sketchy wrangling of grown adults

Britney Spears’s Husband Will Be Her Conservator Too

Jason Trawick (L) and Britney Spears arrive at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) August 28, 2011 at the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, California. AFP PHOTO / Frederic J. Brown (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN/2011 AFP

Here’s an awkward follow-up for anyone who wished Britney Spears a heartfelt congrats on her engagement to manager Jason Trawick: Trawick will soon, er, as People puts it, “share legal control over Britney Spears.” Forty-year-old Trawick will join Spears’s father Jamie and attorney Andrew Wallet as co-conservator over all things Britney. “Trawick will only have shared legal control over Spears’s general well being — not her finances,” according to People’s source. Oh. Wait, more? “In general, a conservator can make decisions over a person’s food, clothing and medical care. But Spears has plenty of personal freedom and the conservatorship is just a formality, another source previously told People.”

It’s a “formality” that began with Britney’s public psychological meltdown in February 2008 — a full year after her head-shaving incident. The legal guardianship manifested itself in a very real, non-formality-like manner in the summer of 2011, when Britney’s reps said she was unfit to testify in a major lawsuit against her, citing her father’s conservatorship role.

Listen. Is there a way to de-ick-ify this news or not? Perhaps the perspective of uninvolved Los Angeles probate attorney Jeffrey S. Cohen, as offered to People? “This is a very unusual situation, because generally you don’t see conservatees get married. … This is probably a compromise between Britney, her father and Trawick to get the marriage off on the right foot. Obviously, her future husband needs to have a say in her well being.”

Oh, God. Forget it. WAIT, IS THIS STILL NOT DONE? “The conservatorship will be lifted only after a judge is convinced, on the advice of Spears’s doctors, that she’s healthy enough to manage her own affairs.” If 30-year-old Spears’s huge album and subsequent major touring, glowing media parties assuming a successful turnaround, and $10 million offer to judge The X Factor aren’t good enough grounds to prove her ability to manage her personal affairs, it’s hard imagining what will be. Hard and sad.

Britney Spears’s Husband Will Be Her Conservator Too