I’m guessing most drivers can be accused of a bit of road rage now and then. Before I moved to New York, I found screaming really, really helped. And when it would bother my passengers, I’d explain that it was really the most polite thing I could do, because the alternative was to chase the *$%#@* down and assault him. So really I was showing the utmost restraint and decorum.

And while a lot of people have their own little coping mechanisms for the frustrations of the road, very few of us get out of our cars and wander about the highway during an infuriatingly long traffic jam. But I’m also guessing that very few of us are hopped up on a myriad of illicit substances: and those are two things that set us apart from Amy Winehouse.

When Amy Winehouse gets stuck in a traffic jam, she gets out of her car and saunters about in exasperation, displaying all sorts of bizarre behaviors for the paparazzi to eagerly snap.

Where Amy Winehouse goes, chaos follows. The troubled star caused something of a spectacle on the M40 today after she found herself stuck in a traffic jam.

Not content to sit patiently in her car, the Rehab singer roamed the motorway, giving drivers more than they bargained for as she went from car to car in an effort to scrounge a lighter for her cigarette to pass the time.

At one point she pulled up her purple vest to bare her midriff as she did a spot of sun baking while leaning on the bonnet of a car.

In a troubling sign, the 24-year-old’s arms were covered in fresh scratches and cigarette burns, thought to be the result of self-harming.

[From the Daily Mail]

That’s nice of the Daily Mail to insinuate that Amy was just trying to get a bit of healthy color on her deathly white stomach, but that doesn’t appear to be what she’s doing. From the expressions on her face, I’m pretty sure she’s hallucinating, and likely trying to ward off some demon spirit she thinks she sees by blinding them with the brightest of white lights.

Here’s Amy wandering the M40 in a quest for a lighter today in Oxfordshire. She really is one of the people. Images thanks to WENN.

I used to optimistically hypothesize that Amy Winehouse’s life was getting better, if for no other reason than the fact that she had stopped roaming the streets of London at three in the morning in bloody ballet slippers. Well if possible her life is in even bigger shambles now than it was last summer.

Amy’s had multiple arrests in just a few short weeks, and seems to have given up even trying. You could easily ask yourself, “Wait, she was trying before?” Well, I mean trying for Amy Winehouse. I mean the woman actually spent a day sans beehive. That’s got to be indicative of some type of deep identity crisis or a form of psychosis for her.

After being formally arrested in London yesterday for her legendary performance on her crack video, Amy proceeded to wander around London at four in the morning. She took a jaunt over to a gas station to load up on some healthy snacks, chatted with photographers, and queried them as to what her next tattoo should be. You know, just like all normal celebrities.

If Amy Winehouse was at all concerned about her second arrest in as many weeks, it certainly didn’t show as she roamed the streets 4am this morning.

The troubled singer left her Camden home in the early hours to dash to a petrol station where she collected supplies including magazines and drinks, chatting happily to photographers during her outing.

With her trademark beehive wrapped up in a red bandanna with her husband’s name emblazoned on it, the ever-erratic singer asked the paparazzi for suggestions for a new tattoo.

It was just hours after she visited a London police station by appointment yesterday afternoon before being arrested for possession of Class A drugs and later released on bail.

[From the Daily Mail]

I really hate to say it, but it seems like Amy is on the absolute brink. To say she’s spiraled out of control is such a massive understatement. And while you never ever want to acknowledge that someone could do some serious harm to themselves, it seems like Amy is just a step or two away from total destruction.

Though she’s certainly gone through hard times before, you would hear a lot about her family – especially her father – at least trying to help her, however unsuccessfully. It showed that she had some form of emotional support. Now you hardly hear a word about them, which makes you wonder who Amy’s got left to rely on. Someone needs to look out for her – clearly she can’t do it for herself.

Here’s Amy just a week ago. Look at the dramatic change in her appearance during just seven days time. Images thanks to Splash.

