Britney Spears Quietly Pushed for Years to End Her Conservatorship

Ms. Spears’s first tour under the conservatorship, The Circus Starring Britney Spears, was designed to be a dry one, with cast and crew forbidden from drinking alcohol — or even energy drinks — around Ms. Spears, according to three people who worked on it.

During this period, a former nanny and housekeeper for Ms. Spears claimed Mr. Spears engaged in “verbal abuse, tirades, inappropriate behavior and alcoholic relapses,” according to a legal letter sent in 2010 that threatened a lawsuit.

In 2014, Mr. Ingham told the court that Ms. Spears believed her father was drinking, according to a transcript of the closed hearing. Lawyers representing the conservatorship responded that Mr. Spears had voluntarily submitted to regularly scheduled alcohol tests and never failed. Mr. Spears’s lawyer said he took one random test, but refused to take any more, calling the request inappropriate.

“Absolutely inappropriate,” the judge replied. “And who is she to be demanding that of anybody?”

Mr. Ingham told the court that his client was upset that it was not taking her concerns seriously. “She said to me, when she gave me this shopping list, that she anticipates that, as it has been done before, the court will simply sweep it under the carpet and ignore any negative inferences with regard to Mr. Spears,” Mr. Ingham said, according to a transcript.

Mr. Ingham also raised Ms. Spears’s urgent desire to terminate the conservatorship altogether. She had even mentioned the possibility of changing her lifestyle and retiring, but believed the conservatorship precluded that, he said, according to a transcript.

In response to Ms. Spears’s request to end the arrangement, the judge said that if she established a healthy relationship with a therapist and returned one year’s worth of clean drug tests, she would take the matter under consideration. But she would not guarantee it.