Pop's princess on the edge

TORMENTED BRITNEY SPEARS has been driven to the brink amid fears she could lose her kids, it was claimed last night.

Sources close to the singer — who bizarrely shaved her head BALD at the weekend — say she is struggling following the breakdown of her marriage to KEVIN FEDERLINE.

And she is terrified her estranged hubby will take sons Sean Preston, one, and five-month-old Jayden James from her.

Lawyers for Kevin, 28, have been portraying Britney as an unfit mother in a bid to help him win custody.

And the 25-year-old star’s erratic behaviour in recent weeks has left pals fearing she is going through an extraordinary public meltdown.

Britney checked into an Antigua rehab clinic last Thursday after hitting rock bottom during a four-day booze bender in New York.

But she stayed less than 24 hours before returning to California, where she briefly visited her sons in Malibu before shaving off her hair, getting tattooed and dashing to a hospital in the early hours and asking for help.

Ex-boyfriend Isaac Cohen told how the Oops I Did It Again star was at breaking point after her agonising marriage break-up last year.




He claimed she was drinking to forget her problems — but was terrified that her children could be taken away.

Cohen said: “Britney’s boys mean everything to her and she worried she might lose them in a custody battle. It was clear she was not over her marriage.

“She’d lie like a rag doll in my arms and say, ‘Why can’t everyone leave me alone?’”

Britney, whose career began as a child star in US TV’s New Mickey Mouse Club, checked herself into rehab after months of hard partying that left friends and family fearing she was spiralling out of control.

She was famously pictured in Los Angeles on a string of drunken nights out with Paris Hilton, wearing no knickers.

At New Year she collapsed in a Las Vegas nightclub after downing champagne and cocktails — but still continued partying with Cohen and a string of dancer pals in LA. Last Friday she was seen sobbing in her limo for ten minutes before she entered Esther’s Haircutting Studio in Tarzana, California, at 6.15pm.

After hairdressers refused her plea to shave off her dark locks, Britney — whose tearstains were visible on her hooded top — grabbed the clippers and did it herself.

Stunned salon owner Esther Tognozzi said: “I tried to talk her out of it, but she said, ‘No I absolutely want it shaved off now.’

“Afterwards she looked in the mirror and said with tears in her eyes, ‘Oh, my God, I shaved it all off. My mom is going to be so upset with me.’” Esther said Britney, who was accompanied by two minders, seemed dazed and distant. She added: “She was just there in body and not really emotionally there.”

Britney, who wore a Star of David from Cohen and whose bared neck revealed a tiny tattoo, left the salon just after 7pm and then drove aimlessly around LA for 40 minutes.

At about 8pm, her car pulled up outside the Body and Soul Tattoo parlour and she rushed inside.

With shaved hair all over her top, she ordered staff to etch a set of pink lips on her wrist and a black, white and pink cross on her lower hip.

Workers said Britney was “screaming and flipping out from the pain”.

Emily Wynne-Hughes, who was in the tattoo shop, said: “After she left, we said to each other, ‘We just saw a huge celebrity on the verge of a nervous breakdown.’

“She basically just said she was tired of having things plugged into her. She didn’t want anybody to touch her.


“She seemed really distraught and disturbed. She was very scatterbrained.

“The whole time, I felt like she wasn’t there — like her body was but her thoughts were somewhere else.

“It was crazy, very surreal. She’s definitely crying out.”

Britney left just before 10pm and returned home. But at about midnight she drove out again — only to return home 20 minutes later.

At about 2am the troubled singer was briefly spotted at the Cedars Sinai Medical Centre in Beverly Hills — wearing a dark wig. Onlookers said she spoke with staff before entering a private room. Sources said she was with a pal and seemed “disturbed”.

But she left after just over an hour and was seen heading home. She has not been seen since.

Britney’s spokeswoman Gina Orr refused to comment last night.