this to talk
Speaker 1: about where how you can end these things and some
Speaker 1: legislation that might could help as well right after this.
Speaker 1: If you want to know, then you're in luck. Just
Speaker 1: listen to Chuck Shon. Alright, so I mentioned before we
Speaker 1: get into how you can terminate this. Uh, this sort
Speaker 1: of dovetails with with your uh, with your great soapbox
Speaker 1: moment right before the break. If I may say, uh,
Speaker 1: there's legislation as of um, about an hour and a
Speaker 1: half ago. I read this on New York Times. Wait
Speaker 1: a minute, it was published an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: Where you just read it an hour a half ago.
Speaker 1: It was published an hour and a half ago. Wow,
Speaker 1: that is late breaking for stuff. You should know. This
Speaker 1: is super late breaking. Uh. Two members of the House
Speaker 1: UH co sponsored. And you know when you see these
Speaker 1: bills co sponsored on both sides of the aisles for
Speaker 1: these kind of smaller bills, that's when you know that
Speaker 1: government can work. Was it was it? Senator Lance Bass
Speaker 1: and Senator Joey Fatone. That's good you uh. Coast answers. Rep.
Speaker 1: Charlie Christ Democrat of Florida and Nancy Mace Republican from
Speaker 1: South Carolina legislation that if they passed, it would create,
Speaker 1: um a pathway for Britney Spears and other people to
Speaker 1: replace their private guardian or conservator. So it basically um
Speaker 1: it argues for more accountability. It argues UM that UM
Speaker 1: that we need more data on this stuff. Like you
Speaker 1: were saying, how like no one knows how much money
Speaker 1: is tied up in this, No one knows how many
Speaker 1: people are trying to get out of these There's just
Speaker 1: like it's it's shockingly Uh. I don't want to just
Speaker 1: say willie nilly because that's probably not fair, but understudied
Speaker 1: at least, Yeah, under observed for sure. So uh, as
Speaker 1: of now, in order to get out of a conservatorship,
Speaker 1: you have to prove fraud or abuse that that is
Speaker 1: has occurred to have that be replaced. And this bill
Speaker 1: would kind of roll that back and say it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to be abuse or fraud. It could just
Speaker 1: be that they don't aren't comfortable with it, their emotional
Speaker 1: well being is not being met or whatever, and just
Speaker 1: to make it a little bit easier to free someone
Speaker 1: up from these conservatorships. And so we'll see that was
Speaker 1: there was one a few years ago in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: that didn't get beyond the House Judiciary Committee. But everyone's
Speaker 1: kind of thinking with all this attention right now because
Speaker 1: the Britney Spears case, that they might have a little
Speaker 1: momentum to get something like that done. Oh yeah, big time.
Speaker 1: Like there's called the Free Act. By the way, Uh,
Speaker 1: they appreciate the acronyms freedom now freedom and Right to
Speaker 1: Emancipate from Exploitation Act. Okay, all right, I I can
Speaker 1: respect like bending over backwards a little bit to make
Speaker 1: that work. That was all right, okay, I think Chuck. Also,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why they um, they have aired
Speaker 1: to this point on the side of making it more
Speaker 1: difficult to remove a conservatore is because they've kind of, um,
Speaker 1: there's like a this maybe a suspicion that you know,
Speaker 1: you could have a fight or a falling out or
Speaker 1: something like that over something totally unrelated to the conservatorship,
Speaker 1: and you know, the person could be Now, the person
Speaker 1: could be like, that's it, you're not my conservatory more,
Speaker 1: I want you out of my life or whatever. And
Speaker 1: the person might be great as their conservator um, and
Speaker 1: it might be a really good conservatorship, but it just
Speaker 1: you know, there was that that moment or that following out,
Speaker 1: So in that sense it should be made difficult. But
Speaker 1: then on the other hand, it's like, is that really
Speaker 1: the way we should be airing. Should we be airing toward,
Speaker 1: you know, away from the rights and the desires of
Speaker 1: the person who's whose life and responsibilities for their life
Speaker 1: has been taken away from them, Like, shouldn't that shouldn't
Speaker 1: they at least have the right to choose who's calling
Speaker 1: the shots for them, who's making those decisions for them.
