New Britney Spears documentary paints dark picture of early legal fight for control of singer's life

The latest documentary about pop star Britney Spears recalls the complicated legal battle the singer faced after her father began controlling her life under a conservatorship set up in 2008, and some of the people who tried to help her regain control.

Britney vs. Spears, by director Erin Lee Carr and journalist Jenny Eliscu is a 90-minute production that Netflix aired for the first time on Tuesday.

In one of its bombshell revelations, Eliscu, who has written numerous times about Spears for Rolling Stone magazine, reveals how she became more of a "Good Samaritan" than a journalist in early 2009 when she tried to help the singer hire her own lawyer, to replace one the court had appointed.

The effort began after she talked to Sam Lutfi, who became Spears's manager after meeting her in a nightclub shortly before she was put under the conservatorship that gave Jamie Spears the legal right to oversee and make decisions about the singer's finances, health and personal life.

Lutfi came up with a plan along with another friend of the singer's, Adnan Ghalib, to draw up paperwork for Spears to sign for a court filing. Ghalib was a photographer the singer had befriended in 2007 while in the middle of her divorce from Kevin Federline. Spears and Ghalib dated for about a year.

By 2009, Lutfi and Ghalib were "persona non grata," Eliscu says. "They had been completely forbidden from having access to Britney," so the journalist stepped in to deliver paperwork aimed at securing new legal counsel.

Eliscu says she met with Spears in the bathroom of a Los Angeles hotel on Jan. 21, 2009, and then passed the paperwork to the singer from beneath one of the stalls.