Chap­ter 29 was the begin­ning of a chill­ing win­ter in my life, both lit­er­al­ly and emo­tion­al­ly, even under the Cal­i­for­nia sun. Los Ange­les, with its end­less blue skies and palm trees, usu­al­ly doesn’t feel sea­son­al. But in Jan­u­ary 2008, every­thing around me seemed cold and dis­tant, not because of the weather—but because I felt deeply alone. While oth­ers sipped iced drinks and strolled in flip-flops, I was deal­ing with a break­down that land­ed me in the hos­pi­tal. My behav­ior had become errat­ic. I was on a lot of Adder­all, and I’ll admit, I wasn’t my best self. I was angry—furious about how things had gone with Kevin, after I’d poured every­thing into our rela­tion­ship. He left, and I was left pick­ing up the emo­tion­al wreck­age with no real sup­port. That rage bled into every­thing I did and every choice I made.

Dur­ing that time, I start­ed dat­ing a paparaz­zo, which might sound reck­less, but in that moment, he felt like the only per­son who under­stood me. He treat­ed me with kind­ness, helped me get through crowds, and nev­er flinched when things got chaot­ic. Peo­ple thought he was using me—and maybe he was—but back then, I saw a man who stood up for me when oth­ers did­n’t. He was ten years old­er and full of brava­do, and I found com­fort in how fierce­ly he encour­aged me to be myself. Being with him gave me the illu­sion of free­dom. I was wild and loud, and I act­ed out in ways that shout­ed how fed up I was with being judged, han­dled, and cor­nered. I didn’t hold back; whether I was laugh­ing too loud­ly at restau­rants or lying across tables in defi­ance of what was expect­ed of me, I was done play­ing nice. The media saw chaos, but under­neath that, I was a woman try­ing des­per­ate­ly to reclaim pow­er in a world that kept strip­ping it from her.

Despite how destruc­tive it all may have looked, those moments with the pho­tog­ra­ph­er felt free­ing. He didn’t shame me for being rebel­lious. He sup­port­ed it. After feel­ing con­stant­ly crit­i­cized by my par­ents, espe­cial­ly my father, this man’s accep­tance felt rad­i­cal. He didn’t yell at me for par­ty­ing or act­ing out—he cheered me on. For the first time in a long while, some­one wasn’t try­ing to mold me into what they thought I should be. I went from being chased by cam­eras to being fol­lowed by some­one who, at least for a time, made me feel seen. One reck­less night, I did a 360 turn near a cliff, and some­how we didn’t crash. We both knew we could’ve died, but instead of fear, I felt intense­ly alive. That moment encap­su­lat­ed what I was chas­ing: some­thing real, some­thing wild, some­thing that remind­ed me I still had a pulse.

Even­tu­al­ly, I learned the pho­tog­ra­ph­er had been mar­ried the whole time—something I didn’t know until after we split. Still, our time togeth­er had served a pur­pose. He helped me sur­vive some of my dark­est moments. I was sad. I missed my kids con­stant­ly, and my fam­i­ly didn’t offer the com­fort I need­ed. My rela­tion­ship with the pho­tog­ra­ph­er was flawed and impul­sive, but it helped me through my depres­sion. He gave me the atten­tion I was aching for and told me I was okay just as I was, no strings attached. And for some­one who’d always been expect­ed to be per­fect, that meant every­thing. But as our rela­tion­ship inten­si­fied, I start­ed sens­ing that my fam­i­ly want­ed to inter­vene again—and not in a help­ful way.

That’s when things took a dis­turb­ing turn. My mom called me out of the blue and said there were rumors that the police were after me, which was false. I had­n’t bro­ken any laws. I’d had my moments—I was high on Adder­all and liv­ing in extremes—but I wasn’t a crim­i­nal. Still, I was invit­ed to a beach house under the pre­tense of hav­ing a talk. It all felt sus­pi­cious. When my boyfriend showed up, heli­copters began cir­cling above, and sud­den­ly a SWAT team descend­ed on the prop­er­ty. I was shocked and ter­ri­fied. I kept yelling that I hadn’t done any­thing. But the storm had already been set in motion, and I was pow­er­less to stop it.

Lat­er, I came to believe that this ambush wasn’t spon­ta­neous. Around that time, my father had grown close to Lou Tay­lor, a busi­ness­woman he began to admire obses­sive­ly. Lou was just start­ing her com­pa­ny, Tri Star Sports & Enter­tain­ment Group, and she became instru­men­tal in exe­cut­ing the con­ser­va­tor­ship. She had few clients then, but using my name and suc­cess, she was able to build her entire busi­ness. The tim­ing of the sec­ond hos­pi­tal stay and the legal maneu­ver­ing around the con­ser­va­tor­ship felt too cal­cu­lat­ed to be coin­ci­den­tal. Lou and my father worked togeth­er to put me under a dou­ble con­ser­va­tor­ship: one that gave him con­trol over my finances and anoth­er that gave him con­trol over my per­son. That meant he could dic­tate where I lived, what I ate, who I could talk to, and whether I could even dri­ve a car. Despite my pleas, the court still gave him the author­i­ty, choos­ing a man with a his­to­ry of alco­holism and emo­tion­al abuse to over­see my life.

The jus­ti­fi­ca­tion giv­en was that I was no longer capa­ble of car­ing for myself. But that wasn’t true. I had just com­plet­ed one of the most suc­cess­ful albums of my career. I was still work­ing, still show­ing up, still mak­ing mil­lions for the peo­ple around me. I lat­er dis­cov­ered that my father paid him­self a high­er salary than I received, pulling in over $6 mil­lion dur­ing the con­ser­va­tor­ship. Oth­ers close to him also prof­it­ed heav­i­ly. This wasn’t about protection—it was about con­trol and mon­ey. Con­ser­va­tor­ships are meant for indi­vid­u­als who are inca­pac­i­tat­ed, unable to func­tion or make deci­sions. But I was func­tion­ing. And yet, I was treat­ed like a child, robbed of every basic free­dom. The set­up could have been temporary—many con­ser­va­tor­ships are—but they had no inten­tion of let­ting go. They built an empire on my back and didn’t want it to end. My father’s con­trol over both my per­son­al life and my career was a legal strait­jack­et I couldn’t escape.

No mat­ter how chaot­ic I may have appeared on the sur­face, the truth was much more com­pli­cat­ed. I was not per­fect. I was messy, emo­tion­al, and at times impul­sive. But I was human. And I didn’t deserve to have my entire life tak­en from me under the guise of care. What start­ed as a painful breakup and a cry for help spi­raled into a legal night­mare, where my free­dom became a cur­ren­cy exchanged by peo­ple I should’ve been able to trust.