Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BRITNEY SPEARS "VANISHES" AS CHARGES SWIRL

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-Heart podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Breaking news tonight, Britney Spears vanishes as criminal charges swirl. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Right now I'm concerned about Britney Spears. Her ex-husband has just released a book about his life with her.

Starting point is 00:00:29 He knows how fragile she is and put this book out anyway. He's just looking for another payday. Is she spiraling out of control? Is there another conservatorship on the horizon? Now, the public worried that Britney Spears vanishes. Listen. When Brittany suddenly deletes her Instagram, she cuts ties with everyone she regularly communicates with and that has those close to Spears very concerned.

Starting point is 00:00:56 Insiders say Spears communicates using Instagram. Instagram and social media, not just to interact with fans, but it's how family and friends keep up with her as well. Now that she's gone Instagram silent, friends and family have no way of knowing how she is or where she is. Britney Spears seemingly dropping off the face of the earth, but out to renowned psychoanalyst, Dr. Bethany Marshall, joining us out of Britney Spears' jurisdiction in California. You can see her now on Peacock. She's the author of Deal Breaker, and you can find her on Dr. Bethany Marshall.com. Dr. Bethany Marshall, she seemingly lives on social.

Starting point is 00:01:36 Like, there's no life outside a social. So when she drops off the map off Insta, I mean, I think a lot of people have a guilty pleasure, a prurient interest in watching her bizarre Insta twirls and videos that we see pop up. She goes radio silent. Why? You know, what I would wonder if she was my patient, and again, I've never treated her, I have not evaluated her, is if she's in some kind of what we would call a manic episode. And in mania, there's excessive goal-directed activity, drug use, hypersexuality, impulsivity, and most notoriously, lack of insight into what is happening to them.

Starting point is 00:02:19 People who are in a manic episode love to travel. They love to go places. And the beginning of the main thing, feels great because they feel on top of the world, but once they hit that crash, they really crash. And she could have become so disoriented. She was unable to even access her Insta or a good friend got a hold of her and turned it off for her for a week. I'm curious what you mean by that, all of that psycho discussion. What does it mean when someone's only life is on social media?

Starting point is 00:02:54 Yeah, that has to mean something. I mean, I'm just a trial lawyer, Bethany. That's why I'm asking you, what does that mean? Our first sense of self in life is what we see reflected in the eyes of our mothers. Okay, we smile, the mother smiles back. We know we smiled. Child actors and child musicians, the camera is their mother, okay? The camera consolidates their sense of self.

Starting point is 00:03:19 Their self-esteem rises and falls on the smiles and frowns of others. So her self is what she's putting forward in the camera. She may not feel that she has another self, but this is a socially created self, which we all have. We just have it with people in our lives. She has it with her camera. You know, speaking of people with prurient interests in Britney Spears, they don't listen to some of her music, but they love to watch those videos that my control room is obviously obsessed with. That's all they show.

Starting point is 00:03:52 They never show her with her children when she's out doing Mommy and Me or any, oh, there you go. Do you think you can dig up one picture of her control room where she's fully clothed? The vanishing act from Instagram causes Spears fans to grow concerned for her well-being as the weeks leading up to the silence was filled with social media rants and furious posts, calling out her ex-KFed for humiliating her through his memoir. Spears is then captured driving dangerously, crossing the center line, going on the shoulder, and tailgating. A little more chaos than silence. Deletes her Instagram, friends and fans alike, concerned. Straight out to Rob Shooter.

Starting point is 00:04:37 He is a PR guru that worked for years for Sean Combs. I guess you had to hold your nose during all that time. But has worked with Britney Spears and has spent a lot of hours around her. his brand new novel has just hit Amazon. It's awesome. It started with a whisper. Only you could come up with that. He's also at robsheeter.substack.com.

Starting point is 00:05:01 Rob Shooter. Why are her only friends on Insta? And why has she pulled a vanishing act? What did you observe with her when you worked around her to somehow justify this? Yeah, for the Britney Spears that we're seeing today, the Britney Spears, who has always existed. The difference was 10, 20 years ago, there was a myth about her being a very different person,

Starting point is 00:05:27 much more buttoned up, much more together, that was really put out by her record label. Now that that label has gone away, we're not seeing a different Britney. This is a really key point here. Brittany hasn't changed. The truth has come out. She's always been that girl that we're seeing their dancing.

