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I'd like to argue in favour of Tom Cruise being worse. Everything we know about Britney Spears suggests that she has a problem with substance abuse. That alone can turn someone who was apparently functional at one time into a complete mess. For many people with substance abuse problems, there comes a point at which their behaviour costs them so muchthat they're forced to re-evalute themselves and are amenable to efforts to change their behaviour--so-called "hitting bottom." In short, there is a possibility that Britney Spears might get better and then only be subject to the same sort of pathology that you'll find in any celebrity.

In contrast, Cruise has an enormous emotional and financial investment in a cult that is perhaps the most pernicious "new religion" out there. Although I'm speculating here, I suspect that this cult is "comfortable" to him because it matches a rigid, controlling personality. For him to give up Scientology, even with all the damage that it is causing him, would require him to make a huge admission that he was wrong and it would leave him with very few, if any, healthy psychological defenses.

Tom Cruise, with 20 years plus in Scientology, would have to rebuild himself from the ground up. If he were to do so now, he'd effectively be a 40 year-old man with the emotional development of a 20-year-old. Britney Spears is a 20-year-old and has spent less time in her particular pathology and therefore has a better chance of changing. All celebrities tend to be surrounded by enablers and "yes-men," but in Cruise's case, his enabler is a so-called religion that has staked an enormous amount, financially and psychically, in keeping him the way he is. I predict this: if Cruise ever suffers a blow to his world that causes him to radically re-evaluate his life and his style of interacting with others, he's going to blow big-time.

For what it's worth, I also believe that what Britney Spears is going through is more "normal" than is the case for Cruise. It isn't unusual for someone in their 20s to have problems with identity, as she appears to have (to me at least). If you lose an important relationship (her marriage, however unhealthy it was), have problems with your career (as she's been having), and have other problems that injure your view of yourself, a bit of craziness is, in itself, quite "normal." I don't believe that Britney Spears is happy with her situation, and that is a positive sign, as it's a motivator for change. Cruise has laboriously built up an identity that is bizarre and out of the range of normal experience for most people (i.e., he's a "ronbot"). He appears to be very comfortable with himself as he is. He's very unlikely to be motivated to change unless something drastic happens.