Everyone is trying to figure out what’s wrong with Britney Spears. Blender has a new diagnosis: Stockholm syndrome.
The magazine’s March issue, on newsstands February 12, claims the singer has a “self-created” relationship with the paparazzi, one in which she has been chased for so long and by so many that she has come to not only accept them but need them in her life. The dozen or so photographers who stake her out regularly also change her flat tires, pump her gas, give her directions when she’s lost and often pick up her tab. “She seems to be basking [in the attention], and she seems to be trapped,” Blender writer Michael Joseph Gross observed. “She plays the role they expect her to play.”
Riding along on one paparazzi chase, Spears adviser Sam Lutfi — whose name also frequently appears as “Lufti” — sent text messages on the singer’s whereabouts to the team captain for celebrity-photo agency X17, Gross reported. That outing took place before FinalPixx photographer Adnan Ghalib, described by Gross as an “alpha pap,” became Spears’ on-again, off-again boyfriend. When the chase proved dangerous, one X17 videographer reportedly said, “Somebody’s going to get hurt, man.” If Spears were to get hurt — or worse, killed — during such a chase, his regret would be that he couldn’t sell the video unless he could prove he were calling 911 at the same time. “That would be horrible,” he responded, according to Gross’ article. “No, no. Nobody wants that.”
Some have speculated that the reason Spears has used an English accent as of late — making the leap from being Brit to being a Brit — is that Ghalib has rubbed off on her in more ways than one. Asked on “Entertainment Tonight” if Spears was pretending to be British because of a fascination with Princess Diana, who was also chased by the paparazzi to an extreme degree, Ghalib said no. “She’s never mentioned Princess Diana,” he said. The only thing the two women had in common, he said, is “dating an Arab.”
Though speculation is also rampant that Ghalib is selling photos and video of Spears on the side — a charge he denies — it’s Spears’ relationship with Sam Lutfi that has her friends and family worried. Abandoned by her lawyers, dumped by her management and estranged from her family, Lutfi seems to be the only mainstay in the singer’s life, besides the paparazzi and photo agencies, which he accused Lutfi of being in league with. Besides tipping off X17 as to Spears’ whereabouts, X17 says Lutfi provides other invaluable information. After initially receiving tips from “funny pseudonyms,” X17 co-owner Brandy Navarre told Blender that “out of the blue, Sam started telling me things ..
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