Spears Family Says Dr. Phil Is Out of Line

By David Freedlander and Korin Miller, AM New York, | January 9, 2008

Dr. Phil McGraw

As Dr. Phil McGraw continues to spin the situation, Britney Spears' family reacts

Hollywood drama has reached yet another low.

Leading industry insiders are questioning if Dr. Phil McGraw went too far when he released a statement on Britney Spears' mental health and said he wanted the troubled pop star to come on his TV show for help.

Spears' family had asked Dr. Phil to visit their daughter in the hospital after her breakdown last week when she was taken from her house on a stretcher.

"Writers on a soap opera couldn't generate this stuff, " says Maggie Gallant, CEO of Spotlight Communications, a public relations firm. "It's the curse of the Spears family. They're constantly surrounded by people obsessed with fame and cashing in on their trials and tribulations."

Dr. Phil said that Spears was in "dire need" of help after visiting her last week, which prompted Lou Taylor, a family spokesman, to lash out at Dr. Phil on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday.

"The family extended an invitation of trust for him to come in as a resource to support them, not to go out and make public statements," Taylor says. "Any statement he made publicly, because he was brought in under this cloak of trust, is inappropriate."

Many blame the media for this kind of never-ending celebrity obsession.

"We have the 'stalker-razzi now hiding out in bathroom stalls to catch someone going to the bathroom," says Ken Sunshine, of Sunshine, Sachs, and Associates. "There has always been an interest in celebrity train wrecks but not like this. Celebrity journalism used to be fun and funny, and now there is a mean, gotcha-mentality."

Others though wonder if Spears brought this all on herself.

"It's not like she was trying to go under the radar," says Rita Tateel, president of the Celebrity Source, a celebrity brokerage firm. "Celebrities are the most insecure people on the planet anyway. When you are famous people are always trying to take advantage of you. Things are only kept private here when you are among friends or alone. Anything else is fair game."

- With additional reporting by Victoria McLaughlin