LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The father of pop star Britney Spears was terrified by his daughter’s deepening drug addiction as her life spiralled out of control five years ago, his attorney told jurors on Friday.
“Jamie (Spears) was living in constant fear that he was going to look at the TV one day and see Britney was dead,” said Leon Gladstone, Jamie Spears’ attorney.
Gladstone’s remarks came on the second day of a civil trial that has pitted the singer and her parents against Sam Lutfi, who was one of her closest friends in 2007 and early 2008 and who described himself as her manager at that time.
Lutfi, now 38, was considered to be Spears’ live-in “gate keeper” who determined who was allowed to see her during her personal and career meltdown in 2007.
He is suing the singer for a chunk of her earnings at that time. Lutfi also is suing Spears’ parents, Jamie and Lynne Spears. He claims Jamie Spears punched him in the chest at Britney Spears’ Los Angeles area home in January 2008, and that Lynne Spears libelled him in her book, “Through the Storm,” published later that year. The trial has lifted the lid on a tumultuous period when Spears famously shaved her head, was twice placed on psychiatric holds, lost custody of her children and was placed under her father’s conservatorship, giving him control of her health and finances. Gladstone said that Jamie Spears had been trying to get his daughter to go to rehab after her 2006 divorce from Kevin Federline and at one point he convinced Federline to obtain sole legal custody of their two young children, Gladstone said. While the “Toxic” singer’s problems began to reach their a peak after her divorce from Federline, her spiral into depression began years earlier, Gladstone said. The once-happy and humble pop star became angry and impulsive in 2003 after breaking up with fellow superstar Justin Timberlake, Gladstone said.