Congresswoman Nancy Mace is in Britney Spears’ corner. The South Carolina Republican appeared on Sunday’s Fox News Live to discuss the bipartisan FREE Act, which she co-sponsored with Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist of Florida, and also took the opportunity to share her horror at the alleged abuses the pop star has endured under her 13-year conservatorship.
“I want to thank Britney Spears. It took a lot of courage for her to come forward in a very public way as a celebrity and a public figure, detailing the abuses of her conservatorship just last month in June,” began Mace. “Her situation is a total nightmare, and if it can happen to her of all people, then it can happen to anyone.”
The “Free Britney Act” was introduced July 20 by the two members of the House of Representatives. Mace explained that if it passes, it would allow someone who is under a conservatorship “to petition a judge, petition the court, for an independent or public guardian — someone who can oversee the conservatorship, who doesn’t have a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise.” She noted that at present, there are about 1.3 million people in the country who are under a conservatorship.
She added that “this is not a perfect bill,” but rather “a good start to reforming the conservatorship process.”
Regarding Spears’ case specifically, the congresswoman said she was dismayed by what she heard from the singer’s harrowing June 23 testimony, the first time the star has testified publicly about her conservatorship. “Listen to Britney Spears,” said Mace. “A lot of people are making a lot of money off of her. She’s been working every year since she was in this conservatorship. As a mom, one of the things I was really disturbed by is they’re forcing her on birth control, an IUD, to not allow her to have kids. It’s just really crazy what’s going on. These are things that happen in Communist China, not the United States of America.”
During the conservatorship hearing, Spears told L.A. County Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny that she was forced to work without breaks, not allowed to marry her boyfriend or remove her IUD in order to have more children, was denied any privacy, had no control over her money, and much more, including comparing her conservatorship to sex trafficking. In a second July 14 hearing, the star told the judge that she not only wanted her dad, Jamie Spears, removed from her conservatorship, but also charged with abusing the conservatorship.
After the hearing, Mathew Rosengart, Spears’ new self-selected attorney, told reporters that he and his team are “moving aggressively and expeditiously” to remove Jamie Spears from the conservatorship.
Watch Mace’s interview below:
