17 February 2021
Newsdesk
Britney Spears' former assistant was so terrified of upsetting the pop star's father, Jamie Spears, she blocked calls from the singer.
Alli Sims, who is also Britney's cousin, was ordered to stay away from the singer by Jamie, revealing things got so bad she feared for her life if she picked up a call from the Toxic star following her meltdown in 2008.
In an interview with NBC News, Sims claimed that Jamie demanded she cut ties with Britney after he took over as the conservator of her affairs - and she didn't want to risk any repercussions.
"I didn’t answer (her calls)," she said, recounting how the pop star tried to reach her following two involuntary psychiatric holds in 2008, using "random people's phones".
"The situation had become way over my head at that point and her dad and other people were involved," Sims added.
"I really do believe he (Jamie) would have done something if I didn't remove myself from the situation," she went on.
Sims also reflected on the time she spent working for her cousin, recalling the media scrutiny was crazy.
"Just because I was smiling in a photo going through a drive-thru (restaurant) doesn't mean that I wanted the attention," she explained, insisting: "I would have much rather been able to drive around town with nobody bothering us."
Now married with a daughter and living in Louisiana, Sims still feels "a lot of guilt" for abandoning her cousin when she needed her the most.
"I can’t imagine how alone (Britney) felt," she confessed, admitting: "Do I miss her as a person and think about her all the time? Yes. She's all over the place still. You can’t help but think about her every day."
Sims's comments come 10 days after the release of a damning new documentary, New York Times Presents: Framing Britney Spears, which debuted on TV in America earlier this month. The film studies the conservatorship in charge of Spears' estate and the level of control her father has over the singer.
