Britney Spears sued for libel??

About a month ago -- February 4, to be exact -- I ran across a frustratingly brief article in the UK's The Daily Telegraph pertaining to, wouldn't you know it, Britney Spears. Surprisingly, the article's content wasn't entirely about her music career.

You can love or hate Britney, and lately she has been a polarizing figure in pop culture. After the regrettable "K-Fed era" where she got really f-ed up, flashed a bunch of paparazzi, and lost custody of her kids and -- oh yeah -- her sexual appeal, she has more recently started to show a bizarre career parallel with the late Anna Nicole Smith. That is to say, "hot - gross - hot again." It's a smart career move, to be sure. Kirstie Alley has kind of done the same thing recently with the whole Jenny Craig thing. Premeditated or not, I'm sure Ms. Spears was hoping deep down that if she ever happened to lose her clout, gaining it back would make her an even bigger sensation than before.

But now she's "under pressure"... whatever that might mean. The Telegraph implies it has to do with the prospect of enduring another performance flop, but the remainder of the short article suggests (weakly) that some of this pressure may stem from a troubling lawsuit against her and her family for libel and defamation, issued by her former manager, Osama "Sam" Lutfi.

The problem is that writer Ben Leach's description of the lawsuit and its details is horribly vague and even a little redundant. He states the circumstances of the suit and nothing more, leaving the reader with no real idea of why Lutfi is suing Spears or even what the matter at hand is. Other than being owed "unpaid management fees," the ensuing accusations of "libel," "defamation," "battery," and "intentional infliction of emotional distress" are unfounded as far as I can tell. Rather than shed light on the subject, Leach really just opens up more doors for questions, explaining Spears filed a restraining order on Lutfi and her boyfriend before the lawsuit came about. OK, this piece of information may help explain a few of these charges, but it also begs the question: why did she file a restraining order in the first place?

Additionally, since none of the circumstances were really addressed in the article, there is no evidence of whether this libelous claim against Spears will hold up in court. Since we know none of the details of the story from reading it, we can't determine how Lutfi's reputation has been harmed, how truthful the matter is, or if the charge was a fair comment on any matter of public interest. This article is cursory and doesn't offer much at all for the reader to draw upon.