Britney: Headed to Rehab?

AFTER A DISTURBING OUTING WITH HER CRIMINAL BOYFRIEND, BRITNEY SPEARS' INNER CIRCLE SAY THE TROUBLED POP STAR DESPERATELY NEEDS HELP.

IT was an eerily familiar scene. In the early morning hours of May 2, a disheveled Britney Spears was photographed outside the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles wearing nothing but pajama shorts and a blanket that she had wrapped around herself. According to one report, paramedics were called after guests heard Britney — who’d been partying earlier at the bar with her entourage and boyfriend, Paul Richard Soliz — screaming inside her suite.

In the days that followed, Britney, 42, downplayed the incident via social media, sharing a video of her swollen ankle, which she claimed she got from “leaping” in her hotel room. She insisted she’d been “gaslit” and “tricked” into leaving the Chateau and, in a since-deleted post, insisted the photos of her featured “body doubles.” She also blamed her mom, Lynne, for setting the whole thing up.

Fans and those close to Britney are worried the troubled pop star is headed for another breakdown, and could end up back in rehab — or worse. “Britney’s been on a downward spiral for a while now,” an insider tells Star. “The disturbing scenario that happened at the Chateau Marmont mirrors what happened in 2008 when she was put under conservatorship. Clearly, things are escalating.”