Lynne Spears
Gossip

While Britney Spears is busy getting accosted by drunk fans on her Circus tour, a couple of her former clowns are starring in their own shows in L.A.

Spears' ex-manager Sam Lutfi and former boyfriend Adnan Ghalib appeared in separate hearings yesterday. Both shady hangers-on have already been banned from further contact with their former meal ticket through at least 2012.

Now the courts are sorting through the legal fallout.

Sam Lutfi fared considerably better than Adnan Ghalib, as a Superior Court judge set a trial date of March 8, 2010, for the former manager's lawsuit claiming defamation and unpaid fees against Spears and her parents, Jamie and Lynne.

Lawyers for both Lutfi and Jamie and Lynne Spears say they will spend the next 10 months attempting to resolve the case outside of court.

But in case that doesn't work out, they have a game plan. An attorney for Jamie Spears said that a countersuit may be filed against Lutfi.

Lynne Spears' attorney, meanwhile, said that he will likely seek to dismiss the portion of Sam Lutfi's lawsuit that's directed against her.

The grounds for that claim? That his allegation of defamation based on her new memoir, Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World, is actually an infringement on Lynne Spears' right to free speech.

Particularly, her right to freely criticize whomever she chooses, especially when they play as large a part as Lutfi appeared to in the downfall of her daughter.

The trial date comes just days after Lutfi filed an appeal against a judge's extension of the restraining order obtained against him by the Spears family.

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One of the shadiest characters ever to appear on this and other celeb gossip sites, Sam Lutfi, has filed a lawsuit against Britney Spears and her parents.

The Evil One is suing Team Britney for libel, defamation and battery, as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract.

According to the court papers filed today, the baddest of the bad seeds claims that Britney's parents, Jamie and Lynn Spears, have "launched a campaign of lies and intimidation designed to destroy Sam Lutfi and drive him out of Britney's life."

In the lawsuit, Sam claims he was standing in Britney's kitchen on January 29, 2008 when Jamie stormed into the house. Lutfi alleges Jamie yelled at him, claiming Sam made a rude comment to Lynne the night before.

Then, the alleged former manager says claims, Jamie Spears "intentionally punched him in the chest" and threatened to kill him if he ever heard Sam make a rude comment about Lynne or any member of Britney Spears' family again.

Britney Spears and the seedy one during his 2007 reign of terror.

All the claims of libel and defamation spring from Lynne Spears' memoir, Through the Storm, which was published last year. Lutfi says since the publication of the book, he "has been subjected to unfathomable amounts of ridicule and public scorn."

In the book, Lynne insinuated that Lutfi was an unstable, disreputable, manipulative, controlling and dangerous individual, even drugging the star at one point.

Lutfi also claims Britney Spears broke a contract with him, therefore owing him unpaid management fees. He claims he had an oral agreement with the pop singer to be her manager for four years, earning 15 percent commission.

Last Friday, Britney was granted a restraining order against Lutfi and Adnan Ghalib, barring them from having any contact with her, her parents or her kids.

Lynne Spears feels she is to blame for her daughter Britney Spears' public meltdown last year - although that hasn't stopped her from trying to cash in!

At one point, Lynne debated accurately titling her autobiography It's All My Fault. In the end, she went with the vague, melodramatic Through the Storm.

"I can laugh about it now, but did I feel that way at the time? Yes, I did and, if I'm being totally honest, I still do," she told the UK's Daily Mail.

"When her life was such a success, what did she need me for? And when things took a turn for the worse, I was out, because other people - dancers, managers - were closer, and with her day and night. Being a mother, you can't help but have regrets about what you did and didn't do for your kids, and I'm no different."

Lynne Spears reflects on her greatest parenting achievements.

Follow the jump for many Lynne Spears quotes from her recent interview. This woman is definitely in the running for Top Sellout and Worst Parent of '08 ...

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Lynne Spears has plenty to be thankful for.

In the year, she watched her famous daughter, Britney Spears, go bonkers but crawl back from the brink, and her less-famous daughter, Jamie Lynn Spears, scandalously get knocked up at age 16, only to get engaged and welcome a happy baby.

