Don't poke fun at 'vunerable' Britney

The host of a US television programme has told viewers how he has resisted the chance to make fun of Britney Spears’ shaven head, because he doesn’t like jokes about “the vulnerable”.

Britney made headlines over the weekend when she shaved her hair off at a Los Angeles salon and then went to a tattoo parlour, where she had a pair of lips put on her wrist.

She shaved her head on Friday, the same day as reports on TV and websites that she had briefly checked into a rehabilitation centre.

“For me, comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it,” Craig Ferguson of CBS’s popular programme, The Late Late Show, said.

“It should be about attacking the powerful – the politicians, the Trumps, the blowhards – going after them. We shouldn’t be attacking the vulnerable.”

He recalled his battle with alcoholism and said he worries Ms Spears may be having troubles of her own.

“Now I’m not saying Britney is alcoholic, I don’t know what she is – alcoholic or not – but she clearly needs help,” he said.