Starting point is 00:05:43 And without the polish of a record label, a powerful company, we get to see it. truth. So this is unvarnished, Britney Spears. This is who she has always been. About her friends, Nancy, she's never had friends. She became famous at a very early age, and she learned to dance and sing, but she didn't learn how to make friends. She has almost nobody in the business. I know for years now, Brittany has been communicating with people through DMs, through social media. If you look at her phone, she does not have any phone numbers in that phone. She has apps to social, media, and that's how she communicates. This isn't new.

Starting point is 00:06:22 You know, I'm very curious. You've been around so many celebrities and really, really big stars. In her world, how can she even make friends? Of course, I started to say, how is that even relevant to the fact that she is endangering the public by driving over the double line or dancing with knives and so, so much more? But the reality is she does. She doesn't doesn't have friends. In her position, how do you make friends and how can you trust him? Every man that comes into her life is a blood-sucking parasite. And that's putting it mildly. Did you observe this while you were working around her? Yeah, everybody around Britney was on the payroll. Everybody around her was earning a living from her. There was nobody around her for the reasons of friendship

Starting point is 00:07:13 it because she was funny or witty or kind or smart. They were there because she is the cash cow. She makes tens of millions of dollars. Listen, it's really hard to make friends when you leave school. Later on in life, it's difficult to make friends. Add on top of that, her power, her fame, her wealth. It's almost impossible. A lot of us, Nancy, we make friends at work after we leave school or university. We get a job. Brittany's job has ended. She has not worked in a long time. did have a job. Everybody around her was there for the wrong reasons. They were there to make money, not to make friends. Kevin Federline's tell all you thought you knew is exposing a lack of closeness in Spears in her circle as she appears to have no one to share what she's thinking or

Starting point is 00:08:01 feeling regarding the accusations being thrust on her. The source said Instagram is all she has left and Spears talks to followers more than her family or friends. Ever since the conservatorship ended, Spears has used social media and, in some ways, as a substitute for in-person support. Straight out to Dave Matt Crime Stories investigative reporter. Dave Mack, sadly, you and I have investigated and covered. I can't even count the number of cases where when someone goes radio silent on social, it's never a good thing. In fact, very often that starts a criminal timeline when someone typically, a woman, sometimes a man.

Starting point is 00:08:46 I mean, we've covered them, people that got lost driving and ended up dead, people that have been murdered, people that have been kidnapped. We often start the timeline when they go silent on social media. No wonder everybody's worried sick about Britney Spears. You're exactly right, Nancy. It's amazing how many times will we see that abrupt change of what is normally expected? And in this particular case, Nancy, it was even more severe because as the book was was getting pushed, you know, leaking different parts of it, she was responding, and she was

Starting point is 00:09:18 responding aggressively and defending herself on a multiple times a day. And it was like she's still defending, defending, and then all of a sudden, it's over. And that's what really got people thinking that maybe she had been pushed as far as she could take. The rubber band was stretched as far as it could possibly go, and it snapped because there was no forewarning. There was no, hey, I'm going to take a break for a couple of days. There was nothing. And as we mentioned, since this is her major form of communication with fans and with family and friends as well as fans, this was not just an abrupt stop.

Starting point is 00:09:55 It was, holy mackerel, where is Brittany? We've got to see her to see what's going on. So Britney Spears vanishes, seemingly vanishes. This is after the restaurant incident where she was apparently drinking again. and unsteady on her feet as she was being led out, gets in her car and takes off veering all over the road. And of course, after this incident, all the haters came out.

Starting point is 00:10:26 Many of them supporting her leech of a husband, Kevin Federline. Listen. Do you know that you don't have to like Kevin Federline to acknowledge that what he's saying is true? I mean, like, you can hate the guy and think that he's a lazy, lazy, unemployed leech of a human being. Is he out of child support and needs money?

Starting point is 00:10:46 Maybe. Did his kids come to him concerned about their mother's health? It's just time to wake up to reality people. You know, that is from Aw Shum on TikTok. Is he forgetting about the millions of dollars Federal Line is going to make from

Starting point is 00:11:03 his tell all book? How is that helping his children to drag their mother through the mud? Just to make money, coincidentally, when his child support stops, and it's not just awsham on TikTok. There are more people piling on. But he raised those kids. Like, we all can agree that she did not have the mental capacity to raise those kids in a, like, a healthy, happy environment.

