BY SUE ONTIVEROS

Where are the people Britney Spears trusts the most right now?

I thought of that this weekend while at a quincenera, the coming-of-age ceremony Latinas celebrate at age 15. During the mass, the priest talked to us all and our young friend Cleo about the importance of having and knowing who the people are one can really trust. Cleo is lucky; she has good people in her life. What about Britney?

I don't mean the hangers-on and those who use Britney as their meal ticket. I mean the people who really love her and who she can trust. Where the heck are they?

The young celebrity has family and comes from a small town where everyone seems to know everyone. Surely she has people who have her best interest at heart.

If those people exist, now's the time for them to put their arms around Britney and tell her honey, for your own good, you've got to clean up your act.

Britney is on the verge of becoming nothing more than a big joke. In the last year she's posed bottomless for the cover of Esquire and locked lips with Madonna at the MTV Music Video Music Awards. More troubling are the numerous reports that she's been greatly overserved. Then there is her latest dubious achievement, a 55-hour marriage.

While her antics make great fodder as celebrity gossip, they spell nothing but trouble for the entertainer. You'd think the people who really matter in her life would step in now and help Britney get her life back on track.

They need to sit her down and explain the difference between fame and notoriety. The latter may put her name in the headlines, but eventually it'll leave her nothing but opportunities to be the public's freak show. At one time she wanted to be a singer and actress. There are critics who say she's lacking in both areas. Someone who loves her needs to tell her to forget the shenanigans and improve her craft instead.

Will Smith tells a story about a talk his father had with him after he squandered the fortune he'd made as a rapper and while on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Among the things he'd wasted money on was a fleet of cars. Dad told Will something along the lines of: Son, you can only put your butt in one car at a time. He then helped him figure out his financial mess. That's the sort of no-nonsense intervention Britney needs right now.

I don't doubt it's easy to lose your way when the money's flowing and your picture is plastered all over. An annulment may be a quick fix for one mistake, but someone in Britney's circle of trust should step in before she makes another one that's not so easily reversible.