Britney SpearsJamie Spears has said he’s closer than ever to his oldest daughter Britney Spears after spending six months caring for her.

Britney became estranged from Jamie in spring 2007 after she felt he colluded with her then-manager Larry Rudolph to “push” her into rehab when she didn’t need it. However, the pair reconciled later in the year and in February this year, Jamie (and lawyer Andrew Wallet) were appointed her legal conservators after she was hospitalised for the second time in less than a month.

Jamie told OK magazine: “We’ve grown a lot. I’ve been able to come back into my daughter’s life, and that was an adjustment anyway, because I’m an alcoholic and it’s the first time we’ve really been able to share.

“It’s wonderful. It’s new for both of us. She sometimes calls me 50 times a day and asks me things that light my life up. But, like all daughters, she is very manipulative and cunning. So she gets what she wants a lot.”

At the start of the conservatorship, Jamie gave up his career as a private chef to care for Britney around the clock but says he no longer stays at her Studio City home: “Every now and then, I’ll stay if we have something early in the morning we have to do.”

But that’s not to say Britney is strong enough yet to cope by herself and the control order is likely to remain in place until the end of the year: “I would hope that it stands until the end of the year, and then we’ll sit back and evaluate where we are at the time, where Britney is at that time.”

“I do understand that my baby made this monster but when she was down, people took advantage.”