Under pressure

Los Angeles, Feb. 6: A restraining order against Britney Spears’s companion and manager Sam Lutfi alleges that he drugged the troubled star, cut her phone lines and took control of her finances, staff and even the paparazzi that trail her.

The order was based on a lengthy declaration by Spears’s mother Lynne, who claims that after her daughter met Lutfi, he “essentially moved into Britney’s home and has purported to take control of her life, home and finances”. The order, released by a Los Angeles court, requires Lutfi, 33, whose real name is Osama, to stop harassing the star and her family and cease all contact.

He must stay at least 250 yards away from Spears, the medical centre where she is being detained for psychiatric evaluation, her home and the homes of her parents, siblings and children.

In her declaration, Lynne Spears claims: “Lutfi drugged Britney, he has cut Britney’s home phone lines and removed her cellphone chargers. He yells at her. He claims to control everything — Britney’s business manager, her attorneys and the security guards at the gate.”

Much of the six-page document focuses on the events of the evening of January 28 when Lynne Spears went to her daughter’s home to stage an intervention after hearing she had got into a fight with Lutfi and was “crying”.

“Sam had told Britney that she was an unfit mother, a piece of trash and a whore, that she cares more about Adnan, her current boyfriend, than she cares about her kids, and that she does not deserve the kids.”