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When on Jan. 21 her aunt Sandra Covington died of ovarian cancer, Spears returned to her hometown for the funeral. "Britney was able to go to the cemetery without anyone bothering her," says a family friend. "She couldn't stay for long though. She was in and out of town with the boys. She doesn't have time to stop, and that's part of the problem. She doesn't have time to stop and think."
Or listen. As her friends and family in Kentwood have watched her spiral out of control, "They are worried," says one close friend. "Britney's life in Hollywood and New York is so different from life here at home." Gregory Pittman, 23, an emergency room nurse in Hammond, La., who has been close to Spears and her family since they were children, is just one who has tried to talk to her. "We told her she needs to get control over what's going on," he says. Her response, he adds, "is always she was old enough to do what she wants to do." As another source puts it, "When everybody you surround yourself with is on the payroll, they say, 'Yes, yes, yes.' Who is there to say, 'Put on some underwear'? No one is there to protect you from yourself."
