LOS ANGELES [AP - Yahoo! News] - From one child star to another: Tatum O'Neal says Britney Spears needs to be in recovery and get her disease of addiction together so she can address being a mother.
 
The 43-year-old actress shared her thoughts on the troubled pop star with "Entertainment Tonight" in an interview that aired Wednesday night.

"I relate to her and feel really sad for her," O'Neal said, adding that she had similar experiences as a young mother.

"I did everything ... that she doesn't want to do. I did the drug testing. ... It was very humbling. ... I wanted those kids in my life."

This week a judge ordered Spears, 25, to temporarily surrender custody of her sons, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, to ex-husband Kevin Federline.

She was also ordered to undergo random drug and alcohol testing and take parenting classes as part of her ongoing custody dispute with Federline.

Spears needs treatment and she needs to shield her children from media attention, O'Neal said.

O'Neal won an Oscar at age 10 after co-starring with her father, Ryan O'Neal, in "Paper Moon" in 1973.

[Photo from approximately that age.]

She has three children from her marriage to John McEnroe.

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Related:

Tatum O'Neal, an Oscar winner at age 10, says in her autobiography (“A Paper Life”) that growing up she had to deal with her mentally unstable mother and volatile and unpredictable father, in an environment of drugs, neglect, and physical and mental abuse. By age 20, she was addicted to cocaine.

From article Actors and Addiction, by Douglas Eby
http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/1300/1/Actors-and-Addiction/Page1.html