Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean desperately wants his friend Britney Spears to get in touch with him so he can talk to her frankly about her troubles.

McLean believes Spears, who was committed to hospital for a psychological evaluation earlier this month after refusing to hand over her children during a stand-off with police, needs to openly discuss her problems with a close friend.

He says, "I believe in her 110 percent, but she needs to call me. If her publicist or somebody can get in touch with me, I just want to sit down with her and have it out. First I would say, 'What the hell is wrong with you?' Second I would say, 'What is really wrong with you? What are you not saying to everybody else?'

"She has given people hints of her troubles, but fear is a really big thing, and depression. I've been through it. I'm coming up on six years sober. I just want to sit her down and pick her brain. (I want to be) just someone who can tell her straight. I'll say, 'Hey, do you want to die? Is that what you want?'

"If that is what she really wanted, she would have done it already. I know that is not what she wants."

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)