How did 27-year-old Britney rebound from a pair of forced hospitalizations and a string of erratic behavior, such as a quickly annulled Vegas wedding in 2004, an infamous head-shaving in 2007, and myriad bizarre dalliances with men?

"With a lot of love and care and help," Lynne Spears said Thursday evening, speaking to the U.K.'s GMTV via satellite from New Orleans, Louisiana.

"Sometimes you have to settle down. You have to stop, think. There's a lot of people that care about Britney and love Britney – and she's doing great now."

While the singer still hasn't regained custody of her two sons, Sean Preston and Jayden James, Lynne had only praise for her daughter's parenting skills.

"Oh she's a wonderful mother – she's funny, she's extremely affectionate," said the Spears matriarch, who's promoting her memoir, Through the Storm.

"[At] home, where there's nobody around, she's very normal."

Fresh off the success of her first single, "Womanizer," Britney is now in Europe promoting her new album, Circus. She's scheduled to go on tour next year.

"I think Britney's just ready to get started again," said her mom. "I think this is when she's most in her element."

After a year of upheaval for her family, Lynne Spears tells People she is trying like hell to cash in at every turn cherishing the little things.

She means the things like taking Britney's sons Sean Preston, 3, and Jayden James, 2, for a spin in her golf cart and planning a shopping trip with l'il Jamie Lynn Spears because 3-month-old Maddie Briann Aldridge is growing so fast.

"Some really wonderful things are happening now," Lynne Spears, 53, said on Saturday. "It looks like things are looking up again."

Lynne was the surprise guest speaker at the Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) 20th annual convention in Grapevine, Texas, where she shared what it's like to face criticism for the ways in which she raised Jamie Lynn and Britney Spears.

After a rough couple of years, Lynne Spears is ready to turn the page.

"I had a perfect little plan," said Lynne Spears, who just released a memoir, Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World, and who has been a critic of the perceived unequal media treatment of Jamie Lynn Bristol Palin.

"But, you can't control the [kids]' peers and you can't control society."

Lynne does acknowledge her own failures, though, and says all we can ask of ourselves is to do our best. Looking forward, she says she loves nothing more than doting on her three grandchildren, who call her "Me Maw."

No, not personally - but Lynne Spears is miffed that people vilified pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears, then praised the knocked up Bristol Palin.

This wasn't just the hypocritical reaction of idiots like Bill O'Reilly, either. Most of the general public had a "totally different reaction" to the teen pregnancies of Jamie Lynn and Bristol, Lynne said in an interview with Newsweek.

"It's as if [Sarah Palin] became celebrated," Lynne said.

"I mean, the mother was celebrated for this... Every woman in the world applauded her strength and convictions and poor Jamie Lynn, you saw how she was crucified - everybody did, firsthand. I just feel like it's been a very hypocritical situation."

We'd have to agree.

In December, Jamie Lynn Spears, then 16, announced her pregnancy. She got engaged to Casey Aldridge and gave birth to daughter Maddie Briann in June at age 17.

In August, Sarah Palin, the Alaska Governor and Republican V.P. candidate, revealed that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol Palin, is expecting and engaged to Levi Johnston.

"Do I promote teen sex? Of course not," Lynne said. "Do I promote teen pregnancy? Of course not. But when it happens, you deal with it and you do the best you can do."

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On top of discussing Britney Spears' epic meltdown while promoting her new money-making vehicle memoir, Through the Storm, Mother of the Weak Week Lynne Spears delved into the topic of Jamie Lynn on Wednesday's Today show.

Specifically, her getting pregnant at 16.

Lynne recalled how she was planning to go to lunch when Jamie Lynn Spears called and told her to come home. At home, Lynne found her daughter's boyfriend (now fiance / baby-daddy) Casey Aldridge, who avoided eye contact.

Jamie Lynn handed her a note and told her to go in the bedroom to read it.

