Britney Spears Released: What Brought It On?

Britney Spears has been released from the hospital, an event many did not expect to occur for another two weeks.

Unlike the hooplah surrounding her admission — which recently prompted Jay Leno to note that all of the presidential candidates and their bodyguards had visited L.A. recently and still didn’t have as big of an entourage — Spears’ release was remarkably unremarkable. A private security firm escorted the singer to her undisclosed location, which is believed to be one of her many homes in the area, where she’s expected to receive additional treatment. The LAPD hired the firm to prevent the papparazi frenzy surrounding Britney’s hospital admission.

The pop tart’s release comes only days after her mother, Lynne, filed a restraining order against Britney’s friend and manager de facto Sam Lufti. The petition for the restraining order alleged, among other things, that Lufti had fed Britney crushed pills. Since then, Lufti has admitted he gave Britney a handful of pills to address her manic/depressive mood swings.

“In the depressive episodes, it’s all crying,” Lutfi told Usmagazine.com. “But in the manic episode, there’s very little crying or sympathy or compassion. She becomes another person. She becomes somebody that just doesn’t care about anybody or anything.”

“The British accent is part of the mania,” he adds. “She’ll stick to the British accent because she becomes comfortable with it… But you know, when the pink wig comes on, it’s getting bad.”

She’s since said to have since provided her father, Jamie Spears, with a signed declaration alleging theft. In the declaration, Britney claims Sam Lufti stole items from her home. They are described only as “valuable possessions”.

Lufti, meanwhile, alleges that Britney’s problems stem from her parents. On CNN’s Headline News today, a reporter who’d been in touch with Lufti claimed he has been hinting that the singer’s downward spiral can be traced back to “an event” 5 years ago which, he says, only he, Britney and her parents know about.

Still, there are plenty of people trying to understand what prompted Britney’s emotional breakdown? The latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine compiles a sordid history of the tragedy, including:

- Britney’s mother Lynne allowed her to get breast implants at age 15. The singer soon regretted them, since her body was still developing, and so she had them removed. She was advised to deny the surgery, however, with the result that Britney was raised to lie about herself… including to herself.

- Britney’s father, Jamie, has a history of heavy drinking. She described him to her friends as emotionally abusive. Although some claim she never bonded with him, her pleas to her father during her hospital stay would certainly indicate a young woman still longing for a father figure. Says Jamie Spears of his daughter’s calls during her hospitalization: “She called me about every 20 minutes.” During one call, she said, “Daddy what are you doing?” Jamie responded, “I told her I was cooking. Britney said, ‘What are you doing cooking, daddy? Why are you not here with me?’

- During the early days of her career, those interested in making money from her work cared more about their needs than about Britney’s. “We would wake Britney up at 6 a.m., and she’d work on a video for three or four days straight for 20 hours a day,” a former driver for the singer told Rolling Stone.

- Britney is said to have never quite recovered from her 2002 split from Justin Timberlake. “Justin had his head screwed on so straight… He became the great force in her life, but it started a pattern — she began to look for guys to help her get away from the people who could control her,” an insider says.

Certainly Britney’s had a tragic past, and we can only hope that this close call provides her with the sympathetic, healthy support system she needs.

Our greatest fear?

That one day Britney Spears’ life will imitate what she at one point wanted to act out for the 2004 music video of “Everytime“, in which she planned to be filmed dying in an overflowing bathtub surrounded by pills and empty bottles of booze.

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