LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears refused to get out of her BMW for about 10 minutes before her driving under the influence arrest in March. When she did, the singing superstar smelled of booze and appeared drunk in field sobriety tests, though breath tests put her within the legal alcohol limit, according to a police report and dashcam video obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
“Her speech was rapid and slurred, her gait was unsteady, and she
was fidgeting with her fingers,” the report from the California Highway Patrol said. “Her mood changed from confrontational and agitated to flamboyant and compliant. She also appeared to speak with a British accent at times.”
Spears told officers, “I could probably drink four bottles of wine and take care of you, I’m an angel.”
But she said that in actuality she only had one drink, a mimosa, hours earlier, and she put her level of drunkenness at “zero.” Breath tests put her blood alcohol level at .05 and .06, below the legal limit in California.
A bottle of Adderall — the stimulant used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder — was found by an officer in her purse, and was not prescribed to her, the report said. She also gave a blood sample for a drug test, but those results were not included in the report.
A Spears representative did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday.
Spears was pulled over for speeding and swerving on U.S. 101 in Ventura County near the Los Angeles County line in the area where she lives on March 5, authorities said. She was later charged with misdemeanor DUI and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
Spears at first refused to get out of the car, saying she had been pranked and harassed in the past and as a woman she had a right to decline. She also said she feared getting out on the highway. When officers said they could take her around the corner, she suggested they go to her house.
“I’ll make you food or lasagna, whatever you want. I have a pool,” Spears says on the video.
She was eventually cuffed, taken to jail and released on bail hours later.
Spears voluntarily checked into a rehabilitation facility soon after.
On May 4 she pleaded guilty to reckless driving involving alcohol and drugs and avoided more jail time. Ventura County prosecutors said the plea agreement is standard offer for defendants with no DUI history, no crash or injury on the road and a low blood-alcohol level.
“I don’t think anybody’s happy about pleading guilty to anything, but under the circumstances, to get this behind her, I think everybody is pleased with the result,” Spears' lawyer Michael Goldstein said after the plea hearing, at which she did not appear.
Spears grew to superstardom in the 1990s and 2000s with several platinum-selling albums and hit singles including “Toxic,” “… Baby One More Time” and “Oops! … I Did It Again.”
She became a tabloid obsession in the early 2000s and a source of intense public scrutiny as she battled mental illness and paparazzi fought to document her private life.
Spears spent nearly 14 years in a court-ordered conservatorship controlled primarily by her father before she was freed from it in 2021. Since then she has married, divorced and released a bestselling memoir, “The Woman in Me.”
