Singers LeAnn Rimes and Britney Spears were both managed by their fathers from the onset of their careers and unfortunately, neither child-slash-client made it out of this unique dynamic unscathed. Rimes sued her father, Wilbur C. Rimes, in 2000 for allegedly stealing a whopping $7 million from LeAnn over five years. The teen star also accused her father and co-manager, Lyle Walker, of exploiting her namesake company, LeAnn Rimes Entertainment Inc.
LeAnn and Wilbur Rimes settled their lawsuit ahead of the "Blue" singer's wedding to her first husband, Dean Sheremet, in 2002 in an attempt to reconcile their father-daughter relationship, per Entertainment Weekly. "Looking back, I think my dad did the best that he could," Rimes told The Times. "Parents managing a child is always a recipe for disaster. For me, it became a business, and I ended up not having parents."
Rimes' warning against parents managing their performer children certainly rings true for Spear's experience, who was placed under a conservatorship by her father, Jamie Spears, in 2008. Spears recounts the dehumanizing and demoralizing treatment she endured by her father and staff in her memoir "The Woman In Me." After years of having her bodily and professional autonomy stripped from her, Spears successfully fought to end her conservatorship in 2021.
