The testimony of Britney Spears almost defies belief. In an unconventional but poetic speech before a Los Angeles probate judge on Wednesday, Spears described the shock, trauma and manipulation that has characterized her 13-year indenture to what she alleges is a brutal system of subjugation, medicalization and forced labor.
What came through in her 24-minute psychic catharsis, studded with interruptions by the judge instructing her to slow down, is that Spears has been essentially jailed by a battery of doctors, lawyers, coaches, therapists, directors, producers, interrogators, managers and minders, all of whom are on her own payroll.
“I work for the people whom I pay,” she said, simply.