LOS ANGELES?- Pop starlet and troubled tabloid favorite Britney Spears was taken from her home by paramedics Friday, celebrity website TMZ reported, after police had been called to resolve a custody dispute.

TMZ said Spears had been taken to a hospital for a "medical hold," which it described as a mental evaluation.

Police "found her earlier this evening at her home under the influence of an 'unknown substance'," the celebrity news site reported. They had been called after she refused to return her two young sons to their father.

Spears's on-going custody battle with her former husband, Kevin Federline, has been the source of lurid headlines, spiking after a judge limited her access to her children in October.