Starting point is 00:11:30 And he managed to do that. So I don't understand why there's so much hate and vitriol towards him. And he got all this money in child support. What? Yeah, he should have. He had custody of the kids. Really? Erica Lynn on TikTok? He did what any father should do, what any parents should do, raise his children. So why do people hate him? Because he's a blood-sucking leech. That's why. I mean, straight out to Alina Shirazza joining us, senior political reporter, Daily Mail.com. Alina, thank you for being with us. Alina, in my world, you have to look at timing. Only when his child support ended, he was making between $40,000 and $80,000 a month off just sucking the money out of Britney Spears, did he come out with his tell-all book?

Starting point is 00:12:20 And now everybody's online piling on supporting him in anti-Britney. Yeah, I mean, the timing, you always say Nancy, timing, timing, now all of a sudden the child support payments have ended. And KFAT is coming out with this book you thought you knew. To be fair, he did have an NDA against him, but he had a lot of time, right, to come out and say, Britney Spears was not a good mother. You know, in his memoir, he talks about certain things that Britney Spears did. He said that she would call when she was with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan drunk. He said that she bleached the kids hair and they came back with Burns, that she was watching them in their sleep. You know, he goes on to talk about a lot of different things.

Starting point is 00:13:03 You know, he even said that when, you know, she was doing drugs, so on and so forth, but she can't help but think this man is going to get a lot of money from this. And right now, it's kind of like the Johnny Depp Amber Hurd situation where it's like suddenly people are switching over to the other side. And it's like, you know, you have to think about both sides to every story. Where are all of the free Brittany movement fans right now? A lot of people coming out and supporting him and it's certainly interesting to see. Fetterline, Fetterline, Fetterline. Brittany disappears, and all anyone's talking about is Kevin Fetterline. He certainly has not been the only pig at the trough, Rob Schueter.

Starting point is 00:13:45 It started with Justin Timberlake when she was a really young teenager in the music business. They were coming up in the business together. He certainly sold a lot of records. His biggest solo hit, Crimea River was about Britney. So it started with Justin. And then the list went on and on. Let me give you some names. Wade, Robson.

Starting point is 00:14:03 remember him he was a choreographer no hooked up with he went on afterwards Wade Robinson hold on I'm going to have to do a flowchart and not in a good way Wade who Wade or Robson

Starting point is 00:14:17 R O B S O B S O M. Robson okay he went on to accuse Michael Jackson of molesting him so he's quite a character Fred Durst remember Fred Durst from Limp Biscuit there was a while but he was with Jared Lito

Starting point is 00:14:32 another creepy guy in Hollywood who has been with Britney Spears, Colin Farrell. Remember when she dated Colin Farrell for a really short time? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a bit, but, but, but... Shooter. I did not ask you, Brittany's dating history, to put it nicely. I'm asking you about men that sucked her dry

Starting point is 00:14:52 and used up all of her fame and money. What was the last one you said? I think we did Colin Farrell less, but let me just say, Nancy. All these guys that dated are... Howell does not need her money? money or fame. Don't throw him in that pot to Steve for Pete's sake. You're the PR guru. Makes sense, man. None of these people looked after Britney Spears. Part of the reason you were in a relationship with someone is to be kind to them, to love them, to inspire them.

Starting point is 00:15:19 Brittany has gone from bad guy to bad guy to bad bride. Let me tell you another one that I think you'll agree with. Jason Alexander, that's the first guy that she married. Remember in Vegas? It was 24 hours. Her team rushed out. It was annulled. pretty fast. Rob Sheeter, do you not believe in love? He apparently loved her for at least 24 hours.

Starting point is 00:15:41 Okay, go ahead. With 24 hours. A childhood friend, so maybe on this list he might be the one that actually did. Who else is on the list too? Oh, remember Adam Galib. He was a photographer

Starting point is 00:15:53 that took pictures of Britney. Adam Galib. Yeah, I do remember that name. British guy. He took photographs of Britney. What about him? shaved her head and then he moved in with her during that really difficult time when she left her children. Jason Tarwick is an interesting name. Jason was her agent who went on to date.

