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Lance Bass says he's been 'kept away' from Britney Spears

Lance Bass is supporting his longtime friend Britney Spears. (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Lance Bass is supporting his longtime friend Britney Spears. (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

If there was ever a question, Lance Bass is firmly on team Britney.

Bass, who was famously a member of '90s boy band NSync, said Thursday on Heather Dubrow's World podcast that he hasn't spoken to Britney Spears "in years." But not by choice. "We've been kept away from each other for quite a while," he said.

Britney Spears, fourth from right, and Lance Bass, right, perform during the halftime show at the 2001 Super Bowl. (Photo: Doug Pensinger/ALLSPORT)
Britney Spears, fourth from right, and Lance Bass, right, perform during the halftime show at the 2001 Super Bowl. (Photo: Doug Pensinger/ALLSPORT)

Bass not only worked with Spears but was bandmates with her boyfriend at the time, Justin Timberlake. He said he's against the conservatorship that she's been in since 2008, which she's currently fighting in court. Spears herself described her situation — for example, she's been forced to use birth control and take Lithium — in harrowing detail to the court last month.

"My dad and anyone involved in this conservatorship and my management who played a huge role in punishing me ... they should be in jail," Spears told the court via phone. "My family didn’t do a goddamn thing."

Her testimony was enough to convince Bass that something has to change.

"I don't know exactly what she needs," Bass said, "but I do know that she, to me — [from] what I see — is sane enough to pick her own people... She needs to pick her own people running this conservatorship, if she even needs one, especially when choosing her lawyer. To me, there's a bigger picture here. … The main thing that I'm concerned about is the court systems and this judge. If this is really true, then we have to look at this judge. Because that means that they're corrupt, right? I don't know. It's scary."

Bass didn't speak to the latest developments in Spears's case. The "Toxic" singer had a big win in court on July 14, when Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny ruled that she could choose her own attorney — something that hadn't been allowed since the conservatorship began. She's since named Mathew Rosengart her lawyer, and he's already "moving aggressively" to remove her father, Jamie Spears, from the legal arrangement.

Another of Spears's friends from back in the day, Backstreet Boys member AJ McLean, offered his support earlier this month. He sees Spears "often" at a cupcake shop in their shared neighborhood, and the last time he ran into her, he said, "it broke my heart."

"Went in, she was there, she looked right at me and I was like, 'Hey, it's AJ.' And she just kind of had this glass face. Like, she just didn't know who was there," McLean said on SiriusXM's Andy Cohen Live. "It took her a minute. And then she realized it was me and we, we hugged and we talked for a brief moment, but I could just see that, you know, this, this wasn't her, like, I'm not looking at the person I knew from years and years ago. And I know a lot of that, in my opinion, could be whatever they're, they're keeping her on or whatever they have her on, which is just insane. It's not, it's not fair. And I just don't think it's right. So again, Free Britney, that's my whole thing, man. All for it."