Speaker 1: And I think ultimately I kind of leaned towards the
Speaker 1: the rights of the individual. Yeah, I mean, it also
Speaker 1: makes you wonder about, you know, if they're let's say
Speaker 1: there's no kids involved and it's a case of, um,
Speaker 1: someone of using drugs or something like. It is an
Speaker 1: interesting slippery slope to think about whether an adult has
Speaker 1: a right to throw their life away and and make
Speaker 1: bad decisions, or whether or not it should be legal
Speaker 1: for someone to be able to step in and save somebody.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's just really I don't even know how
Speaker 1: I feel about. It's just an interesting thought experiment. I
Speaker 1: came across something called the right to risk, where basically
Speaker 1: it's exactly what they just said, like everybody has the
Speaker 1: right to just blow it completely, including a fortune, including fame,
Speaker 1: including um, you know, alienating loved ones, doing whatever you
Speaker 1: want to ruin your own life, that you have that
Speaker 1: that right. But I think the law recognizes that there
Speaker 1: are some some mental states that a person can can
Speaker 1: enter to where they wouldn't otherwise want to do those things.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what the people under who are
Speaker 1: running Brittany's conservatorship are saying that, like Brittany isn't capable
Speaker 1: of keeping people who would unduly influence her to to
Speaker 1: throw her life away at bay. She can't keep those
Speaker 1: people at bay. She doesn't understand the documents as she's signing,
Speaker 1: and then there's whispers and or like hushed rumors of
Speaker 1: like no, the real reason she'll probably be in a
Speaker 1: permanent conservatorship is because there's some diagnosed mental illness that
Speaker 1: is just sealed because it's a medical record. Um, and
Speaker 1: that that's kind of like what gets leaked out on
Speaker 1: the conservatorship side. So UM, I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: having like uh an attorney that is of her choosing
Speaker 1: who's sharp that is working for her and her alone
Speaker 1: getting into this and really finding out what's what and
Speaker 1: going into court. Um, I think that that would be Uh,
Speaker 1: that's a I think that will be a really I'm
Speaker 1: interested to see what the outcome of that is. I
Speaker 1: don't see how that couldn't be a good step at
Speaker 1: least to have more investigation done by someone of her choosing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because for years, apparently her big problem was not with
Speaker 1: being under conservatorship. It was her dad being the conservator
Speaker 1: and so he was co conservators with a couple of people,
Speaker 1: and she apparently even was fine with one of them
Speaker 1: for a little while, but then um, they resigned because
Speaker 1: she said she wasn't fine with them any longer. And
Speaker 1: then now it's just back to her dad being in
Speaker 1: total soul control. So I wonder if, like, if her
Speaker 1: dad is forced out and it's just strictly like lawyers
Speaker 1: and fiduciaries who are in charge of her conservatorship, if
Speaker 1: she would be like, no, this is fine, I'm fine
Speaker 1: with this. I wonder, Uh, it's gonna be interesting to
Speaker 1: see what happens with that and this legislation as they
Speaker 1: kind of go hand in hand. Absolutely, do you got
Speaker 1: anything else. I got nothing else. I do want to
Speaker 1: shout out my pal Babs Gray Barbera Gray and Tess
Speaker 1: Barker are two comedians in l A. And they were
Speaker 1: in that documentary and have Champion in Britney's case for
Speaker 1: a while. And they have a new podcast out and
Speaker 1: it's called They had one called Britney's Graham Brittany's Instagram
Speaker 1: the podcast but down. They have a new one called
Speaker 1: Toxic Colon. And boy, if we get our new uh
Speaker 1: Colan barbershop quartet interned there, that'd be great. The Britney
Speaker 1: Spears story, so that's getting a lot of its interest
Speaker 1: right now. Cool. Yeah, they're all over the place right now,
Speaker 1: so big ups, big ups. Uh. If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about Conservatorships and Brittney Spears and Lance Bass,
Speaker 1: well you can just start searching the internet and jump
Speaker 1: down that rabbit hole see what happens. And since I
Speaker 1: said that, it's time, of course for a listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this cool job that I've never heard of.
Speaker 1: This is from one of our Irish friends. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I love this one. Hey, guys. First things first, thanks
Speaker 1: for a really great podcast. I've been listening every day
Speaker 1: since my first day as a delivery driver five years
Speaker 1: ago in Dublin, Ireland. It's been the week driving all
Speaker 1: over the country and you've been my companions. Uh. Last
Speaker 1: week I came across the episode Jobs from a Bygone Era,
Speaker 1: a classic, and I wanted to share with you a
Speaker 1: job my great grandfather did that definitely applies. He worked
Speaker 1: in Dublin City as a knocker upper and I was like,
Speaker 1: wait what. A knocker upper was a job that existed
Speaker 1: at a time after the Industrial Revolution, but before alarm
Speaker 1: clocks were widely available to the poorest that filled the
Speaker 1: factories with workers for a tiny weekly fee. A knocker
Speaker 1: upper was employed to knock on doors or tap on windows.
Speaker 1: It's like a wake up call in a hotel. Basically,
Speaker 1: they usually used to poll or a long stick or
Speaker 1: bamboo to tap on the bedroom windows. There's great picks
Speaker 1: online of a famous lady in London using a pea shooter. Uh.
Speaker 1: My great grandfather though it was an even rarer breed
Speaker 1: as he was known as a knocker uppers knocker upper.
Speaker 1: He was employed by the other knocker ruppers to wake
Speaker 1: them up wow, so they could go and wake up
Speaker 1: the customers all over the city. Eventually they were all
Speaker 1: put out of business when the country went electric. People
Speaker 1: learn clocks hit the market, but they were snapshot in
Speaker 1: time and provided much needed service. I wanted to share
Speaker 1: this little bit of social history with you guys after
Speaker 1: everything you've given me. Look forward to a live show
Speaker 1: in Ireland sometime. Uh, Mike, we'd love to come back
Speaker 1: to Ireland. We did did that show and that was
Speaker 1: fun Dublin and it was one of the best. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a pretty great email, Mike, thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Um Hey, I have a little anecdote about knocked up,
Speaker 1: about knocked up. Yeah, so when Yumi was little, she
Speaker 1: thought knocked up meant you were in trouble, like you
Speaker 1: were grounded. Yeah, and um it led to at least
Speaker 1: one case of hilarity with her dad asking where her
Speaker 1: friend was and you me, so she's knocked up. She
Speaker 1: came up dead. It's like, what can't come out for
Speaker 1: a nine months? Is like, yeah, this is like nine
Speaker 1: or ten years old, I think. So. Thanks Mike, thanks
Speaker 1: little you me uh, and thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 1: like Mike did, you can send us an email to
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.