Spears enters rehab for third time in a week: report
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Britney Spears has entered a rehabilitation center for the third time in the space of the week, reports said Wednesday, as concerned friends rallied around the troubled pop princess.
People magazine cited a lawyer for Spears's estranged husband, Kevin Federline, confirming that the star had re-entered rehab, 24 hours after checking out of the exclusive Promises facility in Malibu.
The syndicated television show Extra reported that Spears, 25, had been collected from Federline's house by her mother late Wednesday before being delivered back to the Promises center.
Photographs published by the Entertainment Tonight celebrity program later showed Spears using an umbrella to repeatedly hit a sport utility vehicle outside Federline's home before leaving.
The latest twist to the Spears soap opera came amid reports that Federline's lawyers had been preparing for an emergency hearing early Thursday concerning custody of the couple's two children.
Officials at Los Angeles County Superior Court told AFP no meeting had been scheduled as celebrity news website TMZ.com reported Federline's lawyers had withdrawn the request.
Representatives for Spears, famous for hits such as "Toxic" and "Oops! I Did It Again," could not immediately be contacted for comment at their Los Angeles offices.
Meanwhile, friends of the star, whose mental state has been the subject of intense speculation since she shaved her head at a Los Angeles salon last Friday, told People she was in need of help.
"She is obviously in a lot of pain and needs help immediately," said Doreen Seal, a longtime family friend whose son Jason Alexander was married to Spears for 55 hours in 2004.
Music producer and songwriter Sean Garrett, who recently worked with Spears on an album she is expected to release later this year, said the singer needed time alone.
"She just needs time to herself. She's not crazy; she's young, she's rich, and she does what she wants to do," Garrett told People.
The singer has rarely been out of the headlines since she announced plans to divorce Federline, the father of her two sons, aged 18 months and six months, in November last year.
News of the couple's split was widely hailed as a positive step for Spears by tabloid media who had portrayed Federline as a gold-digging layabout who was adversely affecting the pop star's career.
But a series of public missteps -- which have ranged from being caught out on the town wearing no panties to falling asleep in a Las Vegas nightclub -- have been gleefully charted by the tabloid media since then.
She is routinely described as a "train wreck" by sections of the entertainment media, and her life has become the butt of relentless jokes on late-night US television shows.
But Scottish comic and chat-show host Craig Ferguson has attacked the open season on Spears.
"For me, comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it," he said on CBS's "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson."
"It should be about attacking the powerful -- the politicians, the Trumps, the blowhards -- going after them. We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable."
walopun saya x minat sangat kat britney (cuma minat lagu je), bila dgr berita cam ni.. kesian plak.. hidup sebagai artis Hollywood memang kena tough.. dpt plak husband x btgjwb, gold digger plak tu.. pendek kata .. give her some space..
