Britney Spears smilingBritney Spears reportedly fled Los Angeles with new boyfling, Adnan Ghalib after she was released from hospital on Saturday.

The pair were first spotted together in a diner in Palm Desert later on Saturday with onlookers reporting Britney was in high spirits. A member of staff at the restaurant told reporters: “She seemed in a really good mood, laughing with the guy she was with.”

She kept large, dark sunglasses on for the whole hour she was at the restaurant and “had a champagne mimosa to drink.” She even “went to the restroom with her champagne flute while [Adnan] stood outside the door.”

They are then said to have briefly stopped in Adnan’s nearby home before moving onto the Shutters Hotel in Santa Monica, where they stayed together overnight.

A source close to the star told the Sun that Britney’s befriending of the paparazzi photographer at this time is causing further concerns for her family: “Britney is on the edge. It’s worrying - and ironic - that the only person she feels she can turn to is a paparazzo. It’s like the lamb going to stay with the wolfpack. Britney knows Adnan because he has followed her relentlessly for months.”

“Her family are astonished a photographer is the person Britney turns to when she needs to step out of the media storm. She seems to think he’s her only friend in the world. They fear she has lost her grip on reality so much that she feels her only friends are the paparazzi.”

Britney’s best friend Sam Lufti - who is himself said to be a concern to the family - added that he’s “worried about Adnan’s influence over Britney” at the moment and he “firmly believes Adnan has ulterior financial motives” for pursuing the friendship. Other sources claim that with Britney’s permission, Adnan has taken a series of candid shots of the star as she goes about her daily life which he hopes to sell to a magazine for a seven figure sum.

Meanwhile while Britney was released from hospital, Kevin Federline is said to have placed himself under his own version of a “lockdown” and is keeping the couple’s sons constantly at his side at his Tarzana, California home.

A Team Federline source told People magazine: “He’s freaked about people seeing his kids. It’s just not happening right now. His tight circle is even tighter right now. He doesn’t even have his phone on.”

He’s also “sad” and “freaked” about Britney’s breakdown. The source explained that after Thursday’s showdown, Kevin was glad Britney was hospitalised because he thought she would get some much needed help: “But now she’s out of there. He was shocked [she was released], but then again he wasn’t. Because it’s all about who she is. No one tells her anything.”

A hospital source added fuel to rumours that Britney is suffering from an as-yet undiagnosed psychological condition, possibly bipolar disorder, by revealing that despite earlier suggestions she had been “under the influence of an unknown substance” during Thursday’s incident, all her drug tests came back negative.

The source told People: “She tested clean. This lady is as clean as clean can be, and has been for some time.”