Britney Spears’s ex manager speaks out after singer’s car roof stunt

Britney Spears’s ex-manager Sam Lutfi urged people to remain compᴀssionate toward the pop star amid a spate of recent incidents that have caused concern.

The Grammy-winning singer, 44, made headlines on Wednesday when she was seen standing up through the moonroof of the Mercedes SUV she was being driven in on the 101 freeway in Los Angeles’s Studio City neighborhood.

The concerning stunt happened around four months after she was arrested in connection with suspicion of DUI on March 4, for which she ultimately pleaded guilty to a reduced reckless driving charge.

Lutfi – whom Spears previously obtained restraining orders against in 2008 and 2019 – told the Daily Mail on Saturday that he thinks ‘compᴀssion is a better response than mockery’ to what Spears could be going through.

‘She’s a human being before she’s a celebrity,’ Lutfi, 51, said. ‘People are very quick to judge, especially when it’s Britney.’

He added that ‘social media isn’t someone’s medical chart’ and he had no inclination ‘to diagnose [or] criticize’ Spears amid the recent events.

The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Spears for comment but has not yet received a response. 

Britney Spears’s ex-manager Sam Lutfi urged people to remain compᴀssionate toward the pop star, 44, amid a spate of recent incidents that have caused concern. Pictured July 2019

‘She’s a human being before she’s a celebrity,’ Lutfi, 51, told the Daily Mail. ‘People are very quick to judge, especially when it’s Britney’; He’s pictured leaving LA’s Chateau Marmont on Friday

Lutfi told the Daily Mail of Spears, ‘She’s already spent her life under a microscope, so why don’t we show her the same grace we’d want for ourselves, period? I wish her nothing but the best.’ 

The Oops!… I Did It Again artist referenced the incident on her Instagram on Saturday, saying, ‘What people see is two seconds of insanity of me arching me to the lords !!!!! yet the days and hours of my reality!!!!!!’

She added, ‘Nothing is what it seems. Psss I think I need to come out of the roof quite a bit more.’

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Lutfi spoke about his one-time client after he was seen on a rare outing at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood. He told the Daily Mail he spent time there after watching a World Cup game.

Lutfi’s primary affiliation with Spears came around 2007–2008, a timeframe when she was in the headlines following her divorce from Kevin Federline.

A series of incidents at the time indicated that she was struggling with mental health, leading to the beginning of her 13-year conservatorship.

Spears’s family had obtained a restraining order against Lutfi in 2008, and he subsequently filed a defamation and breach-of-contract lawsuit against them the following year, which he finally settled out of court in September 2016.

Spears obtained a five-year civil harᴀssment restraining order in June of 2019 against Lutfi, claiming he had made threats against her family.

He added that ‘social media isn’t someone’s medical chart’ and he had no inclination ‘to diagnose [or] criticize’ Spears amid the recent events; Lutfi pictured in LA in 2008 at a court hearing Spears attended 

Lutfi told the Daily Mail of Spears, ‘She’s already spent her life under a microscope, so why don’t we show her the same grace we’d want for ourselves, period? I wish her nothing but the best.’; He’s seen in November 2007 in LA with Spears 

In July 2021, Lutfi publicly commented on the situation surrounding the conservatorship the singer had been placed in, saying via Twitter that he was ‘sorry’ to have ‘failed’ to ‘protect’ the musical artist during his time as her manager. 

In October of 2025, Lutfi appeared on the podcast Popcorned Planet, where he spoke about his past affiliation with the Toxic artist.

‘She’s this incredible star,’ Lutfi said. ‘But aside from that, we had a great time. She was … just a fantastic friend, and a great client.’

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Lutfi said that Spears did not have a strong support system in place following her painful split from Federline, which left her ‘devastated.’

He said that he ‘didn’t give a damn’ about what the public might have ‘believed’ about him, saying he ‘was trying not to watch what was going out there.’

Lutfi added, ‘I didn’t know this was gonna become so deep. I didn’t know. I came in, she asked for help.’

An insider told the Daily Mail that the Spears moonroof incident was not a cause for alarm, as she ‘wanted to see what the traffic was about up ahead because the cars came to a stop.’

The source added, ‘She used to do this all the time as a kid growing up in the South, she loves having the warm wind blow through her hair in the summer, it’s fun. 

‘She is having a fun summer and is happy, she is in a good place. If it’s illegal to put your head through a sunroof, she doesn’t know it! She didn’t mean to do anything bad.’