Life is really working out well for Blake Fielder-Civil, Amy Winehouse’s estranged, jailbird husband. By being married to Winehouse for just 11 months, Blake is expecting quite the payout at the end of their marriage – which everyone knows is coming in short order. Though he’s said to be on suicide watch at Pentonville Prison - where he’s also relapsed on drugs since finding out that Amy’s been cheating on him – Blake is clearly only sorta-distraught. He’s demanding $500,000 for each month they’ve been married – including the time he’s spent in jail.

Singer Amy Winehouse’s jailbird husband is demanding a £3million divorce payout as he rages over being dumped. Junkie Blake Fielder-Civil, 25, has told his lawyers he wants £250,000 for every month of their year’s marriage, despite being behind bars for part of it. And he fumed to pals after being ditched by the 24-year-old Back to Black singer: “She wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for me.”

A friend said: “At first Blake refused to believe Amy had dumped him, but his initial devastation has been replaced by rage. He said Amy owes everything to him — he inspired her music and says he saved her life. As a result of Amy his life will never be the same and he wants to make her compensate him. He has demanded £3million at the very least from her £10million fortune.”

[From the Sun]

So clearly Blake’s not all that distraught. I’m guessing the suicide watch is just a caution that the jail keepers probably institute in any case like this. Better safe than sorry and all that. Blake is back to his usual drug using. What a winner.

Sources at Pentonville Prison said Fielder-Civil had gone back to his old druggie ways after The Sun revealed Amy had bedded her manager’s assistant Alex Haynes, 22. He begged for heroin from another lag and inhaled it after getting his first clean drugs report in three months.

[From the Sun]

Blake going back to drugs doesn’t make me think he’s all that upset about Amy – from everything that’s been written, he seems the sort who’d take any excuse to use again. It would make a lot of people very happy to see Amy and Blake divorce –not the least of which is both of their families. And most of her friends. The notion that Blake in some way saved Amy is utterly ridiculous. He’s been nothing but bad for her – she had her act comparatively together until she met him. Who knows if she’ll get her life in order again, but Blake being out of it can only do her good.

Here’s Amy Winehouse entertaining friends at her home last night. Images thanks to WENN.

Gwyneth Paltrow thinks Britney Spears has been driven insane – and it’s all because of the paparazzi. I think Gwyneth may be the first celebrity to all-out call Britney Spears insane. And considering that Brit seems to have gotten a little better lately, I’m guessing that that might sting a bit. But either way, Gwyneth has accused the paparazzi of making Britney Spears literally go insane.

Gwyneth Paltrow has accused Adnan Ghalib and the paparazzi of pushing Britney Spears over the edge. She said the media frenzy surrounding Spears and her relationship with the Birmingham-born snapper had caused her to go “insane”.

Paltrow, whose own marriage to Chris Martin has been scrutinised in the press, said: “Look at what they’ve done to Britney. The paparazzi and magazines have blood on their hands. They literally made her go insane.

“She’s got classic Stockholm Syndrome - she fell in love with a paparazzo and went insane. The photographers and editors of these magazines have such bad karma. It’s pretty dark.”

[From Digital Spy]

Britney seems to have gotten better lately, and has been avoiding the paparazzi. Maybe there’s a connection between the two. Of course having someone else make decisions for her probably helps a lot too. Because Britney’s been reigned to such an extreme degree (which seems to be a good thing) it’s hard to tell if she’s really gotten better or if we just aren’t seeing the crazy out and about and on display.

Gwyneth’s reaction to the paparazzi’s treatment of Britney could explain the lengths she goes to in avoiding them, and keeping her kids sheltered from photographers. Husband Chris Martin has also been known to strike out at paps that get too close to his family. Everything considered, maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Here’s Gwyneth Paltrow with Elizabeth Hurley at the Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s ‘Hottest Pink Party Ever 2008′ at The Waldorf Astoria yesterday. Images thanks to WENN.

