The management firm has consistently denied being involved in the 13-year conservatorship.
In a recent court filing, Britney Spears‘ attorney claimed that Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group was a co-creator of her 13-year-long conservatorship which made $18 million from the pop star’s estate.
The management firm has always denied involvement in the conservatorship, which was ended by a judge in November and currently counts among its client’s celebrities like the Kardashians and artist Travis Scott.
According to the most recent paperwork, which was submitted by Spears’ lawyer Mathew Rosengart, Tri Star and its creator and CEO Louise Taylor were employed as soon as the conservatorship got underway.
At the time, the company was unknown and its owner was friends with Spears’ father Jamie, who was indebted to Taylor for at least $40,000, which the suit states was “a substantial amount of money in 2008, especially for a man with a history of financial mismanagement including a bankruptcy, mortgage defaults, state and federal tax liens, and failed business ventures.”
The singer was sent on a world tour even though Spears’ father thought his daughter was “incapacitated” and required medical attention shortly after. According to the documents, Jamie and Tri-Star made hefty profits from the singer’s tour, taking home $6 million and $18 million, respectively.
The court documents cite internal emails and media interviews that refute claims that Tri-Star had no part in establishing and maintaining the conservatorship, as well as a September 2021 New York Times story that describes an “intense surveillance apparatus” used by Tri Star and Spears’ former business manager Robin Greenhill. It claims that the business was “built…on the back of Britney Spears.”
“Tri-Star, Lou Taylor, and Robin Greenhill have all denied that Tri Star was involved in the creation of the Conservatorship, no doubt aware that such involvement — shortly after it extended the generous loan to Mr. Spears — would call into question, not just the exorbitant fees paid to Tri-Star over the years but also the motives for placing Ms. Spears into a 13-year conservatorship in the first place,” the filing reads.
Tri-Star filed a move to halt record subpoenas, and Rosengart responded, calling the motion “baseless” and “legally frivolous.” Additionally, the opposition demands that the firm turn up all pertinent correspondence within seven days of the subsequent hearing.
Spears’ attorney also discusses information from the Kroll investigation, which shows Taylor “in very active discussions” with Jamie and Geraldine Wyle, the conservatorship’s attorney, about the conservatorship. Tri Star’s involvement is mentioned in the emails, and Taylor adds that she looks “forward to working with [Wyle].” In another purported email, Wyle and Taylor are seen debating judge choice and getting “into a problem” where the sole judge who can hear the case “will not give Jamie the power to administer psychotropic drugs” to Spears. Later on, Taylor expressed a desire to help run the conservatorship, allegedly saying “I am the right person for this.”
The filing claims financial mismanagement of Spears’ funds in favor of Tri Star in another section. This includes her father’s overpayments to Tri-Star for commission and the disbursement of funds to pay Taylor’s legal bills in spite of his own counsel deeming the spending “inappropriate.” Rosengart contends that this makes it obvious why Tri-Star chose to “stonewall” and withhold depositions since late 2021.
“This is materially misleading,” Scott Edelman, an attorney for Tri-Star along with Charles Harder, said in a statement to TheWrap. “As all the evidence makes abundantly clear, the conservatorship was set up on the recommendation of legal counsel, not Tri Star, and approved by the Court for more than 12 years. In fact, Tri Star was not even the business manager for the conservatorship when it was established. Cherry-picked excerpts from emails cannot change the facts, which is why this nonsense will all end once and for all when records are unsealed.”
TheWrap has also contacted Jamie’s lawyer Alex Weingarten for a response.
As per Hollywood reporter, in Spears’ revelatory June 2021 testimony, which reignited passion for the #FreeBritney movement, the musician stated that her managers “should be in jail.”
More recently, in February, Spears threatened to sue the company in a since-deleted Instagram post; she singled out Taylor and Greenhill, saying that they “killed” her: “I will sue the s— out of Tri-Star!!!! Psss they got away with all of it and I’m here to warn them every day of my precious life!!!!” she wrote.
Spears’ legal dispute with Tri Star and her father continues despite the fact that she is no longer under conservatorship. The Los Angeles Superior Courthouse will host the subsequent hearing for these cases on July 13.