Notes From the Field
Hello everybody! This week we’re dealing with two bigger stories: some updates on Caroline Calloway and some updates on the Britney Spears conservatorship. So this edition is an official edition of “For Your Updates.”
If you’re waiting on my recaps from Élite season 4, just hang tight. I promise I will actually get those out soon. I don’t have any real excuse, but you can just take me at my word (for once).
And without any further ado, let’s get into it!
Calloway Corner
Calloway Corner is a recurring segment in which I highlight what scam goddess Caroline Calloway has been up to.
On June 30th, our queen Caroline Calloway was up to some good. She went on a glorious rampage about her ex, Lyall Stuart, recounting his (alleged) “fuckboy” ways.
Our girl and another ex of Lyall’s had linked up via Instagram. This ex informed Caroline that she and Lyall had been together for five months before Lyall met Caroline. You can see Caroline’s summary of the events below.
Caroline met up with the girl and they had dinner together. Once there, they both pieced together what they found to be a pattern of manipulative and creepy behavior. Lyall’s 26, the girl said she was 20. That is enough to sketch most people out. As it would turn out, the girl was actually 17 and had lied about her age. But Lyall stayed with her when she came clean.
Caroline continued to share stories from other girls who’ve had the displeasure of interacting with Lyall over the years. It turns out, he’s just plain rotten.
Now one person commented that Caroline was sensationalizing this girl’s trauma and like…fair enough. This wasn’t done with a high level of journalistic integrity (granted, neither is my reporting on the matter). But Caroline isn’t known for razor-sharp precision, rather hacksawing away at whatever ends up at her digital workstation.
This instance of digital exposure is interesting for Caroline. She’s usually shameless and fun; intellectually playful, while still by many standards not street smart. But this was a new side from her. It could’ve been handled better and she certainly stands to gain from sharing this information, but it’s much more of a public service than most of her other work. So, good on her.
Of course less than 48 hours later she compared herself to Bill Cosby because she’s so “cancelled.” So at the end of the day, it all cancels out…right?
Outside of this shit, she also hosted a party themed around the film Bad Lieutenant, for which she was shadowed by journalists at The Cut. And in attendance were Mid-Atlantic accent- and vocal fry- wielding Tiktoker Glamdemon2004 and writer and socialite, Cat Marnell and some other socialites-until-proven-normal people.
Caroline also recorded the audiobook for Scammer and started her New York Magazine newsletter. She’s been grinding, which means I’ll certainly have more to say about her soon enough.
The Britney of it All (Again)
The __ of it All is a mainstay of the mixed bag newsletters in which I dive deep into a pop culture story or phenomenon and break it down for those who didn’t do the required reading.
This is an update, but it’s an important topic.
What is a conservatorship? A conservatorship is when a judge appoints a responsible guardian (the conservator) to manage financial affairs and daily life of someone who has been deemed unfit to manage their own life (the conservatee). This is often done for elderly and incapacitated people. Because of this, more often than not those placed under conservatorships die under conservatorships.
Why was Britney placed in a conservatorship? Britney Spears was placed in a conservatorship in 2008 after her very public “breakdown” in 2007. At the time, she was undergoing immense stress and grief, dealing with intense media scrutiny, addiction, unfettered paparazzi, the death of her aunt, and a pretty public divorce.
Britney was initially placed in a conservatorship because her family (and management) were concerned that she was not well enough to handle her own affairs at the time. And at the time, this decision made sense. Britney was not doing well, yet she still had to manage a multi-billion dollar estate. That kind of money is difficult for anyone to manage, let alone someone in desperate need of mental health support.
Now things get complicated when we think more critically about conservatorships and what their purpose is. They are designed for incapacitated people.
Britney was incapacitated back then, but has she remained that way? Well, Britney has continued to work tirelessly throughout the duration of her conservatorship. She has somehow managed to make music, perform in a Vegas residency, perform in a variety of sold-out shows, and even judge a competition reality show. It’s hard to imagine calling someone who has worked as hard as Britney “incapacitated.”
For years things proceeded as usual. Britney worked and her father and another co-conservator managed her life.
But things started to gain some interesting momentum in 2019. Britney had a colon rupture and cancelled her Vegas residency indefinitely. This was not like our work-horse, Britney. And by March, 2019 one of Britney’s conservators had resigned from his role, leaving the management of Britney’s life and financial affairs in the hands of her father.
