The world can now stop speculating as to whether Britney Spears’ erratic behavior will cost her time with her children.
A judge has spoken and the answer is… NO—at least not for now.
This afternoon a L.A. Court Commissioner issued a ruling in the custody fight between Spears and her former husband Kevin Federline. In it the judge confirms what the rest of the nation has been saying for a while—Brit Brit is a “habitual, frequent and continuous” user of alcohol and controlled substances. As a result, the former Mouseketeer must now undergo twice-weekly random testing.
The judge also added that both Spears and Fed-Ex are not allowed to consume alcohol or non-prescription controlled substances at least 12 hours prior to being with their children Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1.
And, wait, there’s more… in what may be the biggest blow to the pop star’s out-of-this-world ego, the judge also mandated that Spears, alone, must meet with a “parenting coach” at least twice a week. The professional will observe Spears’ interaction with her children than submit a report analyzing the 25-year-old’s parenting skills to the court by the end of November (the next time the parties are due back in court).
The judge also ruled that the now bitter rivals must complete a program called “Parenting Without Conflict,” and attend joint co-parenting counseling. This should be interesting considering a previous report indicated that the ex’s have not spoken to each other in more than a month. What should be more interesting is whether any of these court orders will be what it takes to humble Brit the train wreck and get her back on the right track. Goodness knows humiliating herself in front of millions (on more than one occasion) didn’t see to do the trick.
Another one of the judge’s rulings also stuck out to me — the commissioner ordered both sides from using corporal punishment on the kids, and also mandated that both must refrain from making “derogatory remarks” about each other and their families. I’m not sure how you could possibly police this given the ages of the children. But, I suppose when you constantly have assistants and nannies around it’s not too hard to assume that there would be an extra set of eyes and ears monitoring the situation. After all, it was Brit’s former bodyguard who showed up in court yesterday to testify about Spears’ drug use.
This latest court ruling does not change Spears and Federline’s current 50-50 custody arrangement. However, the results of these orders will be used in Federline’s fight to seek primary physical custody of the couple’s young sons.
Either way, the ruling is yet another blow to Brit, who in the course of a couple week has watched members of her inner circle drop like flies—could this be her wake-up call? Oh, wait she’s had about a dozen of those already… let me rephrase that: Could this be the wake-up call that Brit finally answers?