I’ve come up with a new rule: never write (or probably read) a story about Amy Winehouse while trying to eat lunch. The only thing worse than that is researching a story on Winehouse, because you’re bound to be accosted with a plethora of unsightly, stomach-churning images. Now I know the girl’s got issues, and I truly do feel badly for her, in a way I don’t for a lot of celebs. But that doesn’t mean I can look at the crusts on her face and still want to eat the crust on my sandwich. Amy’s still having her skin issues – and it was reported last week that she was using her some concoction involving her own urine to try to clear her skin. Interestingly, the other thing that works really well is washing your face. Also, showering more than once a fortnight can do wonders for the entire body. Since the invention of plumbing, people have been really big fans of it. Now Amy’s decided to add a little more crazy to her plate (I’m sticking with the lunchtime metaphors here). According to The Sun, Amy believes she’s being “tormented” by demons, and is going to move house for the third time in four months.

She is said to be tormented by “demons” in her new pad in Camden, North London. Though this hasn’t stopped her from letting in some late night guests… Wino wants to quit her home just a few weeks after moving in because she feels her surroundings have contributed to her disturbed state of mind.

A pal said of her latest pad: “She feels it is full of bad vibes and demons bringing her down.” The star quit Camden for Bow, East London, late last year to escape bad memories. Amy then collected more bad memories in Bow, where The Sun’s shock video of her smoking crack cocaine was filmed in January. She then went back to Camden, but believes the demons followed her.

Her face complaint [skin infection] has made her lock herself away, writing her darkest ever material. Maybe she should stay put in her current house and kick out the demons instead of moving – by stopping pumping them into her body.

[From the Sun]

Rarely do I find myself wholeheartedly shouting, “I agree with those logical people over at The Sun!” But today is that day, because holy crap are they right. Dear Amy Winehouse, the demons aren’t following you from house to house. You’re transporting them. The little hitchhikers are latched onto you so tightly you don’t even see them anymore. I really couldn’t help but wonder how a logical person could think it’s demons that are mucking everything up – and then I remembered that we’re dealing with an addict who likely is neither sober nor logical. So I guess Amy might really think there are actual demons following her – in which case, it’s time to head back to rehab. Actually it’s time to head back to rehab no matter what – and for a good long while this time. I know they say that for rehab to really work, the addict has to hit rock bottom and really WANT to be there. The problem is that Amy Winehouse’s rock bottom is a pretty terrifying place to be.

Here’s Amy coming out of her London home to go and visit her husband in prison today. She’s been wearing the leather gloves for the past few days, causing a lot of speculation about just what she may be hiding under there. Images thanks to Splash.

An undated photo of Britney, Larry and Sean Preston
The behind-the-scenes campaign to revive what’s left of Britney Spears’ career- that is, if she still wants one- has taken another positive step. Britney’s longtime manager, Larry Rudolph, is in talks to begin representing the fallen star again. Rudolph got the cold shoulder from Brit after working with her parents to get her checked into rehab the first time around. After Brit stayed at Promises just long enough to realize she didn’t like being bossed around, she went off on a bizarre tirade against Rudolph and her parents. This was shortly before the head-shaving incident. After Britney dropped Rudolph as her manager, the door was wide open for faux-manager/creep extraordinaire Sam Lutfi to worm his way in.

As Britney Spears continues to strive to get her personal and professional lives back in order, OK! has learned she’s turned to a familiar face for help — former manager Larry Rudolph. Though the pair had parted company a year ago, sources confirm exclusively to OK! that the “Toxic” songstress has once again been taken under Larry’s wing.

Larry and Brit share a long and bumpy history. He was the visionary who discovered the young star Britney and shepherded her career from teen pop tart to international superstar. And when her life began to spiral dangerously out of control in the weeks and months following her Oct. 2006 divorce from Kevin Federline, it was Larry who Britney’s parents, Jamie and Lynne Spears, turned to for help getting her into rehab.

After her brief stint at the Promises clinic in Malibu, Brit went public with her ill-feelings toward Larry, chastising him on camera in a bizarre, disjointed rant, for what she viewed as siding with her folks against her.