Starting point is 00:16:13 I remember him. He actually had a job, didn't he? He did have a job, but his job was making money from her. He was her agent, so people are saying, that's a little dubious too. Also, too, Let's see how else we have on the lift. Sam Azgari, the gentleman she married, the model, him, him. Him. Sam Asgari. I would not call him a gentleman.

Starting point is 00:16:36 I don't know what you Brits think a gentleman is, but it ain't him. And so this is a long list of people, maybe not gentlemen, Nancy. I'll take your point. People who have been around Britney Spears who haven't necessarily had her best. What about the last husband? What about the last husband? Sam Asgari is his name. He was the fitness model who was with her for a couple of years. They had a very odd wedding where apparently Britney's friends turned up, Madonna, Selena Gomez, Paris Hilton.

Starting point is 00:17:11 My reporting has revealed that none of these people are in her life anymore. She's clearly crying out for help. Where are those famous friends? Where are the friends that turned up for the wedding, for the good times? They're not there for the bad. I would say out of the entire bunch, all of them, except I disagree with you about Colin Farrell, basically sutted her dry. But I think the tick that has gorged himself the most would be this guy.

Starting point is 00:17:43 She saw one of my sons one day this year, and he decided not to go back over there because of what he saw. The other one, Jaden, who's my younger son, is 19 now. He's been over there quite a few times over the past year, and he stopped seeing her in the last few months because of the situation. I mean, the things that they've seen are shocking, right? So shocking that one of my sons came to me and called me and was like, I don't know what to do.

Starting point is 00:18:13 I'm afraid mom is going to die. From our friend, Piers Morgan, uncensored. Joining us tonight is one of my favorite columnists. If you've never read her columns, you'll agree with me really quickly. Joining me now is Kennedy. She's known as Kennedy, like Cher or Elvis. She is a high-profile columnist for DailyMail.com. Kennedy, thank you for being with us.

Starting point is 00:18:43 It is always my pleasure. You are an absolute legend. And when your team reaches out, I'm always like, hell to the yes. Well, you're going to catch H-E-Double L for what I know you are about to say, but as you put in your article, quote, it's time to admit the truth about this public menace. Now, how long can we blame bad men? Look, I have blamed Kevin Federline for so long. I blamed the first husband for taking advantage of her. I blame the new husband. As you said, could not be, get a job as an extra in Sharknado. Is that true? The model, he could not get a job as an extra in Sharknado? Or did you make that up? Did you take poetic license? I did. I think I said Sharknado 15. Even that far into the future, I don't think Sam is going to be able to land a role

Starting point is 00:19:42 there, but it's not just about the men. It's the position that, unfortunately, I know, obviously, and this has been documented, this has been admitted. She's dealing with a degree of mental illness here, and I understand that, but that is not an explanation or an excuse for everything. She's 43 years old. She is a mom, but still, you know, she's putting herself in these situations over and over and over again and it's one thing if there are predatory men who are taking advantage of her but you know this is not an innocent doe who's just wandered out of the wilderness this is a woman who has been famous for almost 30 years now and at some point she has to if she has

Starting point is 00:20:37 fought so hard for her agency she has to lead with that and she has to be the one making better decisions and part of that is getting a better care team in position to play a little bit of defense for because she's not doing it on her own and all you have to do is look into her eyes and you know that she is unwell you know this is this is a 43-year-old woman who has pleaded to have a relationship with her sons her sons have said publicly you know we can't be with her mom when she's dancing around naked with knives with a bunch of dogs poop in the background. They want to help her, but they're not going to appease her. They're not going to go down a road of codependency. And unfortunately, something needs to be done

Starting point is 00:21:25 before she gets hurt, or especially in one of the latest escapades, she hurts someone else because she was not in a good frame of mind when she left that restaurant after a half gallon. crime stories with nancy grace as you were talking our control room in all of its wisdom kept showing one clip of after the other of her dancing around and in revealing skimpy outfits you know they never show her in her glory when she's on the stage performing or shelling out to all the people she owes money to i think part of it is people people People feel guilty because of the voyeuristic nature, the prurient nature of even looking at what she puts on Insta. And I think we incorporate that and try not to judge her. But that said,

