Details on the Britney Spears major meltdown have been clarified, and OK! Magazine has a much clearer breakdown of what happened last night. Many of you wonder why so many firetrucks, ambulances, and helicopters needed to be on the scene for a simple custody dispute and the answer is that it’s because it was Britney. Whatever she does is publicly scrutinized and when she screws up royally like this all the response teams are clamoring to be there. Hopefully real emergencies and victims weren’t neglected in LA during the massive circus that surrounded Britney’s home.

Britney essentially took Jayden hostage
The reason one-year old Jayden had to be taken to the hospital is because Sean Preston was already released into his father’s custody, but Britney kept Jayden and refused to hand him over during the four hour standoff with police. When Britney was taken to the hospital for evaluation, presumably because they considered herself a threat to herself or others, they also took Jayden in another ambulance.

Britney’s assistant Carla and her “cousin” Alli left the house at 11:00 pm, leaving Britney alone inside with Jayden until 11:45 when she was escorted out on a gurney by paramedics and driven to Cedars-Sinai medical center. Britney was seen with what looked like a restraint on one of her legs and may have been taken forcibly.

Jayden’s father, Kevin Federline, their other child, Sean Preston, and Federline’s lawyer were at the hospital when Britney arrived. Britney’s father Jamie, with whom she has had no contact for nearly eight months, and her friend Sam Lufti also came to the hospital.

Britney is being held for observation and will probably be booked when she is released
Britney will most likely face charges after she undergoes an observation period at Cedars-Sinai. OK! Magazine reports that they plan to keep her for 24 hours after which time she will be booked by police. Update: She is on 72 hour lockdown - see below.

She is either on drugs, having a major mental meltdown or both
While police say Britney was “under the influence of an unknown substance,” she has passed all the recent drug tests she’s shown up for, with one instance in which a prescription drug was said to have caused a false positive. Some sources claim she’s simply mentally unstable.

Britney will lose visitation rights with children
Kevin Federline’s lawyer is now on his way to court to request that Britney be denied visitation with the children at least temporarily while her mental state can be assessed. It is most likely that the request will be granted, and that’s a good thing for the sake of her children.

Update: Britney is on 72 hour lockdown, was “hysterical” on gurney
Britney is on 72 hour lockdown at Cedars-Sinai as she was deemed a threat to herself and/or others. She will be under constant observation. Sources tell US Magazine that she alternated between laughing and acting hysterical when she was taken away. She was designated a “special needs” patient, which a source tells US Weekly means that the patient has “either overdosed or tried to commit suicide.”

Thanks to Splash News for these pictures.

There was a crazy story today in ETOnline that the FBI and LAPD were conducting an investigation into “legitimate leads” that there was a hit out on K-Fed’s life. I honestly didn’t think of Britney at all when I heard that, and assumed that there must be a lot of people who would pay good money to off the guy. The way they phrase it makes it seem like a well-sourced story, and one they wouldn’t repeat lightly:

Multiple sources tell ET that the FBI made attempts to contact Federline to inform him of the potential danger.

Sources within the FBI tell ET that this is the bureau’s standard operating procedure when someone’s life is threatened.

ET has been working this story for the past two months. When contacted, the FBI told us that the bureau cannot confirm or deny an investigation.

[ETOnline.com]

Right before a secret witness was called this morning in a custody hearing, Britney’s lawyer, Laura Wasser, abruptly quit. It’s really not news when someone who works for Britney quits at a crucial moment, because she always manages to piss off people enough that they decide that no amount of money is worth the craziness and humiliation that go along with working for Brit.

Wasser may have had a very good reason to get the hell out of there before the ish hit the fan - there are rumors that the hit on K-Fed’s life was put out by none other than Britney - and that the secret witness submitted a sworn statement to that!

Our guy down at the courthouse today tells us a celeb news magazine show had a producer there for the hearing in Britney and Kevin’s custody case where uber-attorney Gloria Allred was to produce a ’secret witness’ and the mic-holder was yelling out questions about allegations of Britney having hired a hitman to kill Kevin Federline?!!! What?!

Even Allred looked shocked and she seemed to have no idea what this ill-informed producer was talking about and we’re pretty certain that info is totally WACK!

Anyway, we’ve got tape of all of this AND an ID on the ’secret witness’ coming soon!

[From X17online.com]

Maybe Britney used her pea-sized brain to figure out that five alimony payments at $20k each would be more than the going rate for having her ex offed. That would have been a bargain compared to years of ongoing payments.

If this is true Britney could be the fourth young female celebridiot to face jail time - and it’s not going to be two days in the slammer if she conspired to kill her husband. I wondered why it was taking so long for her to get arrested when she’s more of a trainwreck than Paris, Lohan and Nicole combined. Maybe she’ll try and get pregnant by whatever guy will have her in order to avoid a longer sentence. That’s probably the only strategy she’ll be able to come up with to deal with this mess.

