Another dramatic episode in the Spears vs. Federline custody debacle.
It's another great start to a new year as it appears Britney has finally hit rock bottom, Britney Spears was placed on lockdown for a mental evaluation Friday after the pop star locked herself in a room with one of her children at her L.A. home and refused to hand him over to ex-husband Kevin Federline.
Police cars, ambulances and firetrucks with sirens blazing, helicopters hovering above — it was a scene straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster Thursday night as Britney Spears and her infant hid from the authorities inside her Beverly Hills home.
"It looked like a hostage situation," one witness was quoted at the time.
So how did this all happen? Let's retrace her steps!
11:32 a.m.: Britney, in a bright fuschia halter dress and heels, arrives over 90 minutes late to her final chance to give a court-ordered deposition in her custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline. She is only able to be deposed for approximately 14 minutes.
12:20 p.m.: Brit arrives back home at her gated community, The Summit. Her sons are there for their scheduled visit, as is a court-appointed monitor.
7 p.m.: K-Fed's security team arrives to pick up boys Sean Preston and Jayden James and bring them back to their father's house. When there is a delay in releasing the boys, Britney's assistant, Carla, makes excuses for the pop star. However, it soon becomes clear that there is a problem.
At some point, 2-year-old Sean Preston is removed from the house, leaving only little Jayden inside with his mother.
8 p.m.: The police are notified of a custodial situation at Britney's house and officers are dispatched to The Summit. But when they arrive, they find that the court-appointed monitor, who has been locked out of the house, is not in possession of the paperwork required to allow them to enter Britney's house.
9:20 p.m.: K-Fed's lawyer Mark Vincent Kaplan arrives at The Summit with the required paperwork. He and five police cars enter the gated community and drive up to Britney's house.
10:30 p.m.: More than a dozen police officers, as well as two ambulances and a handful of fire rescue trucks are now on the scene. Sometime before 11 p.m., Britney's cousin Alli and Brit's assistant Carla leave the house, leaving Brit alone with Jayden James.
11:45 p.m.: Britney is taken out of her home strapped to a gurney and placed into an ambulance, which is escorted by 13 police cars with sirens blaring to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, arriving at approximately 12:30 a.m. Jayden is brought to the hospital in a separate vehicle.
"We are concerned about her mental state and believe she may be under the influence," an LAPD officer revealed to the press at the time of Brit's arrival at Cedars-Sinai.
Britney, who had been sobbing when taken from her home, appeared distant and erratic as she was escorted out of the ambulance and into the hospital. "Her eyes were like pinholes, and she was strapped to the gurney," another witness recalled.
Already waiting at the hospital's emergency room is K-Fed and his lawyer Mark Vincent Kaplan obviously in shock not sure as to what had transpired and lead up to this.
Sources have stated that Britney takes prescription medication to treat a bipolar disorder. This source who was a companion explains that if the singer misses her hourly dosage of medication the result is severe anxiety.
Our source presumes that Thursday’s hectic schedule and at least one missed dosage may have contributed to that night’s occurrence.
Life & Style is reporting that early police reports about Britney being under the influence when being taken to Cedars Sinai are false - all tests came back negative!
“Her blood test just came back, and, thank God, it was clean. There are no traces of drugs or alcohol of any kind,” a source close to Britney's family told the mag.
Could Britney's clean slate lend credibility to her claim that she missed her hourly meds? After all, if she'd taken her anti-anxiety pills as scheduled, they'd show up in the test, right?
No charges have been filed as of yet. "We aren't charging her with anything at this time," LAPD officer HARDING says. "She is at the [hospital] for her own health and welfare."
Britney's visitation rights "have been suspended pending further order of the court," says Commissioner Scott Gordon. This will be in effect until January 14th when a hearing will then determine what happens next.
Do you think Britney is healthy enough to parent her own two children?
And also, does she truly need help or is she the victim of an overly aggressive legal team... or both?
Currently Britney is sedated and resting in the psychiatric unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. A family insider was quoted as saying that the singer requested that no visitors be admitted and her doctors agreed.
