Britney Spears

Los Angeles may not have a professional football team, but it does have celebrity divorce watching -- and lately, that's becoming quite a rough sport. So employees of Los Angeles civil court were reminded this week, when Britney Spears filed for divorce from her husband of two years, Kevin Federline. A day later, Reese Witherspoon filed for divorce from Ryan Phillippe.

To the mortgage crisis and the energy crunch and the devalued dollar, add this: a recession in the Britney market. The young woman who rose and fell (and fell and fell) in the paparazzi's strobe lights seems to have put bizarre public displays behind her, and the photographers who made hundreds and thousands -- and in some cases, hundreds of thousands -- capturing her missteps must look elsewhere for celebrities more predictably unpredictable. "She's boring.

Entering his second hour on the witness stand, Britney Spears' father was the picture of resigned misery. His shoulders sagged like he was carrying buckets of cement. His suit jacket flapped open and his tie lay crookedly across his barrel chest. His eyes were puffy and cast down and his mouth drooped in the pronounced frown of a bulldog.

"Brevity," wrote the Bard, "is the soul of wit." Just ask anyone who has ever sat through a rambling Oscar speech. There's an art to creating a haiku of narcissism. Perhaps that's why many in the industry are flocking to Twitter, the social-networking site that lets stars -- and wannabe stars -- communicate directly to fans in 140-character messages transmitted in real time over the Internet. Ellen DeGeneres, Britney Spears and band members from Coldplay are among the techno-savvy celebs who want to tell you what's on their minds.

Onstage at her "Circus" tour, Britney Spears is the boss. She wears a sexy ringmaster outfit and snaps a leather whip. "This mama is in control," she shouts at the audience. When the house lights come up, it's a different story. The 27-year-old singer's life is controlled by her father and her affairs handled by a cadre of attorneys seemingly as numerous and indispensable as the backup dancers who surround Spears onstage.

Steve Dennis is a ghostwriter -- a storyteller who spends so much time with his subjects that he writes credibly in their voice. "It's a part parasitic, part symbiotic invasion of somebody else's life," says Dennis, 37. "I go in the car with you, at dinner with you, with your wife and kids, girlfriend . . . It's not about being interviewed. The true ghostwriter really does move in." He's written two books in the voice of Lady Diana's butler Paul Burrell, and another as British footballer Ashley Cole.

Britney Spears was hospitalized as a Los Angeles court commissioner Friday barred her from visiting her two young sons. But it was the behavior of the paparazzi that was generating debate after a bizarre media swarm outside her hillside mansion. Spears is perhaps the most pursued celebrity in Hollywood. So when she allegedly refused to hand over one of her children at the end of a custody visit Thursday night, dozens of photographers were outside her door.

Pop star Britney Spears must increase her child support payments to ex-husband Kevin Federline by $5,000 a month as part of a custody settlement agreed to Friday. Under the terms of the deal approved by Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon, Spears will pay a total of $20,000 a month to the former backup dancer. She will also pay his $250,000 legal bill from lawyer Mark Vincent Kaplan.

She's been called a pop tart, a train wreck and a walking cautionary tale, but is Britney Spears a misdemeanant? The jury is out. Literally. After three days of deliberations, a dozen citizens threw up their hands Tuesday and said they could not agree on whether the oft-troubled entertainer was guilty of driving without a license during a fender bender last year. Ten jurors wanted to acquit. Two voted for conviction.

Britney Spears: A podiatrist's best friend? Over the last month, Spears has run over the feet of three people -- two paparazzi and a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy. At least one incident is being investigated, in part because Spears left the scene of the accident. The Los Angeles Police Department has informed Spears that if she does not provide a statement about the case involving the sheriff's deputy, she could face misdemeanor charges for a vehicle code violation.

