Following Britney Spears’ confessional conservatorship hearing last week, Dionne Warwick is offering up some words of consolation for the pop star and condemning her “13 years of bondage.”
In a two-and-a-half-minute Twitter video posted Wednesday (June 30), the 80-year-old superstar ruminates on the details of Spears’ testimony to Los Angeles County Superior Court exactly one week ago. “My heart goes out to Britney Spears. It really does,” Warwick started. “I feel her pain. How in the world could anyone endure what she has been enduring?”
While Spears likened the court conservatorship that has controlled her life and career over the last 13 years to sex trafficking, Warwick precisely described it as “13 years of bondage” that should not be recognized in 2021. Warwick instead recognized the physical work Spears has put into her decades-long career for her fans to feel the “joy” she cannot.
“Do you realize the amount of work this young lady puts in to bring you joy? Remembering all of those words to the songs she has to sing, the combination of the dances she has to do, getting up at the crack of dawn to do exercises, getting her body and keeping it in shape to make you feel good?” she said. “And what is it that we feel she is not able to have that kind of joy and feel good to herself. How fair is that?”
During the court hearing last Wednesday, the 39-year-old singer explained how she was forced in 2018 to tour and do another Vegas residency with no break in between. “I rehearsed four days a week. Half of the time in the studio and a half of the other time in a Westlake studio,” Spears stated. “I was basically directing most of the show. I actually did most of the choreography, meaning I taught my dancers my new choreography myself.”
In an Instagram video prior to the hearing, Spears revealed she’s unsure if she’ll ever perform again. Her attorney Samuel D. Ingham III said in court last November that the pop star “will not perform again” out of fear of her father James Spears, who’s has a central role in the conservatorship. She’s been on an indefinite work hiatus since early 2019.
“Give her back her rights. Give her back her life. Set her free,” Warwick concluded her video message. “Britney, I feel your pain baby. And I totally agree. Enough. It is enough. May God continue to bless and smile upon you, and give you the wherewithal and strength to continue to fight for your freedom.”
Watch her supportive message to Spears below.