Following her pathetic attempted comeback performance on MTV’s Video Music Awards, Britney Spears’s overall state of mind has again been called to question.

After what critics described as a “dazed performance,” rumors swirled that Spears had taken ecstasy before hitting the stage. Not helping her case, one of her former bodyguards recently testified in Spears’s custody battle that he witnessed Spears taking drugs and acting recklessly in the house with her two children present.

Stories like this spark questions like what happened to the teen idol songstress who captured the hearts of Americans with catchy pop singles.

At the pinnacle of her career, the only controversy Spears faced was the debate over the suggestive nature of skin-colored costumes and whether or not dancing on stage with a python wrapped around her neck could be construed as a sexual innuendo.

Today, these trivial matters are replaced with serious issues concerning short-lived, failed marriages, substance abuse and a general lack of good judgment.

How people choose to live their lives is their business, but in the case of public figures like Spears, who serve as role models to millions of adoring, impressionable fans, there are certain responsibilities that need to be kept in mind.

When someone is a performer whose act is geared towards teens, he or she had better not be arrested for possession of cocaine. What is a 13-year-old girl who fell in love with Lindsay Lohan after the remake of The Parent Trap, supposed to think when she sees her idol in a mug shot, eyes glazed over, looking like she just crawled out of the sewer?

Regardless of whether they want to be or not, celebrities are role models and need to acting like it.

No one expected Spears and Lohan to retain their youthful innocence forever. Certainly they would try to escape their child-star images by spicing up their night lives, but three DUIs in one year and multiple trips in and out of rehab are downright ridiculous. Not even real rock stars party that hard.