However, Brit’s dad has always been open about his positive feelings toward Larry, even publicly thanking Larry for his efforts. And now Jamie, who has continued to think the world of Larry both as a manager and as a friend who has Britney’s best interests at heart, has finally convinced Britney to let him take over the reins of her recently resurgent career.

[From OK! Magazine]

Let’s just pause to examine this for a moment, shall we? “Recently resurgent career.” Britney has had one guest appearance on a mediocre sitcom. For other popstars who’ve sold as many CDs as she has, that kind of career move would be deemed pathetic, bordering on desperate. But I suppose it’s all relative. I hope Larry Rudolph realizes that this is not the Britney of 1999. Putting her back in that grueling schedule of recording a CD and going on a massive world tour is not what she needs right now. Hopefully he gets that, and gives her just enough work to keep her out of trouble but not so much that she cannot take care of herself. He does seem to care about her welfare, and even tried dodging the subpoenas of K-Fed’s attorney, Mark Kaplan, during their custody battle, saying at the time that he “never wanted to do anything to hurt Britney.”

Update by Celebitchy: I forgot that I downloaded this photo of Britney going to the dentist on 3/26/08, from WENN. It’s a really crappy photo but I may as well include it. She needs a new weave.

Actress Delta Burke, who has long been an advocate for talking about mental health issues, spoke with Entertainment Tonight about her recent hospitalization in a psych ward. It was widely reported that Delta was hospitalized for her hoarding, and while that played a large part in her struggle, it appears that her biggest worry was that her depression had gotten out of control. Delta says that before she was hospitalized, she couldn’t get out of bed for over two weeks.

Burke, 51, says she had been on five medications to treat her lifelong battle with depression when all of them stopped working. So she went to a clinic “to get my meds straightened out and to get properly diagnosed,” she says, adding that her meds have since been cut back to two and she has been put on a diabetic diet.

Burke says she has come a long way since her Designing Women days when her depression severely escalated. One night, she recalls, she was parked in a car on top of a hill with a gun beside her and a bottle of Xanax. She was upset over what a tabloid had written about her. “I just kept taking Xanax and hoping the pain would stop,” she tells ET. “I got really sleepy and decided to go for a ride. I needed a Diet Coke really bad. I called up [husband Gerald McRaney]. I didn’t know where I was but he found me.”

Burke says she continues to speak out about her depression — “something that I deal with and millions of Americans deal with” — “to remove the stigma. “I will always fight and everyone out there who battles this should always fight,” she adds.

[From Us Weekly]

Delta also reported that her hoarding had gotten out out of hand. She was addicted to QVC and eBay. I think eBay is becoming a much more common addiction than people realize. Delta’s addiction had led to her having to rent out 27 storage units in New Orleans, which she filled with her belongings. As part of her recovery, Delta’s sister is helping her sort through the items. She’s doing her best to sell and donate as much as she can. Hoarding is an interesting, and not often talked about disease. We discussed it in detail in relation to Delta’s hospitalization here. I can imagine that when you’re depressed, thinking of the extreme clutter and mess really could push you over the edge and make it impossible to even get out of bed and deal with it all. Congratulations to Delta not just for dealing with her issues, but for being unashamed and unafraid to talk about them.

A few weeks ago everyone and their nosy mother was saying they’d love to help Britney get her act together, with multiple celebrities offering her advice and a place to stay in their enormous mansions. Rosie O’Donnell and Elton John each said she could move in with them, Queen Latifah said she wanted to “take Britney home and give her a place to sleep and rest,” and Julia Robers said “I see and hear what’s happening to Britney Spears and it’s all I can do not to move her into my guesthouse and say: ‘OK, this is how it’s going to be!’” Even Terri Irwin said that Britney could come over, saying “If Britney and her family want to go in the bush with us, we’d love to have them.” Victoria Beckham, Simon Cowell, Brooke Shields, and Donald Trump have all offered to talk to her and help her. [Thanks to Mike Walker of the National Enquirer for compiling this list of quotes, which was published in his February 18 column]

So Heidi Klum’s offer for Britney to move in with her isn’t that unique, but it does seem like she’s kind of late to the party, and is not able to realize that Britney is seriously mentally ill and needs a lot more than a friend and a place to stay right now. She also seems to attribute Britney’s problems to her lifestyle:

“She can call me and come live in our house with us for a couple of months,” said Klum, a mother of three who is married to the singer Seal and lives in Beverly Hills, Calif. “I would help set her straight.”