I also agree, Britney's best interest seems to be to stay out of the spotlight for awhile, get some rest and a bit of therapy. Then who knows? Personally I think her career is over as well as her ability to win a custody battle at this point.
More on the story quoted in these clipping courtesy of Yahoo!News
By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer Fri Jan 4, 6:26 PM ET
LOS ANGELES - A court commissioner gave sole physical and legal custody of Britney Spears' two little boys Friday to ex-husband Kevin Federline and suspended the troubled pop star's visitation rights.
Commissioner Scott Gordon issued a ruling the day after Spears was hauled away from her home by paramedics; police had to intervene when she refused to return the children to Federline after a court-monitored visit.
Gordon ordered another hearing to be held Jan. 14.
Federline had previously been awarded temporary custody of 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James because Spears has defied court orders, resulting in limitations on her visitation.
"I'm not happy about any of these events," Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan said when he left a closed-door emergency hearing Friday afternoon. "There's no winners here."
Federline was not in court for the hearing, Kaplan said.
The attorney had said he did not expect the ruling to be released until Monday, but it was issued shortly after the hearing concluded.
by Rob Woollard AFP writer Fri Jan 4, 2:02 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Britney Spears was being evaluated at a Los Angeles hospital early Friday after being taken from her home by paramedics following the latest twist to the troubled pop star's custody battle.
Spears was wheeled out of her home on a stretcher late Thursday following a stand-off which began when she reportedly refused to release her two children, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1 to ex-husband Kevin Federline's bodyguard.
Video footage of the incident shown on celebrity news websites and television reports showed Spears alternately smiling and looking distraught as she was lifted into an ambulance.
Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Jason Lee said Spears was being detained and evaluated in hospital because officers had found her under the influence of an unknown substance.
Lee said police had been called to Spears' home at 8 pm Thursday (0400 GMT Friday) to resolve a custody dispute.
USmagazine.com and TMZ.com reported that the drama began when Spears failed to hand her two children over as arranged under a court-ordered custody agreement with Federline.
At around 10:30 pm paramedics and an ambulance arrived and shortly afterwards the two children were turned over to Federline after police reviewed court documents, Lee said.
Police could not confirm celebrity news website reports that Spears' youngest son Jayden James had also been taken to the hospital, Lee adding only that there were "no reportable injuries to anyone involved."
People magazine reported on its website that Spears had been placed under a 72-hour lock down for evaluation at Cedars Sinai known as a "5150".
Spears, one of the most successful pop stars of her generation, has been embroiled in a bitter custody battle with Federline ever since the couple separated in late 2006.
Lawyers for Spears and Federline held a court hearing early Friday and were due to return before a judge later. Reports speculated Federline's lawyers will seek to have Spears' access to the children curtailed.
A judge limited the pop star's access to her children in October after she failed to submit to random drug testing as demanded at an earlier hearing where the court ruled Spears was a "habitual and continuous" drug user."
Earlier Thursday Spears began a court-ordered deposition in the custody case after missing several appointments to do so, but appeared for questioning by Federline's lawyer so late that it lasted only 13 minutes, USmagazine reported.
The day before, her lawyers had requested to leave her case, citing "a breakdown in communications" with Spears that made "further representation of her interests impossible."
The court-room drama rumbled throughout a difficult year for Spears that saw her rarely out of the tabloid headlines. She was repeatedly photographed in nightspots wearing no underwear and was also captured bizarrely shaving her head in a hair salon and attacking a photographer's car with an umbrella. Those episodes were followed by a stint in a rehabilitation treatment center.
In September Spears attempted to resurrect her career but suffered a critical savaging after a live performance at the Video Music Awards.
Nevertheless the release of her first album in four years in October, "Blackout," offered Spears some encouragement with critics broadly hailing the work as a success.
But Spears' family was back in the headlines again last month when it emerged that the singer's 16-year-old sister, the star of a popular US television children's show, was pregnant.
Spears shot to superstardom in late 1998, with her smash-hit debut album "Baby One More Time" which she followed with another chart-topping success the following year, "Oops! ... I Did It Again."
According to Time magazine, Spears has sold over 76 million records worldwide, and her 31 million albums sold in the United States make her the eighth best-selling female artist in US music history.
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