Starting point is 00:22:28 I got to draw the line. I must draw the line as a crime victim. I know how it feels. I know how it feels for your life to change just like that because of somebody else's crime. And it's never the same. I don't care what you hear about closure and moving on. That's total BS. There's never closure. You figure out how to live, but that's what it is. And if you could stop showing her in her middrift top and underwear control room and show me that video of her veering over the double yellow line, that's my problem. That is my problem now. I scream, get out of the conservatorship, but this has got to stop now before somebody ends up dead, Kennedy. Yeah, and that's a problem because if she's in, and I don't know if she was

Starting point is 00:23:22 inebriated. I have no idea what was going on before, during, or after that, but I know that if I were in that frame of mind, I would not drive because I would not put my life, my reputation, and certainly the lives of others at risk, because as she's swerving around, you know, driving erratically, speeding, slowing down, gesticulating wildly, doing random U-turns in the middle of the street, she could have hit a busload of kids coming back from a sporting event or, you know, a van full of seniors out for a night at the theater. And she, at some point something tragic is going to happen. And is it really appropriate for us to look back and say, oh, we should have done something differently? Obviously, the conservatorship was too harsh and too restrictive, but, you know, there was no middle ground. There was no other option.

Starting point is 00:24:16 You know, another thing you mention in your article, which is in the Daily Mail title, I have no sympathy for Britney Spears. What if her latest stunt had killed a kid? It's time to admit the truth about this public menace, Kennedy. And before you start firing off angry Insta and X and Facebook, blah, blah, blah. at Kennedy? Think about it. She, Kennedy, supported the end of the conservatorship, as did I. It was draconian. It was too harsh. She was being bugged and told who she could be with. It was crazy. But now it seems as if the pendulum has gone too far the other way. In your article, you compare your words, the psycho Mary Poppins moment when she attacked paparazzi. And do you

Starting point is 00:25:07 blamer, really, with the umbrella, and the twisted ankle from doing leaps inside the Chateau Marmont. You compare those incidents to the current driving fiasco, the dangerous driving, and you say this is much worse. For those that are not familiar with the Mary Poppins moment or the Chateau Marmont twist, could you explain? Yeah, so in 2007, she was in a custody battle with her estranged husband, Kevin Federline. And you know, she had two young kids. That's when she really had a very public mental breakdown, and she was being followed and hounded by paparazzi. And so she took an umbrella out of her car. And, you know, like Mary Poppins, just started kind of fighting back. And people couldn't get enough of it. And it was like a car wreck

Starting point is 00:26:04 where looky-lose were slowing down to take in the potential carnage of her life it was like the oj chase that went on for years instead of hours and you know that was one thing but this now where she is going to take away if we fought for her freedom to advocate getting out of this restrictive conservatorship she is going to take away other people's freedom in in the form of their lives if she's not careful. And you can't have it both ways. It's not like, leave her alone. You guys are so mean to Brittany while at the same time,

Starting point is 00:26:46 leaving her alone leaves her to potentially cause tragedy in her life or someone else's. And I would like to see her heal. I would like to see her back on stage of her own volition. I would like to see her recording music, but she has to stabilize. she's clearly in a very, very unstable place and as a fan of her music, and I agree that she has reached icon status because of her talent and because there's something about her vulnerability

Starting point is 00:27:18 and her life that is like Marilyn Monroe, but she doesn't have to be frozen in cultural amber because she dies young. Like she still has a lot of life and thriving to do, but not I got a question for you, Kennedy. And I know that you're not a shrink, although maybe you should consider that. But you make a really interesting comparison in this Daily Mail article comparing Justin Timberlake, getting a DUI, and he is eviscerated wrongly or rightly compared to Brittany. Very different treatments. Yeah. And I think he took a big reputational hit after she revealed some of the details of their relationship in her memoir. But that took his career down several rungs on the ladder that he has been ascending for decades as well. And so if Justin Timberlake is, you know, as you say, eviscerated for driving impaired, why is she? given a shield? Why is she given a pass by her fans when, you know, we're not in the middle of a conservatorship. We're at a different time, and you have to acknowledge that. You have to acknowledge that these are a different set of circumstances that she is launching irresponsibly. So call her out for the irresponsibility. Because, you know, if you don't have some stopguards,

Starting point is 00:28:51 what will she do next? Yeah, and I wonder who is going to be hurt other than? her next. I got a question. And I've seen it so many times in court where I feel that women have been totally taken advantage of by men, just in the worst ways. And you point out a series of guys who are basically leeches sucking the blood and the money out of Britney Spears. But yet she keeps going back to the same type of guy. Yeah, we all know someone like that in our lives. Like we all know the friend who dates the unavailable men, dates the bad boys, and, you know, we're the ones who end up consoling them.