“I am sorry when a young person gets thrown so off track,” Klum said, according to a transcript of an interview that will be aired Monday night by the German broadcaster ARD. “She has, of course, lived an extremely wild life.”

[From The Huffington Post]

Klum doesn’t like Spears, and told Ellen Degeneres in November that Britney schooled her on how to use diapers when she crashed her Halloween party. She made a stupid joke about it, saying “[Britney and I] were talking about babies and diapers and she explained to me a lot of things about diapers I that didn’t know. You know these sticky things on the side? I never knew that they were there. To close them in the front, I was always putting string around. I had no idea.”

The other day I got flack from a commentor for telling Britney to “buck up,” in the same article in which I mentioned that the tabloids claimed last week that she was diagnosed with schizophrenia as well as bipolar disorder. Xiaoecho told me that “people with mental illness cannot ‘buck up’, they do not have the luxury of that choice. their thought processes are severely unbalanced….that is why they are mentally ill’” and I hung my head in shame for about 1/2 a minute until I realized I better move on to the next piece of throwaway gossip. I try to be sensitive about these type of situations, but I’m trying to write as fast as possible and sometimes you say things that you don’t think through properly.

So I guess you could see where Klum would think that Britney just needs to have some structure and order, and that she could somehow be able to help her. It’s not that easy for someone with a mental illness, though, and Britney’s problem goes well beyond not having a stable home life. While I usually like Klum, her wide-mouthed mug is all over the place in Germany where I live and I’m gradually souring on her. A lot of celebrities have offered Britney a place to stay, but now that she’s been in psych ward twice it’s time to realize that her problem is not that she doesn’t have peace and order in her external environment.

Britney is trying to get out from her father’s thumb, and has hired a lawyer who claims that Jamie Spears’ conservatorship is violating her civil rights. She is working to have her case moved from LA County to Federal jurisdiction, and her new lawyer filed papers that claimed that she doesn’t even have the right to her own attorney: “Ms. Spears has not had the benefit of a single hearing before the court, yet she has been stripped of her right to access to counsel of her choosing.” [Details from The NY Post]

I wonder if Heidi Klum would be violating Britney’s rights too, in her effort to “set her straight” after her “extremely wild life.”

Britney Spears is shown out to dinner on Saturday at Social with her dad. A fight broke out among the paparazzi and one guy ended up getting arrested. Heidi Klum is shown on the set of Project Runway on 2/8/08. Thanks to WENN and PRPhotos.

Yesterday JayBird reported on the anticipated hearing in which Jamie Spears, Britney’s father, was to ask that his control over her estate be continued. The Commissioner ruled in his favor and Jamie will remain as Britney’s conservator until another hearing March 10, which means he still has control over who she sees and how she spends her money. Britney’s brother Bryan and an attorney are named as co-trustees and will take over for her father if he is unable to manage her estate.

While some question Jamie’s motives, he’s been working as a chef to pay the bills and seems to have cleaned up his act considerably since his earlier problems with alcoholism. Britney needs someone who will make sure she stays safe who isn’t going to use, drug, and/or emotionally abuse her. Her father seems like he has her best interests at heart and is keeping her safe at home with a staff and occasional trips to the dance studio. She was taken advantage of by Sam Lutfi, who disabled her cars and phones, and bragged to her own mother about how he would routinely mash up medication and slip it into her food without her knowledge. Lutfi is now shut out of her life by restraining order, although no one has been able to serve the papers directly to him.

