Britney Spears: They made me feel like nothing

NEW YORK • American singer Britney Spears on Sunday released a lengthy audio message concerning the controversial guardianship that kept her primarily under her father's control for over 13 years.

A Los Angeles judge in November last year dissolved the conservatorship long overseen by Spears' father Jamie Spears - an arrangement the singer said prevented her from having a contraceptive intrauterine device removed despite her desire for more kids.

The audio message was tweeted by Britney Spears without comment, but the link was then deleted.

The 22-minute audio of her voice remains available online, however.

"I woke up this morning and I realised there's a lot going on in my head that I haven't shared with anyone," Spears, 40, said in the raw, emotional recording.

She detailed the conservatorship, echoing what she told a court in a bombshell hearing last year.

She described being forced to work and tour, and being barred from seeing friends or driving her own car.

She said her phone was tapped and she felt unsafe asking for help.

"They made me feel like nothing, and I went along with it," she said, describing being fat-shamed. "It was demoralising."

"It was like 15 years of touring and doing shows. And I'm 30 years old, living under my dad's rules," she added. "And while all of this is going on, my mum's witnessing this, my brother, my friends - they all go along with it."

Spears rocketed to fame in her teens on hits like ...Baby One More Time (1998), becoming one of the world's reigning pop stars.

But she suffered a highly publicised 2007 breakdown.

The conservatorship began in 2008 and did not end until last year, after Mr Spears was removed from his position in charge of her finances and estate.

Since gaining her freedom, Spears has married her boyfriend, Iran-born model-actor Sam Asghari, 28.

Last Friday, she released her first new music in six years, a duet with British singer Elton John called Hold Me Closer, a dance-inflected take on John's ballad Tiny Dancer (1971).

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE