What A Year It Was For Britney

Now that we are about to welcome the new year, why not rap up the old year with some memories of Britney’s hectic year of 2008 .

If there’s one thing the world loves (especially in these tough, uncertain times), it’s a good comeback story, and that’s just what Britney Spears has given us. The year kicked off with her looking dazed and disheveled as she was strapped to a gurney and carted off to the psych ward, losing custody of sons Sean Preston and Jayden James along the way; it ended with her back in the public eye, showing off a super-fit body and boasting a No. 1 album in “Circus.” Now, with Brit gearing up for a world tour, and with her comeback nearly complete (it won’t be official until she regains control of her life from decision-making dad Jamie), let’s look back at her journey down the long, pothole-filled road to recovery …

JANUARY 2008

Low Point: Following a Jan. 3 visit with her sons at her Beverly Hills estate, Britney reportedly locked herself in a bathroom with Jayden when Kevin Federline’s bodyguard arrived to pick up the tots and bring them back to their dad’s Tarzana home. The police were called and soon the house was besieged by the media on the ground and in the air, with the entire standoff broadcast online in real-time. It finally came to an end in the wee hours of the morning, with Britney carried from the house and placed into an ambulance, where paparazzi snapped her smiling and flipping them off as she was driven away to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Spears was placed on a 72-hour lockdown for a mental evaluation but exited just a day later, not long after she received a visit from a media-blabbing Dr. Phil.

Lower Point: Within hours of her hospitalization, Spears lost all visitation rights and Federline was awarded sole legal and physical custody of Sean and Jayden. In response, Britney glommed onto her shady, chin-strap-sporting paparazzo beau Adnan Ghalib, with whom she was soon photographed car-shopping while wearing the same dress she donned to wed Federline. Before the month is out, Ghalib managed to seize his 15 minutes by sitting down with “Entertainment Tonight” and insisting of his all-but-Red-Cross-declared disaster zone of a squeeze, “She is not crazy at all.”

Lowest Point: On Jan. 31, amid rumors of a suicide attempt (denied all around) and an apparent three days without sleep, Spears was once again taken away by ambulance, this time to the psychiatric ward at UCLA Medical Center, staying for seven days of a 14-day involuntary hold.

FEBRUARY 2008

Low Point: One of Britney’s lowest moments this month was also a turning point. The day after she’s brought to UCLA, her intermittently estranged dad, Jamie Spears, was granted conservatorship powers, giving him legal control over her care and finances. One of his first orders of business was to get a restraining order against shifty minion Sam Lutfi, whom Brit’s mom Lynne accused of drugging and verbally abusing her daughter. Papa Spears’ new role was not without an emotional toll. In court papers, he recalled a conversation he had with Britney from her hospital bed. “Come on, daddy, let’s get out of here. Take my hand and let’s walk out of here together,” he quoted as her saying. His response, “I wish I could, but I can’t.”‘

Lower Point: Spears was released after an all-too-brief stay in the psych ward and immediately met up with Adnan as an army of photographers tracked their every move. Her release didn’t sit well with her family. “As parents of an adult child in the throes of a mental health crisis, we were extremely disappointed this morning to learn that, over the recommendation of her treating psychiatrist, our daughter Britney was released from the hospital that could best care for her and keep her safe,” Jamie and Lynne Spears said in a statement. “We are deeply concerned about our daughter’s safety and vulnerability and we believe her life is presently at risk. There are conservatorship orders in place created to protect our daughter that are being blatantly disregarded.”

Semi-High Point: Just a week after her psych-ward checkout, Britney was allowed contact with a group of impressionable youths. In a seeming attempt at damage control, she was allowed to take over teaching duties for several little girls at a dance class. “Britney was really nice and a good teacher,” one of her students told E! News. “It was fun.”

High Point: On Feb. 23, Spears saw her sons for the first time since her Jan. 3 meltdown, a three-hour visit that was chaperoned by her dad and her psychiatrist.

MARCH 2008

Low Point: While doing a little shoe shopping in a white halter dress with a panty-revealing front cutout, Brit failed to notice a metal bar in front of her sunglass-covered face. She smacked her noggin but was uninjured, with her hard-headedness finally working for her instead of against her. That’s a good thing, because seeking medical treatment might have caused a whole new set of problems. According to the Los Angeles Times, more than a dozen staffers at UCLA Medical Center were fired or suspended for peeking at her confidential medical records.

Semi-High Point: Mel Gibson, a star who knows something about trying to find redemption with the public after a headline-making mistake, reached out to Brit, his former Malibu neighbor, by inviting her to dinner. “Mel and his wife Robyn clearly saw a woman in crisis and wanted to extend themselves in any way possible,” a source told People. “There are no expectations, there is no agenda. It’s simply an act of human kindness — one neighbor reaching out to the other.” The connection will later come in handy for the beach-loving Britney.

High Point: In her first tentative step on the road to career recovery, Brit guest-starred on the March 24 episode of “How I Met Your Mother.” Critics were kind with her comedic cameo, and her appearance as a receptionist smitten with Ted (Josh Radnor) scored the show its highest-ever ratings.

APRIL 2008

High Point: Britney is reunited with her onetime manager, Larry Rudolph, who guided her career for nearly a decade and is widely credited with building her into a hugely successful brand. “People love her. They really love her,” he told “Extra.” “People understand what she’s been through at this point. People want to see her come back. I think she’ll get it together. And I think she’ll have a huge career again. I think she’s going to make the biggest comeback in history.” She starts by returning to the set of “How I Met Your Mother” for another turn as dizzy receptionist Abby.

Low Point: Britney’s car troubles continue. While behind the wheel of her white Mercedes, she rear-ended a Nissan after apparently failing to notice it had stopped. No one is injured in the fender bender, although the other driver claimed Spears was touching up her makeup before their cars made contact.

MAY 2008

High Point: Britney’s attempts at normalcy include two getaways. The first was to her hometown of Kentwood, La., to attend a baby shower for her little sister, Jamie Lynn. The still-under-supervision mother of two even offered some words of advice to her expectant sibling. “She told me, ‘There are going to be some long nights, but it is completely worth it,’” Jamie Lynn revealed to OK!. A week later, Brit slipped into a teeny-tiny bikini for a sun-and-surf sojourn with her dad and various minders at Mel Gibson’s Costa Rican estate.

Highest Point: In recognition of what Federline’s lawyer terms “the progress that has been made, a progress in structure and stability,” Spears was granted more time with Sean and Jayden. As part of the expanded visiting hours, she’s even allowed to spend Mother’s Day with the tykes. In between visits, she hit the gym and was photographed reading Jack Canfield’s “Key to Living the Law of Attraction: A Simple Guide to Creating the Life of Your Dreams.

Low Point: In addition to getting into yet another fender bender while behind the wheel of her white Mercedes, Britney was dissed by Ashlee Simpson. “In an interview the other day, they asked me what I thought ‘You’ve had one too many Britney Spears‘ means,” said Ashlee. “I was like, ‘What?’ And they said it means you’ve had one too many beers.” The warbler then proceeded to reveal her initial thought: “I was like, ‘Oh, you’ve had one too many trashy girls!’”

JUNE 2008

High Point: With her hawk-eyed dad in tow, Britney jetted to Mississippi for the birth of Jamie Lynn’s daughter Maddie Briann, reportedly waiting outside the delivery room to be introduced to her new niece. The visit was short: A day later, she tearfully headed home to Los Angeles, where her airport arrival triggered a paparazzi melee.

Highest Point: Before her dad took over, Britney was often a no-show for custody hearings (and even when she did appear, her attitude reportedly bordered on hostile). But in yet another positive sign, Spears not only turned up for a June 24 hearing, but the impressed judge also granted her request for overnight visitation with Sean and Jayden.

JULY 2008

Semi-High Point: In one of the clearest indications yet of Spears’ progress, the Los Angeles Times reports the paparazzi mob that once followed her every move has thinned out considerably — and suffered a financial hit in the process. “At the height of the story, we had maybe six or eight guys on it round the clock,” INF photo agency owner Chris Doherty explained to the paper. “Now we would have at most two. There’s no real point to being there all the time.”

High Point: With a trial looming, Spears and Federline settled their messy child custody case, with Brit agreeing to give her ex sole custody of her sons and bump up monthly child support payments from $15,000 to $20,000. In exchange, she received more visitation time with her ankle-biters. Days after the custody issue was settled, Spears headed to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where she showed off her gym-toned figure in a teeny-white bikini and practiced her dance moves with a shirtless male staffer. The hookup rumors that soon followed were instantly quashed.

Low Point: Some bad habits die harder than others. On July 18, a bikini-clad Britney was photographed on her patio puffing on a cancer stick within second-hand-smoke-distance to Sean Preston, who could be seen curiously checking out her lighter and pack of Marlboro Lights.

AUGUST 2008

High Point: In her first interview in two years, Britney sat down with OK! and painted the rosiest picture yet of her recovery, revealing how she has an album in the works (“I’m writing every day, right here at the piano in this living room”); is spending quality mommy-and-me time with Sean and Preston, who are decked out in Hervé “Da Plane, Da Plane” Villechaize-style white tuxes for the cover photo; and likes nothing better than cleaning her house (“Dusting is my favorite, and Windex-ing”). “God has a way of taking something bad and turning it into something good,” opined Papa Spears to the mag. “If this hadn’t happened, I would never have been able to get back with my daughter and have this relationship I have with these two little boys.”

High Point, Part 2: Brit topped OK! for the second time in two weeks, this time posing in a bikini next to the headline, “How I Got My Body Back! How to Lose 12 LBS in 30 Days!” “I’m the healthiest I’ve been all my life,” she bubbled to the magazine. “My diet has a lot to do with my getting into shape. I have no sugar. I don’t eat fruit or even fruit juice because of the sugar. I eat chicken and salmon and rice. I eat avocados. I’ll have egg whites for breakfast and sometimes turkey burgers for lunch. I try to do just 1,200 calories a day. It may sound like it’s not much, but it’s actually a lot of food if you eat the right things.”

High Point, Part 3: Spears, who’s taken to wearing a homemade necklace decorated with her sons names and reading the works of Deepak Chopra, waded back into the spotlight with a few winning Video Music Award promotional spots opposite host Russell Brand (there’s also an elephant in the room — get it?) and a video she shot for Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour, which shows her going nuts while trapped in an elevator.

SEPTEMBER 2008

Semi-High Point: Britney enjoyed a weekend excursion to Las Vegas, where she hung out with pals by the pool, drank bottled water and sported a demure frock.

Low Point: Her shady ex, Adnan Ghalib, was also spotted at the hotel, and while they were not seen together, it remains unclear whether they rendezvoused behind closed doors. The paparazzo also adamantly denied claims that he’d been shopping around a sex tape featuring his famous former squeeze.

Highest Point: Britney emerged triumphant at the MTV Video Music Awards, the scene of her onstage implosion the year before, when she galumphed, glassy-eyed, through “Gimme More” while stuffed into a sparkly bikini. A Versace-outfitted Spears won three awards and thanked God “for just blessing me like this.” The popster also gave shout-outs to “my beautiful family, my two beautiful boys for just inspiring me every day, and my fans — this is for you.”

OCTOBER 2008

High Point: Britney turned up at a Bronx middle school looking lovelier than she had in a long time in a flattering blue dress, groomed tresses, professionally applied makeup, and, in a sign of real progress, a bra. She handed over a $10,000 check to the school’s music program courtesy of Elizabeth Arden, the company behind her perfumes.

Higher Point: “Womanizer,” the catchy first single from her “Circus” album, jumped to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The slick video was also a hit with fans, not surprising given that it featured a hard-bodied Britney writhing around naked in a sauna.

Highest Point: Spears avoided possible jail time for driving without a license after a mistrial was declared due to a deadlocked jury. The prosecutor declined to retry the case, which was the result of an August 2007 fender-bender in which she was caught on camera dinging a car while attempting to pull into a parking spot. She not only didn’t leave a note, but also hit the car again when she swung open her door to check out the damage to her own vehicle.

High/Low Point: Spears’ father Jamie was appointed her permanent conservator, which means he’ll remain in control of her life until the court says otherwise. Brit didn’t object to the ruling.

NOVEMBER 2008

High Point: A fresh-faced, flowing-locked Britney hit the stage with Madonna at the Los Angeles stop of her Sticky & Sweet tour, bringing to life the videotaped bit she filmed as part of the Big M’s “Human Nature” interlude. The crowd cheered as the frozen-faced Madonna shouted, “She’s not your b—-,” to which her onetime Kabbalah protégé replied, “It’s Britney, b—-!” Also performing that night was Brit’s ex Justin Timberlake, but other than exchanging reportedly brief hellos, the two didn’t interact.

Low Point: For the first time since she lost custody, Britney was allowed to take her sons out of state, winging with them from Los Angeles to her hometown of Kentwood, La., shortly after her appearance with Madonna. But the reunion at the clan’s Serenity mansion was interrupted when Jayden had to be rushed to the hospital after suffering an allergic reaction to “something he ingested,” according to a statement. Thankfully, he was soon back in the pink.

Low Point, Part 2: Spears is supposedly still hung up on her shutterbug ex Adnan Ghalib. “Ideally, they’d like to be together,” a source told Us Weekly, while TMZ reported that Britney had been nagging her string-pulling dad Jamie for months to allow her to see Adnan, but he wisely refused.

High/Low Point: Britney’s MTV documentary “For the Record” debuted on Nov. 30, offering a heavily filtered window into her current state of mind. “Even when you go to jail you know there’s the time when you’re gonna get out,” she says of her carefully controlled life. “But in this situation it’s never-ending. It’s just like ‘Groundhog Day‘ every day.” She admits she’s “sad,” and sighs that her life has “no excitement” and “no passion.” “I think it’s too in control,” Spears tearfully revealed. “If I wasn’t under the restraints I’m under, I’d feel so liberated. When I tell them the way I feel, it’s like they hear but they’re really not listening.” She also deflected responsibility for much of the craziness of the previous year, blaming it on the paparazzi and the “bad people” she let into her life. “I’m a smart person,” she says. “What the hell was I thinking?” As for her infamous noggin buzzing, she pronounced, “I was going through so much artificial stuff with my kids and Kevin at the time. He’d just left me and I was devastated … People shave their heads all the time.”

DECEMBER 2008

High Point: “Circus” is released on Dec. 2, Britney’s 27th birthday, and quickly tops the charts, buoyed by her lip-synched, dance-heavy performances of “Womanizer” in Paris, London, Germany and on “Good Morning America” in New York, where her parents and tots cheered her on. She marked the album’s release (and the end of her tabloid-topping annus horribilis) with a birthday bash at New York hot spot Tenjune with stars such as Heidi Klum. The party was a definite improvement over her depressingly impromptu birthday celebration the year before at a Sharon Stone-hosted Bel Air soiree, where she partied with Paris Hilton and shady hangers-on Sam Lutfi and Alli Sims and was presented with a store-bought cake.

Low Point: Britney just can’t seem to help taking public digs at ex-husband Kevin Federline as she makes the publicity rounds for “Circus.” “I didn’t think my husband was gonna leave me,” she gripes to Rolling Stone. “Otherwise, I’d be with my babies 24/7. But since they’re almost like twins, they both take care of each other.” In that same sit-down, Spears accused her former flame of teaching their oldest son “the f-word,” finger-pointing, “He doesn’t get it from us. He must get it from his daddy. I say it, but not around my kids.” She also appeared to question his paternal influence when she told Glamour, “In five years I would like to be married and have a father figure for my kids, someone who is a provider and can be really stable. It’s hard doing it on your own.” Federline responded with a People cover story in which he denied her claims (he said he was “completely blindsided” when she filed for divorce) and tried to take the high road. “Just because I’m not in love with her doesn’t mean that I don’t love her,” declared K-Fed. “I’m definitely rooting for her. There’s nothing more that I want than for her to be in the best health and doing what she loves to do.”

Source: MSN.com