It's not been a good year for Britney Spears. Following the breakdown of her marriage and an ensuing battle for custody of her two toddlers, the singer began the year by getting sectioned not once, but twice.
On the first occasion, on 3 Jan, the singer barricaded herself inside her house with her sons, Sean Preston and Jayden James, and refused to give the children up to the custody of their father, Kevin Federline. Having been awake for four days, and suspected of being on drugs, the singer was detained for two days. The second occasion, about four weeks later, saw the singer committed to the UCLA Medical Centre's Psychiatric Unit, and led to the dealings of all her affairs, business and financial, to be handed over to the control of her father Jamie Spears. A restraining order was also placed on her sometime manager Sam Lutfi, who many regarded as the cause of her recent troubles. To add to it all, Spears was dogged by an ongoing court case relating to an August 2007 charge of driving without a licence.
Spears' father is still conservator of his daughter's affairs, but things seem to be looking up a bit for Britney of late, as she has regained visitation rights for her two children (though ex-husband Federline retains sole custody), a judge declared the licence case a mistrial, and her career progressed positively; she received a number of awards this year for her 2007 comeback album 'Blackout', did a couple of well-received guest appearances on CBS TV show 'How I Met Your Mother', and her most recent album release, 'Circus', debuted at number one on the Billboard chart, selling 505,000 copies in its first week, which isn't such bad going.
Of course, she's been criticised by PETA for using tamed animals in a recent promo, and accused of a shoddy performance on the 'X-Factor', though Simon Cowell says he'd have her back any time, so she's got nothing to worry about.
Other past contenders for their own "what a mad year" slot in our Review Of The Year failed to deliver enough tabloid drama this year. Amy Winehouse did her bit, I suppose, though it was mainly illness and the stress of her other half being inside that got reported. At times Amy seemed as screwed up as ever, while at other points it seemed she might be on the up. Let's hope it's the latter - I really do want to hear that third album. Courtney Love seemed like she was having a few more loopy moments this year - though that was mainly because of her slightly mad MySpace blogs - and certainly wasn't on the level of her 2003/2004 breakdown. And Pete Doherty, meanwhile, who once, let's not forget, got his own separate Review Of The Year such were his shenanigans, hardly appeared on our radar. Apparently he's been busy making music. Whatever that means.