Amber Tamblyn Explains How She Relates to Britney Spears' Conservatorship Situation

Amber Tamblyn has written an op-ed for The New York Times in which she discusses Britney Spears‘ conservatorship case and how she relates to the situation.

The 38-year-old actress, best known for her work in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movies, notes that her situation was never as bad as Britney‘s and that she only “experienced a small taste of what” the pop star has gone through.

Amber said that when her career kicked off, her dad stepped in as her co-manager and her mom served as her business manager.

“At 21, I starred in a hit TV show called Joan of Arcadia, and from that point forward, I began making real, substantial money — money that made a big difference for my family. When that shift took place, my parents stepped in to help manage it all. My father acted as my co-manager, and my mother managed my finances. My money paid for our vacations, dinners out, and sometimes even the bills. When it finally came time to disentangle our personal and professional relationships, it was deeply painful for all three of us,” she wrote in the article.

Click inside for more of what she said…

Amber noted that Britney is way more famous than her and also she hasn’t “experienced anything comparable to the scale of abuse she seems to have endured over the years.”

“Still, there are some parallels. Having seen some of the complications and consequences that come with finding fame and financial success at a young age, I can attest to how challenging this combination of factors can be to navigate, even for those with the best of intentions. I also know how much potential they have to turn toxic, and how vulnerable they can make a young woman,” she said.

Amber said that she had a good relationship with her parents and they acted ethically “in every way,” but having them handle her finances caused a strain on their relationship.

“Having my parents on payroll was damaging to our relationship, whether we understood that or not,” she wrote. “I couldn’t shake the feeling that every time I had a conversation with my parents about money it felt as if I was asking for an allowance — only the allowance came from money I’d earned. Every conversation with them became about my earnings and my work, and even though I knew there was space to call up my parents and ask for life advice, or just catch up, I rarely did so because of the roles they had taken in my life.”

Amber said that she began to support extended family members as the years passed on. She wrote, “I was everyone’s A.T.M.: a bank that was, nonetheless, unconditionally loved. Still, as I got older, it got harder to trust the source of that love.”

Amber also wrote about the pressures to remain thin so she could continue booking more jobs.

“None of this amounts to the dynamics of control and abuse that we’ve heard about in Britney Spears’s case. But I can see how easy it would have been to slip into those dynamics. In these situations, some kind of damage is invariably done — a stunting of the ability of an individual to grow and make the most basic of decisions, or practice good boundaries. When I finally parted professional ways with my parents, they couldn’t help but feel as if they had done something wrong. But they hadn’t. Money had,” she said.

Amber praised Britney for speaking up about what she’s through.

“As someone who has experienced a small taste of what Britney has gone through, I know that what she has done is a profoundly radical act — one that I hope will ripple through the bodies and bank accounts of women across industries for generations to come. By speaking up, she has reminded us that our autonomy, both bodily and fiscal, is worth fighting for,” she said.

Read what Britney said to fans in her first public comments since the testimony in court.