by Ted Sherman

Created on: February 27, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

As her life spins into total mental breakdown, Britney Spears has become the butt of comedians' jokes and lurid tabloid gossip. This child-woman who was pushed into show business by an fiercely ambitious mother is a familiar story in America. Show business history show that a few survive to go on to years of success, while most have problems growing up.

Some never grow up. Britney's current personal distress may be based on that old show business legend. Considering her recent behavior, it could be that, despite tremendous career success, she just never matured emotionally. By age 11, she was a professional performer on the Mickey Mouse Club, and in 1998, at 17 she had a big song hit with "Baby, One More Time".

She followed that up with her second album, featuring another hit song, "Oops! I Did It Again." By this time, her sweet little girl image had evolved into an energetic, sexy singer/dancer. It looked like a lifetime of tremendous success was ahead of Britney Spears.

However, she then appeared in a badly-conceived quickie movie, "Crossroads,", which suffered terrible reviews, thus ending her ambitions to become a movie star. Her albums and music videos continued to be solid hits, and her young fans followed and worshipped her all the more. At first, Britney welcomed the adoration, but by her early 20s, she began to find it tiresome. But instead of avoiding publicity and crowds, she embarked on a series of publicity-seeking incidents that were a hint of worse to come.

In 2003, she made a big splash by publicly boasting that she had lost her virginity, and followed that with a highly-publicized on-camera lip-to-lip kiss with Madonna at an awards show. The next year, on a whim she invited a childhood friend to join her in Las Vegas. After a night of partying, she took him to a roadside wedding chapel and they were married. Two days later, whether because she sobered up or listened to family advice, she had the union annulled, claiming they slept in separate beds on the wedding night, and the marriage was not consummated. Some of those close to her were puzzled by her laughing dismissal of the episode.

Her tabloid fame was already at a high pitch when, several months later, she became the undisputed tabloid queen when she married an obscure back-up dancer from her troupe, Kevin Federline. Britney's judgement was questioned again when it was disclosed that Federline had two children from a previous relationship, and was known as a serial womanizer.

In September 2005, Britney's first baby was born. At the same time, she and Kevin appeared in a soon-to-be cancelled reality show. She gave birth to another son a year later. Kevin kept up his wandering ways while Britney caused several highly-publicized incidents with her babies that had child protection services questioning her maternal capabilities.

By 2006, Britney had enough of Kevin's shameful behavior and filed for divorce. Then her own actions went from strange to certifiably sick. She showed latent evidence that she had never really matured emotionally by going on rounds of clubs virtually every night with the Hollywood bimbo crowd led by Paris Hilton. In one incident, she climbed out of a limo wearing no underwear, creating another round of raunchy photos and late-night comedy routines.

The latest incidents that clearly show she needs help urgently happened when she shaved her head and was tattooed while the paparazzi and the world looked on. The child-woman had finally made a very desperate call for help. It could have been her last one. But did anyone hear her?

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