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LOS ANGELES - Britney Spears has entered a rehabilitation centre, her spokesman said today, after the troubled pop star's recent wild ways escalated this weekend to a bizarre incident in which she shaved her own head.
"Britney Spears has voluntarily checked herself into an undisclosed rehab facility today," publicist Larry Rudolph said in a statement. "We ask that the media respect her privacy as well as those (privacy concerns) of her family and friends at this time."
Rudolph did not elaborate on the treatment Spears was seeking or where the facility was located -- though People magazine and TMZ.com both reported that it was in Los Angeles and that the 25-year-old singer checked in at the urging of family members.
Since her split with husband Kevin Federline in November after two years of marriage, Spears has raised eyebrows with heavy partying, sometimes with celebrity heiress Paris Hilton, and a series of pictures that caught the Grammy-winning entertainer wearing no panties under her short skirts.
This January, Spears posted an impassioned letter to her fans on her official website britneyspears.com, in which she acknowledged that her image had taken a beating and pledged to come back "bigger and better than ever."
But on Saturday reports swirled that Spears, a former child star who exploded onto the pop scene as a teenager and has since sold 70 million albums, had entered rehab on the Caribbean island of Antigua, only to drop out 24 hours later.
Later that evening she was spotted at a hair salon in Los Angeles, shaving her own head in pictures that made headlines around the world. She followed that up with a trip to a tattoo parlour and on Monday she was photographed heading into a West Hollywood night club wearing an ill-fitting blonde wig.
Her website has been taken down and replaced with a message saying that a new one was in the works.
After she filed for divorce, Federline quickly sought custody of the couple's two young sons Sean Preston and James Jayden, claiming that he needed to "safeguard" them.
Child welfare authorities visited Spears twice in 2006 after she was photographed driving a car with her infant son on her lap, and after Sean Preston fell from a high chair and hit his head. No charges were brought.
Since early in her career, Spears has generated as much attention for her personal life as for her music, including a highly publicised romance and break-up with singer Justin Timberlake.
Spears famously pledged in 1999 to keep her virginity intact until her wedding day but gradually shed that image as she grew in popularity, assuming a more overtly sexual persona known for provocative costumes and stage performances.
- REUTERS
