The $10-million Britney machine
Just how much does it cost to be Britney Spears? A little less than $1 million a month, according to an accounting filed in L.A. Superior Court.
Lawyers for Spears’ father, who has permanent control of her personal affairs, submitted the document Friday to the judge supervising the conservatorship. The filing explains down to the penny how Jamie Spears and an attorney who helps him oversee her business interests spent more than $10 million on the singer’s behalf over the course of 11 months last year.
The costs detailed vary from the mundane -- water bills, phone bills and mortgage payments for her Studio City house -- to charges that hint at her celebrity status, including a Malibu beach house, assistants’ salaries and round-the-clock security. Bodyguards and other security measures cost Spears $447,633, the accounting shows.
More than a third of the money paid out -- $3.6 million -- went to lawyers. At least 17 attorneys have worked on personal and business matters connected to Spears since February 2008, when a court determined she was unable to manage her affairs. Her father’s attorneys alone billed $1 million. A family court judge ordered the conservatorship to pay her ex-husband’s attorney $625,000 as part of a settlement of the couple’s divorce and custody cases, according to the accounting.
By court order, Spears, 27, paid her former husband, Kevin Federline, $178,818 in support for their two sons and $168,790 to her father for acting as conservator.
The document provides little information about Spears’ income. Her assets, which have been estimated at more than $100 million, are held mostly in a private trust from which the conservatorship requests living expenses.
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