DEMI MOORE - MOORE: 'PAPARAZZI ARE DAMAGING SPEARS'

DEMI MOORE has spoken out in support of BRITNEY SPEARS, insisting it's no surprise the troubled singer often breaks down when she is trailed by photographers everywhere she goes. Spears was committed to hospital for a psychological evaluation earlier this month (Jan08) after she locked herself and her one-year-old son Jayden James in a bathroom at her Beverly Hills, California mansion and refused to come out after a visitation term had ended. The singer also famously lashes out at the paparazzi army that follows her every move, and was overheard telling snappers she was scared of them outside a Los Angeles courthouse after blowing off a crucial custody hearing on Monday (14Jan08). And mother-of-three Moore, who briefly turned her back on Hollywood to raise her young daughters in rural Idaho, claims constant media exposure is damaging the 26-year-old star. The Ghost star admits she has noticed how crazy the paparazzi have become since returning to Hollywood a few years ago. She says, "When I first moved back to L.A., I had a very difficult time and found that I didn't want to leave the house so much. "And then I started to feel, well, I don't want to be isolated and worried that if they're getting a photograph then I'm not going to go and do something. It's difficult when they hang out at the bottom of your street waiting for you to drive by. "No one has seen it worse than Britney Spears. How can anyone see that and think that's an OK way to expect anybody to live, no matter where they're at in their life?"