MAUREEN CALLAHAN: Britney, the world’s saddest, loneliest star, is on the brink as never before. As family fear the worst, the vile parasites who mocked and exploited her should hang their heads in shame

Britney is on point like never before.

Following the shock announcement that Spears and husband Sam Asghari are divorcing, sources say Britney is seriously unwell, unstable and all alone.

Her mother Lynne Spears, according to an internal source, is “furious” at Asghari for leaving her daughter in such a precarious condition and is now desperate for Britney to move in with her.

“Family and friends feel it’s really on the verge of life and death,” the source told DailyMail.com. “The last thing anyone wants is to put her back under guardianship.”

Because here’s the catch: Britney was released from her controversial conservatorship in November 2021 after nearly 14 years. Her case was so sweeping that California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law in 2022 establishing new restrictions requiring judges to document every possible alternative before enacting one.

The implication, says this source, is that things are so dire that the family would apply for another conservatory if they could.

Adding to Britney’s troubles, Asghari reportedly threatens to release “extremely embarrassing information” unless she renegotiates their prenuptial agreement.

Long before Asghari released an unashamed “Sh*t happen” on Instagram Thursday, saying that he and Brit “will hold on to the love and respect we have for each other…I always wish her well,” the leaks already started.

Allegations that Britney was cheating with a domestic worker – caught on video – and that she had physically assaulted her husband quickly surfaced.

If Asghari really wishes his troubled wife well, why not take all the riches he has accumulated during this short marriage and sneak away quietly? Why add to her misery?

Britney Spears, 41, once the most famous pop star in the world, is – except for the domestic workers – very much alone.

Her teenage sons now live with their father in Hawaii.

The publicized recent rapprochement with sister Jamie Lynn may not have been a success. “Britney is still very angry with Jamie Lynn,” a source told Page Six.

DailyMail.com reported on Thursday that they are working on their relationship.

Britney’s mother visited her in May, but itthere’s still a lot of pain here,” the Page Six source said, “so they haven’t quite reconciled.

And of course, her father Jamie, who oversaw Britney’s conservatory and paid himself $16,000 a month from his daughter’s estate for at least 12 years, is completely estranged.

Has there been a sadder, lonelier star in recent memory?

Asghari, it seems, is just the latest man to take advantage of Spears, who—despite her wealth, fame, and beauty—has spent most of her adult life in crisis. Until the #FreeBritney movement, she was the butt of one long, cruel joke: How low can this bimbo go?

She began to unravel in public in 2007: shaving her head, attacking a paparazzo’s vehicle with an umbrella, walking barefoot into gas station bathrooms, being photographed without her underwear, nearly dropping her baby, and later riding with him in her lap.

It all culminated in a standoff with police after she barricaded herself and her child in a bathroom, leading to her involuntary hospitalization.

She was only 26 years old, met not compassion but disgust and ridicule.

Her mental breakdown coincided with the birth and explosion of celebrity blogs no more popular and nastier than Perez Hilton’s.

When Heath Ledger died in 2008, Hilton – who has since apologized – made t-shirts that read, “Why couldn’t it have been Britney?”

That same year, an episode of “Family Feud” featured a game called “Name Something Britney Spears Has Lost in the Past Year.”

The participants threw themselves into: ‘Her husband’; ‘her hair’; her common sense.

Cheers and laughter and applause.

“I’ll give you the Salt Lake City answer,” said a contestant named Mike. “Her virginity.”

Other reactions: her career, her underwear, respect, dignity, her children, weight. Her fans.

Really, America laughed.

When you look at photos of Britney back then, bald and miserable, you don’t remember anyone so much as another complicated, talented star we just lost: Sinéad O’Connor.

But Sinead’s suffering, in her later years, was more private. Perhaps that’s why her death last month, at the age of 56, felt such a shock.

Britney’s suffering has almost always been public. It can alternately feel like a cry for help and just her innate way of being – famous for so long she knows nothing else.

Maybe that’s why those closest to her are speaking up and making it clear that they want to help her without institutionalizing her.

The Britney we’ve seen post-conservatoire is a regression: posting videos to social media of her being unkempt, barely dressed, dancing on a stripper pole, chasing a newly minted NBA star through a Las Vegas hotel lobby and getting swept away by his security. Losing her sons.

Now she’s eyeing an ugly divorce from a 29-year-old showbiz wannabe who, rather than keep the gory details of her life private, reportedly threatens to release them if he doesn’t get a hefty payout.

No one thinks marriage to Britney would be easy. But Asghari had been with her for six years, before and after her conservatorship. You can’t say he didn’t know what he was getting into.

Now he’s playing the good guy and it’s all kind of wrong. Exploitative. Kicking someone when they’re down.

“Saving Britney,” a source close to Asghari told the DailyMail.com, is now unlikely.

How awful. How overconfident of him to think he could.

“The reality of living with Britney was that it wasn’t fun,” the source said, “and it’s no surprise at all that the marriage didn’t last.”

Of course it wasn’t fun. Life with a woman, sexualized and commercialized at a young age, surrounded by people who usually always wanted something from her – money, fame, reflected glory – was never going to be easy.

Last year, Ashari took to social media to defend Britney. “I respect her privacy and I protect it at all times,” he said.

What a hypocrite.

I would like to see Asghari’s life dissected like a cadaver, every mistake or embarrassment or family strife or psychiatric illness dished out for entertainment, betrayed by those closest to him, yet raising the means to survive. For decades.

A weaker person would have been finished with half this stuff.

So think carefully about Britney Jean Spears. She’s saved herself before. May she do it again.