For Britney Spears, a new and public debacle

Jan 4, 2008, 22:16 GMT

A file picture dated 28 May 2005 of US pop singer Britney Spears performing in Oberhausen, Germany. Los Angeles Police Department said police were called to Spears\' home late 03 January 2008 to help solve a custody dispute with her ex-husband Kevin Federline. Late night aerial images of the compound showed police and ambulance vehicles outside her house. EPA/ACHIM SCHEIDEMANN

Los Angeles - With her mandatory hospitalization for mental evaluation Friday, Britney Spears, 26, has reached a new nadir in the public unraveling of her once glamorous life.

Spears was taken by ambulance to the Cedars Sinai Medical Center following a three-hour standoff with police at her luxury Hollywood home. According to reports, she locked herself and her year old son Jayden in a bedroom rather than turn them over to her ex-husband's bodyguard as she was supposed to.

When she eventually gave up, she was wheeled into an ambulance as swarms of paparazzi tussled for pictures of the fallen star, running after the ambulance to get images of Spears at her lowest point yet.

According to police, Spears appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance. She was reportedly hospitalized under a '5150 Hold,' order under which a person is considered a danger to themselves or others as a result of mental disorder.

The diagnosis will not surprise fans and celebrity watchers who have looked on with increasing concern over the last few years as Spears transformed from an innocent child star to precocious teen icon and then provocative pop princess.

Over the last year, amid the breakup of her marriage to former backup dancer Kevin Federline, her behaviour became increasingly erratic, earning her a perpetual mention in the gossip headlines and costing her the custody of her two little children.

Born in Mississippi in 1981 and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears was an accomplished child gymnast who starred on the TV show The Mickey Mouse Club from 1991 to 1994 and launched her solo career in 1997.

Her debut single Baby One More Time featured the 16-year-old Spears provocatively dressed in a midriff-baring schoolgirl uniform and became an instant international success, selling 9 million copies worldwide.

The album of the same name sold 25 million copies and garnered Spears four Billboard Music Awards. Her follow up Oops I did it Again was equally successful, but her third album, Britney, in 2001 only sold 13 million copies. Nevertheless the blonde pop princess was named by Forbes Magazine as the world's most powerful celebrity in 2002.

By this time her personal life was as much a focus of public attention as her music. Her four-year relationship with Justin Timberlake had just ended and she entered into a series of strange relationships which culminated in her marriage to childhood friend Jason Alexander in January 2004. The union lasted 55 hours before it was annulled.

In September, 2004, she married Federline. Their first child Sean Preston was born in 2005. Two months after their second child, Jayden James, was born in 2006, the couple filed for divorce.

By then, there were already serious questions about her competence, after she was photographed driving around with her son on her lap.

By the start of 2007, Spears appeared increasingly unbalanced, flashing revealing pictures of herself to paparazzi, checking into a rehab center for a day, and then going to a random hair salon and shaving off her hair with clippers.

She repeatedly failed to show up for court appearances, attacked her ex-husband's car and a posse of paparazzi with an umbrella, and was unable to comply with court-ordered drug testing. Efforts to revive her career backfired when she appeared overweight and disoriented at a much-hyped appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards

Experts said that following the latest standoff, Spears was likely to lose all contact with her children.

'These kids are directly being harmed by the mother who is spiraling out of control,' said legal analyst Susan Filan. 'I think she's just about done.'