The new issue of Blender features a Britney Spears cover photo that we can immediately tell is fake. Just to be sure, however, Blender confirmed the picture was a composite: “That, sadly, is not [Britney's] body.” Well, we didn’t see any Cheetos residue on her fingers, so that was a dead giveaway.

Inside, the mag launches into a detailed account as to how America’s sweetheart turned into a tabloid disaster. We’ve heard most of this before, but the most disturbing portion of the article focuses on Sam Lutfi, Britney’s trusted “confidante” and only friend.

Danny Haines, who now has a restraining order against Lutfi, talked to Blender about his former relationship with Britney’s right-hand man. Throughout their friendship, which began on MySpace (like all solid, stable relationships do), Lutfi exhibited the rumored behavior that makes everyone else so nervous about his role in Britney’s life.

Haines remembers the night when Lutfi offered to straighten out his life: “He said, ‘I can help you. I can help your parents. But you need to be honest with me. If you’re lying to me about anything, I’ll know.’’

To Haines’s fractured ego, Lutfi’s social skills and emotional intelligence were magnetic. He encouraged Haines to “stand up for myself” and at the same time worked to become indispensable to him. Lutfi ingratiated himself with Haines’s family, acting as a go-between and informal counselor.

Haines says their relationship was not romantic or sexual but that Lutfi was more jealous than a lover. He could be supportive one day and vicious the next, leaving voicemails tracing extremes from “You’re a worthless motherfucker” to “I love you, man. I love you to death.” He says that although Lutfi also made some feckless gestures toward an old-fashioned con job—Haines claims Lutfi borrowed about $18,000 that he did not pay back, though Lutfi’s mother finally settled much of the debt—Lutfi reserved most of his energy for emotional blackmail and extortion. “Everybody hates you,” he wrote to Haines, suggesting that Haines should just kill himself: “Seriously, sleeping pills, LOTS of them … ” (Lutfi declined to comment for this story.)

When Haines finally cut the cord, Lutfi humiliated him. He ­e-mailed naked photographs of Haines to his family, friends, colleagues and employer. Then he texted and called incessantly, telling Haines he hoped his sister would be “raped to death,” according to the restraining order. In an e-mail about Haines’s mother (“that Mormon bitch”), Lufti wrote, “I hope Satan devours her flesh and bones,” and said he looked forward to the day when he would “piss on [her] burial.”