Starting point is 00:29:40 But at some point, if there's a pattern in your life and the same thing is happening over and over again, and you are the common factor there, you have to take responsibility for that aspect of it. And, you know, unfortunately, she's got tens of millions of dollars that she's blowing through. and what happens when she's broke? You know, are we going to see? Oh, my stars. Have you ever read, let's see, The Daily Mail?

Starting point is 00:30:06 You guys love to show, and of course I read it. I never don't read it, where some famous person is wandering around L.A. with a shopping cart full of stuff. And you think, what the hay happened to all that money? We are told, shockingly, that Britney Spears has run through a $60 million fortune. What the hay happened? Yeah, I mean, to us, that's a lot of money. And, you know, part of the onus was on her dad for, you know, spending like a drunken sailor when she was under a conservatorship.

Starting point is 00:30:43 But, you know, now that she really doesn't have the same revenue sources, she got a good chunk of money for her memoir. and a nice bonus of that from that that she has reportedly already run through and you know she goes on these trips it's it's her money she can spend it but at some point look at Justin Bieber like you know he's lucky he has a sugar mama he has a wife who's now worth a billion dollars and he he released some music this year but if you're an artist releasing music doesn't make you money unless you're touring you're really not going to capitalize on your catalog And I don't know if she's capable of the physical and emotional rigors of a tour or a residency. I know her fans, they are legion and they are devoted. They would love to see her. But if she plans on maintaining the money that she's got, she's got to slow down. It's like anybody. But Kennedy, we're showing right now.

Starting point is 00:31:45 I don't know if you can see or monitor the incident at the Ritzie, L.A. suburb restaurant and you just had to describe her shorts as saggy diapers. Did you really have to go there, Kennedy? Really? Do you know, no shame at all? I write what I see Nancy and sometimes as a writer you have to be descriptive and I looked at the shorts and I was like, whoa, hey depends. I couldn't pull anything out of the clean basket, had to fish around and the hamper for those. I would like to laugh, but when I keep looking at that veering over the double yellow video, I think I've probably just seen too much, Kennedy. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Starting point is 00:32:41 Because we're all standing by. We want something to happen. We're the one screaming, get rid of the conservatorship. Now, she's out of the conservatorship, and it's all going straight to He-E-Double-L. My question now is whether charges are going to be brought for the reckless driving. It's all on video. And I guess you noticed the paparazzi was recording it. Didn't call 911, didn't try to stop her, just recorded it and probably made a lot of money off of it, Kennedy.

Starting point is 00:33:10 Yeah, absolutely. And there were not police officers there, so they really can't charge her. So, you know, all people can do is if you see her driving radically again, you have to call law enforcement. And that's the bottom line. And she, if she is driving. Kennedy, Kennedy, my sweet, dear naive, Lisa Kennedy. Many cases have been proven without a cop being a witness where there's a will, there's a way. Trust me on that.

Starting point is 00:33:43 Yeah, you think murders, rates, and trauma stations happen out on the street? usually no. I don't know, man. I would be like, if I were her lawyer, I would pull the Princess Diana defense and be like, she, her life was threatened by these paparazzi. You can't see from that vantage point. She was trying to escape from them. And, you know, unfortunately, L.A. juries tend to favor celebrities. All that is true. But I'm wondering if a court appearance for the dangerous driving, which could easily have caused a head-on collision, because when you follow that video on to the end, right after she goes over the yellow line, the double line that comes back, a car comes just right after that up over the ridge.

