Controlling Britney Spears, a follow-up to the documentary Framing Britney Spears, premieres on FX and Hulu Sept. 24 at 10 p.m. ET. The new documentary features new allegations from insiders with knowledge of Spears’ life inside the conservatorship.
Both documentaries are New York Times Presents series.
In a confidential report obtained by The Times, Ms. Spears told a court investigator in 2016 that her conservatorship had become “an oppressive and controlling tool against her.” The new film looks at how the conservatorship has controlled her life. “A portrait emerges of an intense surveillance apparatus that monitored every move she made,” said FX.
Samantha Stark directs and Liz Day is supervising producer and reporter.
“When Britney spoke publicly about her conservatorship in detail for the first time during a court hearing in June, she said a reason she hadn’t spoken up earlier is she didn’t think people would believe her,” Stark said. “She said she felt abused under the conservatorship and questioned whether the judge thought she was lying. Britney’s speech motivated the people in this film to seek us out to share their stories — at great risk to themselves — because they felt compelled to back up what Britney was saying with evidence they had or moments they witnessed.”
The next court hearing for the Spears conservatorship case is scheduled for Sept. 29.
“Britney’s situation raises a lot of important questions about the conservatorship system at large and whether it is working properly,” said Day. “We felt that it was in the public interest to examine that.”
The New York Times Presents is produced by The New York Times and Left/Right, a Red Arrow Studios company. Executive producers are Ken Druckerman, Banks Tarver, Mary Robertson, Jason Stallman, Sam Dolnick and Stephanie Preiss. Robertson is the showrunner.