This whole circus is about to get a hell of a lot more interesting.

Update: The LAPD and FBI both deny any investigation into a possible hit on K-Fed. Damn, I really loved this story.

Britney almost spared the world her atrocious “performance” at the VMAs - by trying to back out ten minutes before she was set to perform. She heard from K-Fed that her sons would be watching and she begged him not to let them see her, saying she would be half naked and it wasn’t appropriate. K-Fed said “You walk around the house naked all the time! What’s the difference?”

MTV told her she better suck it up/in and go on or they were going to sue her saggy ass. And I thought the girl had no clue that she isn’t all that anymore.

What’s more is that she was drinking vodka backstage and took a Xanax right before she went on. Earlier rumors had her coked up before her performance, but a mellowing drug like Xanax makes more sense. At least she has an excuse now other than being unprepared and hung over.

The Enquirer has learned that Britney, 25, tried to back out of the show at the last minute, popped a Xanax just before she went on stage, and sobbed like a baby after her dismal performance.

“Britney was completely numb (onstage) and it showed,” a music industry insider told The Enquirer.

Before performing “she was backstage slugging down shots of vodka. She thought it would calm her nerves, but all it did was make her dancing completely uninspired….”

Britney did show up to perform, but she had a meltdown backstage when her ex-husband Kevin Federline called to say their two young sons would be watching the show.

“Britney started yelling at Kevin that she didn’t want the boys to watch because she felt her nearly naked body and provocative dance moves would be too much for them to see,” said her friend.

“Kevin fired back: ‘But you walk around the house naked all the time! What’s the difference?’”

While getting last-minute touchups to her hair and makeup, Britney dropped a bombshell - telling producers she couldn’t perform.

“Britney knew that her rehearsal hadn’t gone well. But it was 10 minutes before she was supposed to go on stage - and the MTV bigwigs had a fit!” a source revealed.

“They told Britney that if she didn’t go one, they’d sue her. So she agreed to go ahead.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, September 24, 2007]

They should have let Kanye West perform on the main stage, he’s annoying but I think he was right to bitch about performing in one of the party locations instead. It was too late ten minutes before to prepare another act though, and Britney should have realized the day before that it wasn’t going to work. She probably couldn’t have backed out at that point, either, due to the fact that MTV was promoting the hell out of her “comeback” appearance.

We reported earlier today that all of Britney’s partying might come to a sad conclusion for the young mother. It is thought that she might lose primary custody of her infant sons to her ex husband, due to new allegations that are set to be revealed to the court.

Commentor Fabiola Thing mentioned after last week’s terrible performance that it seems like Britney doesn’t want to perform anymore and is just doing a half-assed job because she doesn’t know what else to do but wants a way out. She seems to be taking that approach to parenting, too.

There was a rumor last week that Britney was going to apologize at the Emmys for her awful VMA performance, but that never happened. Host Ryan Seacrest said she had an open invitation.

Remember a few years ago, when Mariah Carey went all crazy and started stripping her clothes off on TV? Well apparently that moment - and the several other bizarre/awkward ones she’d had around that time – wasn’t a breakdown, it was a breakthrough. And why did this all happen? Exhaustion, working herself way too hard, and her crazily driven work ethic. Supposedly. I’m sure drugs and alcohol had nothing to do with it. In her upcoming interview with “Interview” magazine, Carey talks about that much publicized time in her life.

“Pop star Mariah Carey has no regrets about her infamous 2001 nervous breakdown, now describing her public disintegration as an emotional ‘breakthrough’.

“The ‘Without You’ singer was treated for extreme exhaustion in July 2001 following her eccentric behaviour during a couple of public appearances.

“But Carey insists she needed to “hit rock bottom” to comprehend what her non-stop work ethic was doing to her.
“She tells American magazine Interview: ‘I’m far from perfect. I’m still learning. I overworked myself, and I paid the price. I consider the breakdown a breakthrough. I needed to hit rock bottom. I needed to understand the cost of pushing so hard; fighting so hard against the system.

“’But was I out of control at that moment? Yes.’”

[From Ireland Online]

Well it’s good that she’s honest and says she was out of control, but does anyone believe it when a celebrity says whatever massive issue they have is attributable to exhaustion? That’s like saying your leg fell off from a splinter. The cause just doesn’t naturally lead to such an extreme effect. Either way, Mariah Carey is one of those people who’s always seemed delusional and off-kilter. Maybe it wasn’t substance related, maybe it was just her own natural crazy working its way through her system. Or maybe she just has the words breakthrough and breakdown mixed up; she’s never struck me as that bright. But she has put out the best music of her career since her breakdown, so maybe there’s some truth to it. Or maybe crazy = genius.

Picture note by JayBird: Here’s Mariah at the 2007 Fresh Air Fund Salute to American Heroes in June. Image thanks to PR Photos.