Starting point is 00:34:37 And look out. Look at that blind corner. There are no street lights. Nothing. And here comes the car. You know, 30 seconds would have made such a huge difference. and not in a good way. Well, keep your defense attorney thoughts to yourself. Let's not give anyone any ideas. What can be done to help Brittany and help the public. Kennedy, I'm waiting for your next article. I'm a big fan. Thank you for joining us tonight. Bye, friend. Thank you. Bye. What happened to Brittany? Why did she vanish? Straight back out to special guest, Alina Shirazi, joining a senior political reporter, Daily Mail.com. Alina, Brinie, Brittany made a return.

Starting point is 00:35:20 What happened? She disappeared for a few days, and then she made a couple posts separated. We know with Britney sometimes she'll make a couple posts on the same day sort of spread out. She rejoins with a cryptic message. She was wearing racy lingerie. She mentioned boundaries in her post, maybe an ode to her ex-KFed's new book. She also mentioned the devil. She said she tries to live within her means, which is another topic we covered earlier, Nancy.

Starting point is 00:35:52 She mentioned the devil is in the details, but we can get to that later. So she made a reappearance, right? And, you know, I feel like Britney Spears' Instagram is kind of what you do when you can't sleep at midnight and you're in your bed scrolling trying to make sense of the captions and think that you might be on to something. Some of it makes sense. Some of it doesn't. But certainly, you know, her song may have been a fulfilling, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Starting point is 00:36:19 My loneliness is killing me. It feels like even deactivating her Instagram is sort of like a sense of control that she has, that she can deactivate it. She can come back when she wants to. Unfortunately, the comments have been turned off where I know a lot of us have been going to the comments to sort of piece the puzzle together. But certainly she did make a reappearance. She talked about how she was trapped in Mexico.

Starting point is 00:36:42 She made another post about that where she was speaking with a British accent and sort of, you know, dancing around in different outfits. So she's continuing the same Brittany. There was a pause, which a lot of fans were concerned about, but she's back. And a lot of the reasons that people say she disappeared was, of course, because she was so hurt by that book from her ex. And a lot of the things that were in it that were probably very difficult for her to read. Rob Scheter joining me, author of a brand new novel that just hit Amazon. It started with a whisper. Rob, how long are we going to excuse her behavior?

Starting point is 00:37:26 If she wants to live that way, that's her decision. She's no longer under a conservatorship. But when you are driving dangerously, and I believe criminal charges could be proven based on that paparazzi video, I really do. Will they do it? It's L.A. They love celebrities, probably not. But could it be done?

Starting point is 00:37:45 Yeah, so how long will she be given a pass? She's the poor little rich girl. I fear Nancy. She's going to be given a pass until she harms somebody very seriously. And I think people around Brittany are not only worried about her harming herself, which is a real concern, but also to the damage that she can do to others. So I agree with you. We've covered this a long time.

Starting point is 00:38:09 celebrities in L.A. really get away with a lot, and anywhere else this wouldn't have been tolerated, something would have been done. But because she's Britney Spears, because she's in L.A., because thankfully up to now, Nancy, nobody has been really hurt. I think she's going to keep getting away with it. Rob Schueter, let me see him. Do you realize that according to reports, Britney Spears has plowed through, I'm reading, I'm not just pulling this out of thin air, $61 million with nothing to show for it but a bunch of fast food receipts.

Starting point is 00:38:48 50 grand 50 grand on a single private jet Mexican villas to the tune of $20,000 a night $40,000 on pet care, $100,000

Starting point is 00:39:07 on massages. And this is concerned $500 manicures. All that money gone. And she is not going back to work any time soon. She's apparently blown through everything she made on her memoir. Where is the money? Is she going to be one of those people pushing a cart around L.A. full of their stuff? Potentially. It's that serious. She has blown through a million. She is arguably one of the most successful pop stars of all time, she should be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. When you look up how much money she's made over her still quite short lifetime, she's still

Starting point is 00:39:50 in her 40s, she's made billions from concerts to record sales to fragrances to merchandise. None of that money appears to be with Brittany. And I think that is something that we need to investigate too. Where is Britney's money? Yes, she's wasted a lot. But also, too, I think there's something a little darker. there and the money that she earned often went to other people. What about it, Dr. Bethany?

Starting point is 00:40:15 A spend spending like a dr. Scyllar. I don't know that she's a shopaholic. I don't know that, but the expenditures are bizarre. And she is not working $60 million in a year down the crapper. Okay. Again, remember, I don't know her. I have not evaluated her.

