Britney Spears’ former best friend and assistant Sean Phillip has opened up for the first time about working and living with the pop star prior to her 2008 conservatorship.
Phillip spoke to The Sun about his time near Spears.
He met Spears in 2003 but began working for her as a personal trainer in 2006.
The position, however, quickly morphed, which Phillip says allowed him to see how the singer’s relationship with her father first-hand.
‘Things started becoming uncomfortable when my role turned into a 24-hour job. I was the stylist, I was the babysitter, I was the trainer, I was security, I was the paparazzi liaison officer — begging them to not take pictures of her.
Britney Spears ‘ former best friend and assistant Sean Phillip has opened up for the first time about working and living with the pop star prior to her 2008 conservatorship
Phillip says Jamie Spears had ‘no compassion’ when it came to his daughter, telling The Sun: ‘Jamie only wanted to be Britney’s father when she turned 26 and was a multi-millionaire.’
‘When she started having problems, he came in — but he had no compassion, and just didn’t seem to care about his daughter’s wellbeing.
Sean also claimed that Spears’ finances were being controlled prior to 2008 breakdown which prompted the conservatorship, saying: ‘It was crazy. They took away her credit cards, her phone went, she wasn’t even given the access code to her own house.’
‘All she had financially — and this is long before the s*** hit the fan, this is before the head shaving incident — all she had was a piece of paper with one credit card number on to pay for things.’
‘But she didn’t actually have the card in her hands. It was a black Amex which was assigned to her manager’s business. So we would be left with bills for things that we couldn’t really afford.’
He remembers the star fondly.
‘Britney was just so sweet, kind, loving and fun — and also so much smarter than people gave her credit for.
‘Her meltdown wasn’t because she was crazy. It was because what was happening to her was driving her mad. Jamie was known as a raging alcoholic. He seemed largely indifferent about his daughter.
‘Management wanted to control and manipulate the energy around her. They just wanted to milk their cash cow.’
And Sean said he’s ‘really proud’ of Britney’s fans for kickstarting the Free Britney hashtag which helped bring awareness to the star’s situation.
‘I’m happy for her that she is moving forward in the right direction, because I’ve seen too many other people die.
‘I’m also really proud of her fans for actually moving this forward, because they really have done a lot to get it to where it is today. I do think that at some point Britney did need guidance, but the conservatorship is ridiculous. It’s simply a money grab.’
New lawyer: The songstress will now be represented by former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart. Rosengart is seen on Wednesday in a court sketch, appearing before Judge Brenda Penny in Los Angeles
On Wednesday the singer offered an emotional testimony during the hearing, tearing up as she told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny that she wants her father charged with conservatorship abuse.
‘I want to press charges against my father today,’ Spears said. ‘I want an investigation into my dad.’
Before she spoke, supporters of the #FreeBritney movement gathered outside Los Angeles Supreme Court for the hearing, where the star’s hand-picked attorney Rosengart was appointed to take over her case.
On June 23, Spears told the court: ‘I haven’t really had the opportunity by my own self to actually handpick my own lawyer by myself. And I would like to be able to do that.’
During that same hearing she told Judge Penny that she believed she was not allowed to choose her own attorney.
‘I was on tour in 2018. I was forced to do… My management said if I don’t do this tour, I will have to find an attorney, and by contract my own management could sue me if I didn’t follow through with the tour.
‘He handed me a sheet of paper as I got off the stage in Vegas and said I had to sign it. It was very threatening and scary.
‘And with the conservatorship, I couldn’t even get my own attorney,’ she said.
‘So out of fear, I went ahead and I did the tour.’
Free Britney: Before she spoke, supporters of the #FreeBritney movement gathered outside Los Angeles Supreme Court for the hearing