ELLEN PAGE - PAGE OUTRAGED AT SPEARS' MEDIA FRENZY

Actress ELLEN PAGE has slammed the U.S media for its treatment of troubled singer BRITNEY SPEARS, branding its behaviour "sickening". The Juno star says she sympathises with Spears because she could have been in a similar situation had she begun her career at a younger age. Page was asked to relocate to Los Angeles to star in a TV sitcom at just 13 - but turned down the role to finish schooling in her native Canada. And the 20-year-old is convinced that had she accepted the part, she could have been a misled teen - and a victim of the tabloids' prying paparazzi. She explains, "It definitely happens to some people and it doesn't to others. It's really unfortunate - I wish there was more compassion for those people versus just relentless judgments. It's sickening. "I feel bad, you know - they were hyper-sexualised at the age of 16, not guided or taken care of or nurtured properly. And now people treat it like it's a joke. Let's splatter their face on newspapers every day and show them being taken out of their house on a stretcher! It's like, why don't we ask why this is happening? It makes me very angry."