Starting point is 00:40:34 But if she was my patient, I would wonder about bipolar illness or stimulant abuse. And the reason I would wonder that is that both cause compulsive, impulsive spending. That is at the heart of it. And according to one report, when she was in Mexico, she was up all night online shopping. And what's bizarre, Nancy, is those restaurants that we see her in, I'm familiar with them. They are very inexpensive restaurants. She eats fast food.

Starting point is 00:41:04 She's not out fine dining. Her clothing looks very inexpensive. So she's not spending it on food and clothing. I don't see any great jewelry. Okay, she has a nice car. She drives. My celebrity patients and my practice are taking advantage of every single day. So if they're not spending the money themselves, somebody else is going to do it for them.

Starting point is 00:41:27 And when you are raised in her kind of environment by a stage mom, you are socialized to believe that you have to give everything to everybody else around you. and it creates a situation where these celebrities are sitting ducks. Ashley Wardlaw is joining us, private investigator, chief operations officer Nathan's investigations. Ashley, there is a move afoot to instigate criminal charges against Britney Spears for the driving we observe in the video. If you were building that case, And I really doubt that LAPD is going to pursue this because she's a celebrity.

Starting point is 00:42:09 If it were you or me, they'd probably be all over it. But, Ashley, how would you begin to prove that case? I guess starting at the restaurant itself? Well, Nancy, in a situation like this, it's not necessarily about collecting new evidence the way people might imagine. It's about verifying facts. and a private investigator's job would be to confirm what's real versus what's rumored, especially when there's so much conflicting information in the media. So, for example, of course, we all see the video, okay?

Starting point is 00:42:44 We see that it exists, but a good move for a PI would be to go and see if there's a pattern of this behavior. So let's see if we can get video from other places that she's visited and, of course, you know, see what her behavior is in those videos. Of course, it would be a good move also to do surveillance on her now for a couple months to see what her behavior looks like. And, of course, this will be done in a discrete manner. Okay, it wouldn't be anything that she's noticing, you know, she's being watched or followed. Something important to note is that us PIs, we don't necessarily make a diagnosis or judgments about people's mental health. But we can definitely provide documentation that would help attorneys or family members or especially the courts just kind of come to a clearer picture of what's going on. To Elizabeth J. McIntyreth joining us, high-profile lawyer who specializes in guardianship issues.

Starting point is 00:43:44 She's a partner at Selzer Gervich. Elizabeth, putting together a case like this, you typically have to have a breathalyzer, a blood alcohol test-approved DUI. but that wouldn't necessarily be the case here. It's caught on video. I believe the nav system, the navigation system in that vehicle would come into play. Roadside surveillance to show she was, in fact, the only one in the car, and she was controlling the car the entire time. And eyewitnesses, specifically the person that led her by the hand out of the restaurant and poured her into the car.

Starting point is 00:44:21 It can be proven, but will it? Elizabeth. Certainly, I think they can make a case for reckless driving. I don't know that they can make a case for driving under the influence, given that, as you stated, there's no breathalyzer, no roadside sobriety test. But again, reckless driving, while it could be a symptom showing that a guardianship is necessary, it doesn't mean that a guardianship is required. So that's something we have to keep in mind when we're talking about what is essentially bad behaviors here. To Alina Shirazi, joining us from Daily Mail, Alina, is that what it will take for Brittany to get her life back together again

Starting point is 00:45:01 to show up in court on dangerous driving charges? It could. I mean, she certainly needs a kind of shock, right? I mean, she lobbied and advocated for her freedom along with really the rest of the world who wanted her to have it, but that comes, of course, at the cost of her. responsibility of being a functional adult of realizing that there are consequences for your actions. And so she has to realize that when she was able to escape her conservatorship from her father, that means that the liability is now on her. And so does she want that responsibility?

Starting point is 00:45:40 I don't know. It doesn't seem like it. Tonight, we remember an American hero officer Travis Wallace, Helena, P.D., Arkansas, shot in the line of duty after five years. years serving and protecting, survived by his only son, now without a dad. American hero, officer Travis Wallace. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an IHeart podcast.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BRITNEY SPEARS "VANISHES" AS CHARGES SWIRL

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