Member Since: 8/17/2011
Posts: 15,807
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She's miming, lethargic, there are hundreds of unsold tickets - and her parents get all the cash. Britney's humiliating new tour
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The scene is London’s Sanctum Hotel in Soho; the revellers a mixture of D-list celebrities, journalists and money men. All eyes are on the surprisingly diminutive Britney Spears, who has a smile so tight it looks painful.
Glued to her side is her agent-turned-boyfriend Jason Trawick. They are surrounded by a phalanx of PR people, bodyguards, lawyers, management and record executives. No one else can get near. She is there to be looked at, like a rare animal in a cage.
With a new (far from sold out) tour, which arrived in the UK this week, the singer, who had a very public breakdown three years ago, is keen to spread the message that she is back. So she has been popping up on breakfast television and chatting away to the magazines.
‘I’m finding my whole click with life,’ is one bizarre phrase she keeps on trotting out.
After her excruciatingly public breakdown — shaving her head, being carted off to hospital and losing custody of her children (from her marriage to dancer Kevin Federline) — it is good to see her looking well again.
She is certainly back to earning millions. Her latest album went straight to the top of the Billboard charts in America. Last year alone she made £30 million.
But all is still not well. When her life spiralled out of control in 2008 — drug and alcohol problems, bizarre affairs with photographers, and social services investigating claims she neglected her two young sons — Britney’s father, Jamie Spears, was awarded ‘conservatorship’ of her. This gave him full control of her affairs; conservatorships are normally handed out when an elderly person develops dementia or someone suffers from a brain injury.
The conservatorship was meant to be temporary, but her parents got a judge to agree to extend it indefinitely. And this year they made the case that the star — who has several lawsuits pending — is ‘mentally incapable’ of testifying.
One lawsuit involves a former bodyguard claiming $10 million (£7 million) for sexual harassment. Another involves her ex-manager Sam Lufti, who is suing the singer’s mother, Lynne, for defamation.
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link to the full articles here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...ents-cash.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...-leg-tour.html
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