"It said she was pregnant and everything was going to be okay. She was going to raise it," Lynne Spears recalled. "I thought it was a joke ... I was waiting for the punch line. I was in shock. I think I was just truly in shock, and then I started to cry. And she then started consoling me at that point."

New author Lynne Spears' "parenting" skills have long been suspect.

Lynne - who sold the story to celebrity news magazine OK! for $1 million - added that she blamed herself for her youngest daughter's personal drama.

As a mother, don’t we always blame ourselves?" she said. "I took a lot of the blame. I took all the blame. The personality I have, it's always my fault."

Yes, Lynne, it is. But you'll get 'em next time.

"It's kind of like ... Britney was sent out into the world a little bit prematurely." - Lynne Spears, promoting her memoir Through the Storm.

While not officially admitting what a leech she is, Britney Spears' mother did admit, on Today, to some of the mistakes she's made along the way.

When Britney began her career, Lynne said she was a single mother who also had to raise little Jamie Lynn, so she couldn't always be there.

"Did I want to be there? Of course!" she said. "Was it feasible? It wasn't."

Lynne, who also has a 31-year-old son, Bryan Spears, compared her situation to when parents first send their children off to college:

"You don't really know what they're doing in college ... just as Britney set out two years earlier to be a star. She's out there, with the crowds and with her peer groups, and she's doing things - she's a celebrity, for heaven's sake!"

Lynne said she felt she lost control the moment she practically saw Britney Spears naked with a Teletubby on a 1999 cover of Rolling Stone.

She said she wouldn't have agreed to let Britney Spears strip nude, but "we didn't really know what we were doing. We were so in awe. I had never even bought [Rolling Stone], but I just heard this is a really big deal."

"We were kind of in shock at what was going on. It was a two-day shoot. Thank god [manager] Larry Rudolph came in and said, 'Stop, that's enough.'"

So did Lynne Spears get sucked into fame?

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Britney Spears is "furious" with mom Lynne Spears, after Lynne threw her under the bus detailed her past in her new memoir, "Through the Storm."

While the book doesn't dish that much on Britney's sex life or drug use - at least beyond her deflowering (go Reg Jones!) at 14 and some binges in her teens - it blames all of Britney's problems on her former managers.

Britney Spears - who already considered her mother a leech siphon on her purse - is reportedly very upset about the book, especially when she feels Lynne herself caused many of her problems and issues in the past decade.

We don't suspect a quick reconcilation after the release of Lynne's book, which can be best (possibly only) described as an extremely d!ck move.

At present, Britney is only talking to sister Jamie Lynn Spears, brother Bryan Spears and father Jamie Spears, who, as her conservator and guardian, has cleaned up her affairs and put his daughter back on the right track.

Spears, who racked up three VMA wins, is even being allowed out by herself these days. She went to Las Vegas to catch a Cirque du Soleil show!

Afterward, Britney and her hairstylist, Kim Vo, went to Japonais and drank only water before hitting the blackjack tables and going home - sober.

For what was billed as an evangelical book about "parenting," Lynne Spears' widely-ridiculed much-anticipated memoir - Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World - is chock full of tawdry tales.

The New York Daily News reviewed a copy and shared some juicy tidbits:

• Britney Spears took a liking to booze when she was just a 13-year-old Mouseketeer, then began experimenting with drugs at 15.

• By 16, Britney's drug-fueled behavior stunned her family when the wild one was caught with coke and marijuana on a private jet.

• Lynne Spears knew about, yet openly allowed 16-year-old Britney to sleep with boyfriend Justin Timberlake, her Mickey Mouse Club co-star.

• Timberlake was misled about Brit's purity, as she had lost her virginity to a Kentwood, La., high school football player (Reg Jones) at 14.

• As Spears' career began to take off, the All-American mom went along with the hoax that Britney was a virgin to boost her image.

Man, way to throw your daughter under the bus right as she's getting her train wreck life back together, Lynne Spears. Good to see you'd rather try to get rich than do what's best for Britney just once. Enjoy the weather where you're going, sellout.

As we said when we first learned about Through the Storm, we don't think the title and cover do it justice. Here are our proposed versions ...

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