LOS ANGELES: Pop starlet and troubled tabloid favourite Britney Spears, and her one-year-old son, were taken from her home by paramedics Friday, US media reported, after police had been called to resolve a custody dispute.

Celebrity watcher website TMZ.com said Spears had been taken to a hospital for a “medical hold”, which it described as a mental evaluation, and drug testing.

Police “found her earlier this evening at her home under the influence of an ‘unknown substance’,” after being called when she returned her two young sons to their father, TMZ reported.

After a three-hour stand-off, Spears handed over the children, aged two and one, and was wheeled into an ambulance. Television footage showed Spears being carried on a gurney.—AFP