According to a former employee of Britney Spears’ security team, the singer’s home and phone were allegedly bugged “for her own security”.
The princess of pop’s infamous conservatorship case has been making headlines for the past few years, and a recent documentary is bringing it back into the spotlight.
Last Friday, Hulu and FX’s documentary, The New York Times Presents: “Controlling Britney Spears” (directed by Samantha Stark and produced by Liz Day), aired as the sequel to Framing Britney Spears. The documentary delved deeper into the Toxic singer’s conservator-controlled life.
Breaking his silence for the first time, Alex Vlasov – “a former employee of Black Box Security” (the security company that monitored Spears) – revealed a number of “illegal and unethical practices” were conducted to keep tabs on Spears.
Allegedly, Black Box had Spears’ home and phone bugged so her conservators could watch and hear her every move.
According to Vlasov, those involved even asked him how “to use iPhone parental controls … to sync the singer’s iCloud account to a separate iPad”.
In this way, all of the Circus hitmaker’s personal correspondences (including photographs) could be monitored at all times.
It is genuinely terrifying that a court in the US could allow something like this to happen or make it possible for someone to do this for years. Seriously WTF. Audio recordings of her bedroom??!?!
— LEBRONGOAT (@cb29150305) September 25, 2021
“Britney wanted to get an iPhone … and that was a big deal. Everybody was worried,” Vlasov explained in the documentary (quoted by Page Six).
“[My boss] Edan [Yemini] approached me and asked me, ‘Is there any monitoring services for an iPhone that you are aware of?’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, parental controls. Is there any way you can put parental controls on an iPhone?’”
“And that’s when Edan explained to me that Britney’s communication is monitored for her own security and protection.”
On top of that, Vlasov claimed there was a point where Yemini approached him with messages received by Spears’ phone. Yemini would then ask Vlasov if he could “encrypt those messages” so they could be given to Spears’ father and a member of her management team.
“Their reason for monitoring was looking for bad influence[s], looking for potential illegal activity that might happen. But they would also monitor conservations with her friends, with her mom, with her lawyer Sam Ingham,” Vlasov said.
In regards to the Gimme More singer’s bedroom, Vlasov claims that Yemini planted a secret recording device that “captured over 180 hours of audio, including Britney’s interactions and conservations with her boyfriend and her children”.
The singer’s current lawyer Mathew Rosengart said he would investigate the claims seriously:
“Intercepting or monitoring Britney’s communications, especially sacrosanct lawyer-client communications, represents a shameful and shocking violation of her privacy rights and civil liberties. Placing a listening device in Britney’s bedroom would be particularly disgraceful. We intend to fully and aggressively investigate these matters.”
The level of control over Britney’s phone and relationships was so bad that her wardrobe stylist gave Britney a Tiffany necklace with her phone number engraved in it incase Britney ever needed help. No mercy for team con. None. #ControllingBritneySpears
— Yasmeen 🌹 (@Yasmeenmessrie) September 25, 2021
Yemini’s lawyer responded to the allegations with the following:
“Mr. Yemini and Black Box have always conducted themselves within professional, ethical and legal bounds, and they are particularly proud of their work in keeping Ms. Spears safe for many years.”
Spears’ case will go to court again on September 29 to have the conservatorship removed.
