Britney Spears threw a hissy fit when an L.A. boutique was unable to meet her bizarre demands, according to a U.S. report.
The troubled singer reportedly stunned staff at the Betsey Johnson on Melrose Ave when she showed up earlier this month with a dress that she expected the store to copy so that she could wear it the same evening.
An eyewitness tells Gatecrasher, "the staff explained that they didn't have a dressmaker on call who could do it in time." But the pop wreck didn't go away empty handed.
Continues the source: "The only thing she wanted to buy in the store was the yellow wig on a mannequin in the window. The manager eventually agreed to offer it to her for $100."
Meanwhile, Britney was caught on camera losing it after a pink-wigged reporter tried to give her a gift during a Starbucks run.
The man who claims to be Britney Spears's new lawyer says that the pop star is being "deprived of her Constitutional rights" and tells PEOPLE he is seeking a "return to normalcy" when it comes to Spears's living and legal situations.
Jon Eardley, a lawyer with practices in Washington, D.C., New York and Whittier, Calif., filed a complaint in U.S. District Court on behalf of Spears on Thursday. He lashed out against the existing conservatorship as a "violation of [Spears's] civil rights," and requested the case be moved from California state court to a federal court.
"I see the case as a civil rights case," he tells PEOPLE. "These are issues of confinement. Very serious confinement. Not allowed to contact her friends. Not allowed to use the phone. Not allowed to come and go as you please. Bodyguards controlling you and so forth."
Spears's father Jamie was granted temporary conservatorship – allowing legal control of his daughter's well-being and finances – after Spears was placed under an involuntary, emergency hold at the UCLA Medical Center's psychiatric ward late last month.
Since her release on Feb. 6, she has spent much of her time at her Studio City home, and when she does go out, she is usually driven by a bodyguard. In court papers, Eardley states: "She is being confined by the conservator to the private prison of her own home."
On Friday, a Superior Court spokesperson said that the existing conservatorship and other orders "are still in effect," and that court officials are unaware of any federal court action or scheduled hearings on the matter.
Legal Maneuvering
"The saddest part [of the legal maneuvering] is it is all to [Britney's] detriment," says a legal insider. "The limited conservatorship puts in place medical care and protection of her assets that may be put at risk by the distraction and expense of having to get such an opportunistic and counterproductive action dismissed." In fact, legal experts say Eardley's legal gambit is unlikely to succeed. "It's not like the judge read papers filed by one side and made decisions without giving each side due process," says Loyola Law School Professor Stan Goldman, who is not involved in the case.
"It would be quite surprising if the federal court granted a hearing on this," he adds, "and a total shocker if it ruled against the conservatorship." In addition, the Superior Court has found that Spears "lacks the capacity" to retain counsel of her choosing. Because of that, lawyer Adam Streisand, who went to court on Feb. 4 to challenge the conservatorship on her behalf, removed himself himself from the case.
Spears Sought Out Lawyer
Eardley says he has not met the pop star, but Spears sought him out: "She reached out by phone. I have no idea how [she got my number]." The attorney says he doesn't normally represent celebrity clients. But now Eardley has hired spokesperson Michael Sands, who until recently worked with Kevin Federline's lawyer Mark Vincent Kaplan.
When asked if Spears's often-erratic behavior posed a danger to herself and others, Eardley answered, "I don’t," adding that he sees far worse cases on the streets. "In downtown Los Angeles I'm surrounded by people talking to themselves and having fits on the street," says Eardley. "They are out in public. They are not being institutionalized."
The father of troubled pop star Britney Spears will retain control over her affairs for about three more weeks, a court ruled on Thursday, even as a new attorney sought to move the case to federal jurisdiction. The attorney, Jon Eardley, is linked to an associate of Spears' self-styled manager Sam Lutfi, and in the filing the attorney claims the case should be moved from state court because Spears' is being deprived of her civil liberties.
Jamie Spears was granted "temporary conservatorship" over his 26-year-old daughter's affairs two weeks ago when she was in a Los Angeles hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Los Angeles Court Commissioner Reva Goetz has now extended that conservatorship -- which gives him control over her business, finances and some personal affairs -- until March 10, a court spokesman said.
In addition, Spears' brother Bryan, 30, was been named co-trustee of his sister's trust along with Los Angeles attorney Ivan Taback. But in a related filing, Eardley said the case should be moved to federal court because the essential issue on which Jamie Spears was granted conservatorship centers on medication Spears is supposed to take.
It’s late afternoon at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills—yes, that same Four Seasons Britney Spears checked herself into on so many subsequent nights—and Paris Hilton, perhaps herself the original paparazzi magnet, is signing her CD for an eager fan… a journalist there to interview her actually. That’s kind of a no-no in our profession, actually.
But the hotel heiress happily obliges, despite being bleary-eyed from a day spent promoting her new film The Hottie and the Nottie. And when she sits down before a room of rabid “reporters”—and I say that because many of these so-called journalists preferred to remind Paris of ‘that time we sat together at an awards show’ or ‘the event I photographed you at in Milan back in 2003’ than to ask her any legitimate questions—it’s with all the charm of a finishing school A-lister. It’s as if the media is powerless against her—when she walks into a room, some seem amped knock her off her game, others ponder the media giant she’s almost inexplicably become—and yet no one can take their eyes off of her.
This mini mogul (at just 26, she has movies, books, modeling gigs, a TV series, an album, a perfume line, canned wine and more to her credit) is just as famous for her jail time, sex tape and very public slips of the tongue as she is for the empire she’s built. She’s a new breed of celebrity. One minute she begs to be taken seriously as an actress, rattling off the name of her acting coach and offering a convincing sound-byte on the deeper message behind her film. The next she giggles and says ‘not sure’ when asked who she’s planning to vote for in the upcoming presidential election.
And yet the press eats it up like candy—one ‘reporter’ alludes to a scene in the film in which Christabel, Hilton’s character, slaps a restraining order against a male suitor with the demand, ‘That better be 40-feet.’ Paris laughs, remembering the moment, then proceeds to tell the room about her own stalker… the one who slept outside of her home for days on end, kidnapped her dog and then miraculously rescued it days later.“( For me) it was Teen and Tiger Beat—there was none of this kind of paparazzi, because it was all planned ahead of time. There wasn’t anything like this back then”, she laughs. The actress got to further taste Hilton’s world on a recent night out on the town.
Britney Spears threw a hissy fit when an L.A. boutique was unable to meet her bizarre demands, according to a U.S. report.
