Entertainment reporter Jeff Sneider said he and a friend had just sat down at Blue Dog Tavern in Sherman Oaks at around 7 p.m. PT on Wednesday night when a woman in sunglasses walked in with two friends and, only after she took them off, did he realize it was Britney Spears. By then, Sneider said, the mood in the restaurant had already shifted. He alleged that Spears made barking or woofing noises, kept getting up and sitting back down, and moved around the dining room during the meal.
Sneider said he was not personally threatened by Spears, but he said one woman in their section felt otherwise and told him Spears had a knife and came toward her. He also said Spears may have forgotten to put down her silverware while standing up, and that he saw no sign she drank any alcohol. According to Sneider, Spears lit a cigarette inside the restaurant and staff told one of the people with her to put it out. He said Spears picked at a burger and fries, and at one point she and a bodyguard fed each other some of the fries.
The account came on Thursday in an exclusive interview that Sneider gave after what he described as a chaotic dinner the night before. He said Spears left food on the table and underneath it, adding that the restaurant looked messy after she left. He also said the two people with her repeatedly tried to coax her back into her seat during dinner and, at one point, he thought to himself, “Holy s—t that was crazy!”
The story has drawn attention because it lands only after Spears recently finished rehab treatment, a detail Sneider raised as part of his description of the night. Sneider identified himself as an entertainment reporter with 20 years on the beat, and he said the encounter was unsettling enough to make it hard for him and his friend to continue their conversation. Still, he said plainly, “I wasn’t threatened or anything like that,” even as he described a restaurant scene that, in his telling, seemed to unravel in public view.
Spears’ representative rejected that version of events Thursday, saying the claims were “completely blown out of proportion.” The representative said Spears was simply enjoying a quiet dinner with her assistant and bodyguard and was talking about how her dog had been barking at the neighbors. That leaves the sharpest question not about whether the dinner was unusual, but about how much of what was seen in the room matched what was later described outside it.
