Britney SpearsBritney Spears has fled Los Angeles and flown to Mexico with her paparazzo boyfling Adnan Ghalib after her family reportedly started to make moves to have her committed into a mental hospital.

According to TMZ, Britney’s parents, particularly her dad Jamie Spears, have been convinced for a number of months that Britney’s problems are a mental disorder rather than related to substance abuses and have been trying to encourage her to get treatment - or at least undergo tests to allow doctors to make a diagnosis.

However, after feeling she was “pushed” into rehab last year, Britney has since refused to get help - although her family are said to believe that until now her close friend Sam Lufti has been the main reason for her refusal. According to reports, Jamie had Sam thrown out of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Friday to try to remove his influence from his daughter’s life but even then when he spoke to Britney about going into a mental facility, “she freaked out and said, ‘Now you want me to go to rehab again? I don’t need to be locked away!’”

TMZ’s source explained the family are working with mental health professionals are working through a “number of options”, some of which are “creative”, to get Britney into treatement and if she continues to refuse, they are considering approaching the County Public Guardian to have her involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.

A second source added: “Getting her committed with be stressful for everyone involved and could cause further frictions within the family. They don’t want to have her committed if there are other options still to pursue and at the moment there are.”

Britney’s aunt Chanda McGovern, speaking to Us Weekly, added that the star’s extended family and old friends in Kentwood, Louisiana are all “truly, truly concerned. I don’t think things can get any worse now than us losing her completely.”

Britney flew south in a private jet from an airport in Van Nuys, California yesterday afternoon with Adnan and another male passenger onboard the plane: she was originally said to have been heading to New York but reports that she arrived in New Jersey last night now appear to have been a ploy to distract her attention for her actual destination.