Update: Fashion photographer David LaChapelle has sold his 1920s Spanish-style home in the Sunset Strip area for $1.6 million, the Multiple Listing Service shows. The multilevel house with a view of the Chateau Marmont has three bedrooms and 1 1/2 bathrooms in an open floor plan of 1,912 square feet. There is a remodeled kitchen, a living room fireplace, dark hardwood floors, a blue-tile swimming pool and a spa. LaChapelle, 46, who has published books, directed videos and made documentaries, is known for his portraits of celebrities, including David Beckham, Lance Armstrong, Britney Spears and Mariah Carey.

Steve Dennis is a ghostwriter -- a storyteller who spends so much time with his subjects that he writes credibly in their voice. "It's a part parasitic, part symbiotic invasion of somebody else's life," says Dennis, 37. "I go in the car with you, at dinner with you, with your wife and kids, girlfriend . . . It's not about being interviewed. The true ghostwriter really does move in." He's written two books in the voice of Lady Diana's butler Paul Burrell, and another as British footballer Ashley Cole.

"Brevity," wrote the Bard, "is the soul of wit." Just ask anyone who has ever sat through a rambling Oscar speech. There's an art to creating a haiku of narcissism. Perhaps that's why many in the industry are flocking to Twitter, the social-networking site that lets stars -- and wannabe stars -- communicate directly to fans in 140-character messages transmitted in real time over the Internet. Ellen DeGeneres, Britney Spears and band members from Coldplay are among the techno-savvy celebs who want to tell you what's on their minds.

A court official says a woman found guilty of snooping at Britney Spears' house has been sentenced to three years' probation and 240 hours of community service. Los Angeles County Superior Court spokeswoman Patricia Kelly says a judge in Malibu found Miranda Tozier-Robbins guilty of peeping into Spears' home in Calabasas. Kelly says Tozier-Robbins also was ordered Thursday to stay away from Spears and her home. The woman was arrested in April. Deputies found her wearing camouflage, carrying camera equipment and peering through the windows of Spears' home.

Just how much does it cost to be Britney Spears? A little less than $1 million a month, according to an accounting filed in L.A. Superior Court. Lawyers for Spears' father, who has permanent control of her personal affairs, submitted the document Friday to the judge supervising the conservatorship. The filing explains down to the penny how Jamie Spears and an attorney who helps him oversee her business interests spent more than $10 million on the singer's behalf over the course of 11 months last year.

Where there's smoke, there's . . . well, there's no Britney Spears. The 27-year-old pop star left the stage for about 30 minutes during a concert on Wednesday night in Vancouver, apparently because of smoke in the audience -- although no one has confirmed that tobacco was the culprit. As reported in the Vancouver Sun, Spears' concert was halted about 15 minutes into her performance, and an announcer admonished concertgoers to put out their cigarettes. Some audience members grew impatient while waiting for Spears and her troupe to return to the stage, the Sun reported.

THROUGH MAY 16 Gardens of the World Where: Bellagio Highlights: Spring has sprung at the always delightful conservatory, with re-creations of English, French, Italian and Japanese gardens. Info: bellagio.com APRIL 5 Academy of Country Music Awards Where: Grand Garden Arena (MGM Grand) Highlights: Reba McEntire, who's won 11 of these awards, hosts the festivities, which will also be televised at 8 p.m. (CBS). Info: mgmgrand.

Onstage at her "Circus" tour, Britney Spears is the boss. She wears a sexy ringmaster outfit and snaps a leather whip. "This mama is in control," she shouts at the audience. When the house lights come up, it's a different story. The 27-year-old singer's life is controlled by her father and her affairs handled by a cadre of attorneys seemingly as numerous and indispensable as the backup dancers who surround Spears onstage.

In what was likely a first in the worlds of pop music and Russian literature, a lawyer appearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday compared Britney Spears to the Soviet dissidents in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece "The Gulag Archipelago."

Her singing was dominated by a backing track. Her moves were nothing special -- defined by much strutting and stripper-like shimmying, with the minimum amount of acrobatics to prove her mettle as a dance-pop queen. Her physical form, still beautiful, didn't take one's breath away the way it did when she was 17.