Britney Spears’ former lover has been killed in a Taliban missile attack as he flew a helicopter in Kabul, Afghanistan. Helicopter pilot John Sundahl, 44, who helped the pop star battle her drinking and drugs problems, had been working for several months as a private contractor, transporting officials across the conflicted country, reported Al-Arabiya News.
He dated the 33-year-old pop singer in 2007 after they met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Los Angeles. Britney has credited him with helping her beat her drinking problems. At one stage the pair were also rumoured to be engaged, though the singer’s representative denied it at the time.
A source close to Britney Spears stated: “She is devastated. Britney thought he was a lovely man,” reported The Mirror. Spears, who has two sons Jayden James, eight, and Sean Preston, nine, with ex-husband Kevin Federline, has yet to issue an official comment.
John helped singer Britney through her darkest time as she had a public meltdown and was pictured shaving her head.
The pair remained friends after their romance of three months came to a halt but it was reported that they had rekindled their relationship. Despite moving to Afghanistan last year, where John flew dignitaries in and out of the conflict zone, Sundahl was said to have started seeing Spears again in the summer of 2014.
Sundahl once publicised that he had warned Spears that she would die if she did not overcome her drinking problem. He revealed in an interview: “I told her, ‘If you fall off the wagon, I don’t think you’ll live. I told her, ‘If you don’t want to get sober for yourself, do it for your kids’.
The pilot later had reportedly said, “Britney truly wants to stop what she’s doing, and she has changed her life in another direction. She doesn’t get drunk every night and pass out.”
“It’s heartbreaking — John went there to try to repair the country,” says the pilot’s brother Karl. “He was trying to help people; he would often say that the country was in chaos.” He added: “This is just awful. My family is heartbroken; my parents are elderly so this is very tough for them, and all of us. We know Britney’s upset too.”
Speaking from his home in Los Angeles, his brother Karl described how John died. He said: “John was on a journey from Kabul when he was shot at and killed. “We were told by the State that John had died, they told us the Taliban did it.”
John’s body was repatriated to the US last week and a small family funeral was held at a Buddhist temple in LA. Karl said: “We had a really small funeral, it was what John would have wanted. “There were only 11 of us there, he was a Buddhist so we had it at a temple in Chinatown, Los Angeles, and he has been buried at a private location.” Britney, who is half-way through a two-year stint with her Piece of Me show at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, is now dating TV writer and producer Charlie Ebersol. She split from David Lucado when she discovered he had allegedly cheated on her, which he has denied.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 21st, 2015.
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