Then a podcast called Britney’s Grams truly galvanized the #FreeBritney movement.
What’s the deal with #FreeBritney? The #FreeBritney movement started in 2019 when a voicemail from someone claiming to be a former member of the Spears legal team alleged several details regarding Britney’s conservatorship, including that it prevented her from driving, was supposed to end in 2009, and that it even had placed Britney in an involuntary hold. That last detail would be the alleged true reason that Britney’s residency had been cancelled. (You can see this for yourself below)
One of the chief concerns of the #FreeBritney movement has been the involvement of Britney’s father, Jamie Spears. He was, for a time, in charge of Britney’s finances as her conservator. And they expressed concerns that he was robbing her of her money. (Remember, she works a lot; she makes a lot of money).
But even when Jamie Spears relinquished his role as conservator of Britney’s conservatorship, the #FreeBritney movement persisted. The movement has long speculated over other ways in which Britney’s situation prevented her from leading a normal life, ranging from realistic predictions of her condition as a conservatee to some rather radical and conspiratorial ideas that I won’t be aggregating here.
They’ve commented all over Britney’s social media for years trying to goad her into signaling to them that she needs help. You can find comments on nearly all of her videos on Instagram and Tiktok with some variation of “wear red in the next video if you need help.”
Whether Britney wears red or complies in any other way with the conspiratorial plans of her fans, they don’t give up. They want to spread awareness and in a sense, they certainly have.
So where does this leave Britney? In December, 2019, Britney officially began the proceedings to contest her conservatorship. This was met with a lot of backlash from her friends and family (and management). But…that’s not really shocking. If they’ve benefited from her being in a conservatorship (allegedly), they could stand to lose a thing or two from her ending her conservatorship.
Even still, everyone agreed that Britney was in fact doing better. But the party line was that ending the conservatorship could make things very challenging for Britney. And in a sense, that’s true. She would once again be in control of her life and managing one’s life is hard.
But the thing is if she needed help and she was in charge of her life (ie out of the conservatorship), she could find her own lawyers, make her own appointments, get her own financial planner. Under her conservatorship, that was all left to her conservator. So to an outsider, if she wanted out and could prove that she could handle it, it would only be a positive thing for Britney.
In the summer of 2020, Britney sought to change the arrangement of her conservatorship, mainly to remove her father as her conservator. Jamie Spears is problematic for a variety of reasons, whether or not you believe that he is stealing from Britney. Without actually taking her money he can still benefit from her working. Oh…and he’s notoriously Not a Good Guy (her children have a restraining order against him).
But despite Britney’s wishes and the general vibe of Jamie Spears, the court ruled that it would remain in tact until 2021. However, Britney was granted a new co-conservator in the bank Bessemer Trust, despite her father’s objections. This partially satisfied Britney’s desire to not have her father manage her finances.
But just last week, Britney finally spoke out. She was able to share her own thoughts on her conservatorship for the first time. She courageously recounted what it’s been like living with her life controlled by other people while still working tirelessly for 13 years. She even described the ways in which her legal team failed to tell her how she could even go about making any real change in her situation. She also recounted that her conservators made her get an IUD so she couldn’t get pregnant and start a family (as she so wants to do).
In no uncertain terms, Britney asked for the court to end her conservatorship. And in the judge ruled once again that she could not remove Jamie Spears as conservator of Britney’s conservatorship.
However, the judge told Britney that she could file a petition to terminate the conservatorship, to which Britney responded, “I didn't know I could petition the conservatorship to end it. I'm sorry for my ignorance, but I honestly didn't know that.” That’s how in the dark her team has kept her (allegedly).
Britney will have another hearing on July 14th and she can file the petition at that time if she pleases. It looks like there may be a long road ahead of us but hopefully there will be justice. And so I say this with no hesitation, #FreeBritney.
A farewell
If you liked this, laughed at this, hated this, whatever, please subscribe and read on in the future. I put out long mixed-bag pop culture newsletters like this twice a month and other content ranging from deep-dives to personal essays, playlists, and TV recaps on the off-weeks.
Thank you so much for reading!
I love you (allegedly).
✓