There have been a lot of stories in the tabloid papers about how Britney freaked out while she was in the psychiatric ward at UCLA’s medical center, and I didn’t cover them because I felt like I didn’t need to know those details. One thing that both Star and The National Enquirer reported this week is that Britney was also diagnosed with schizophrenia along with bipolar disorder. That is incredibly serious and brought a kind of reality and depth for me to this situation that all the “Britney’s freaking out!” stories failed to do.

I just got the new National Enquirer, and they claim that Britney tried to run away from the bodyguard that her father hired several times. Since she’s tailed by so many paparazzi who would be able to see this, it sounds likely:

An enraged Britney Spears got into a violent brawl with her new bodyguard as she made a desperate attempt to escape from her home - and her father’s control.

With her dad Jamie and the bodyguard in hot pursuit, Britney made it only two houses down the street in her exclusive Beverly Hills neighborhood before the bodyguard caught up with her.

“She was screaming at both men at the top of her lungs,” said a source. “Britney was in a rage, cursing them as she was dragged and carried back to the house…”

After a recent dance rehearsal, she begged her bodyguard not to take her straight home. When he refused, she began screaming and tried to jump out of the car at a red light, but he hit the gas and began moving before she could flee, said the source.

She again tried to make a run for it as the car stopped in front of the gate to her community.

“Britney was irate,” said the source. “As the gate was opening, she jumped into the front seat and opened the door.”

But Britney changed her mind when a photographer pulled alongside the car, and the bodyguard took her straight to the house.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, February 25, 2008]

The Enquirer also reports that Lynn doesn’t approve of the tough love that Jamie is showing their daughter, and that she would rather take her back to Louisiana. Along with Sam Lutfi, Britney’s “cousin” Alli Sims has also been shut out of her life. Alli has been hanging out with Lutfi, and that’s enough to show that she’s a bad influence on her.

Britney has bipolar disorder and according to reports was diagnosed with schizophrenia too. She can’t care for herself and her father is trying to make sure she’s ok and is able to stay at home and go on occasional outings. If she knows what’s good for her and wants to see her children again she’ll buck up and figure out how to make it work. We’re not holding our breath, but at least she’s safe.

Here’s Britney outside Millenium dance studio yesterday. You can see her mom Lynn in the background and TMZ reported that she left yesterday to go back to Louisiana. She’s got that helmet hair cut that everyone is sporting lately, and it’s not that bad on her.

Britney’s father isn’t taking any chances with his daughter’s tenuous mental health. Access Hollywood is reporting that Jamie Spears plans move in with his daughter to ensure that that she is under constant supervision and is protected from the predators and paparazzi that may have hastened her her recent break down.

Access Hollywood’s insider also claims that a guardian who will also serve as a sobriety coach will move in with Jamie and Britney to help ease her transition back to a more calm lifestyle. Britney also suffers from the effects of what is thought to be abuse of prescription medication, much of which could have been forced on her without her knowledge by Sam Lutfi. In Touch reports that she had an “intense detox” while in her padded cell in UCLA’s psych ward, where she was hospitalized for just under a week.

In our earlier post about Britney we asked what was next for her, because her future outside of the hospital looks bleak as long as she continues on her erratic path. Having her father and a sober companion live with her and try to guide her daily decisions may be a very good compromise between hospitalization and complete hotel-hopping freedom.

Britney’s father Jamie works as a chef and said in a court deposition that he was unable to visit his daughter immediately on Sunday when she asked for him due to the fact that he had to cook for a Super Bowl party. At least the guy is working hard and not trying to sponge off his daughter. He was already appointed conservator of her estate and that time, and it speaks well for him that he kept his work commitments. He did visit Britney later at the hospital, and also showed up at the Beverly Hills Hotel last night where she was holed up with Adnan.

It is thought that Britney’s father will be in court today to try and enforce some of his authority as conservator of her estate, including not authorizing hotel stays and deciding which visitors she is permitted.