Britney Busts Loose!

“I can’t believe Christina said that about me,” Britney Spears mutters.

In the December issue of Blender, Christina Aguilera took time out to talk about Spears. It began with Aguilera complaining about how Spears had received all the attention from The Kiss — both former Mickey Mouse Clubbers had locked lips with Madonna during the MTV Video Music Awards, yet the column inches were all about Spears. Aguilera was especially put out that MTV’s cameras cut from her smooch to Justin Timberlake’s annoyed reaction.

“I didn’t even notice that,” Spears says when Aguilera’s comments are read back to her. She puts on her Shirley Temple face and says coyly, “I’m sorry.”

But then Blender reads Aguilera’s next comment: When she encountered Spears recently, she said, she seemed “like a lost little girl who needs guidance.”

Spears is shocked by the quotation; her eyes widen. “That’s funny,” she fumes, “because I haven’t seen her in two years, and then she comes up to me in a club in front of all these people and tries to put her tongue down my throat! I’m like, ‘How are you?’…”

Spears, clearly furious at Aguilera’s put-down, continues: “I say, ‘It’s good to see you,’ and she goes, ‘Well, you’re not being real with me.’ I was like, ‘Well, Christina. What’s your definition of being real? Going up to girls and kissing them after you haven’t seen them for two years?’ A lost girl? I think it’s probably the other way around.”

You can see that half of Spears knows she shouldn’t be saying this, but Aguilera’s offhand comments have clearly hurt. She stops and apologizes, then, unable to resist, kicks off one last time: “When somebody’s been rude to you so many times, it’s like, ‘You know what, Christina? I’m really not about the fake bullshit anymore. You’re scary and I feel really dark when I get around you, so I need to be over here now.’ ”


The outburst is, in a way, a relief.

Because Britney Spears has finally said something she really means.

Up to this point in our interview, Spears has maintained an icy self-control. Lipsticked and expressionless, she walked into the room chewing gum, sat down, put her boots up on the table and gazed into the distance. Brusque, you could call it. The sort of entrance that makes you think, This is going to be tough.

So it was. Up until the Christina outburst, Spears had answered questions politely, though sometimes huffily. A few times she didn’t even reply, or said, “Your point is?” Or, bluntly, “That’s a personal question.” Followed by silence.

You ask how many cigarettes she smokes a day. She says curtly, “Nine million.”

Nine million, huh? You must have lungs of steel.

“Yep.” Then, “I don’t fuckin’ know. I’m sorry if I seem a little bit bitter,” she says in her least apologetic voice, “but I’ve done a million interviews, and it’s the exact same question every time.” She draws a breath. “Are we done yet?”

We’ve barely been with her 20 minutes at this point.


But then, you can understand the pressure Spears feels.

She has been a professional entertainer for exactly half her life. In four years, she has sold more than 50 million records worldwide. She is the first solo female singer to have her first three albums debut at number 1. More importantly, she has been simultaneously idolized and vilified for the extraordinary sexual power she possesses over both kids and grownups. Not since Elvis Presley has one performer, using not much more than hips, beats and a crafty wardrobe, made so many Americans so uncomfortable. Everything from her breasts to her virginity has been subjected to the minutest scrutiny. And she’s still only 21.

Her survival mechanism has been to build a hard exoskeleton. She admits she has a trick of retreating into herself. She has, she says, “a really good way of escaping in my head. I’ve always done that. Otherwise I’d go freakin’ crazy.”

But we’re also now in the era when the million-selling teens of the 1990s are coming of age. They’ve grown up, and they’re anxious to let us know how they’ve changed. Spears’s old beau Justin Timberlake did it spectacularly with his widely praised album Justified. And nobody has done away with her lost-little-girl image more deliberately — or successfully — than her old nemesis Christina Aguilera.

Spears started her own process of growing up in public with her third album, 2001’s Britney, which promised a raunchier, more adult Britney with tracks like “I’m a Slave 4 U.” It went straight to number 1, but it was her poorest-selling CD. As a post–teen popper, she still has a lot to prove.

Her new album, In the Zone, comes at a critical point in her career. She worked on it longer than any of her previous records. After she completed touring for Britney, she was pooped. Her long-term relationship with Timberlake was over. She announced she was taking a “hiatus.”

“Well, actually, I just said that I wanted two or three weeks off,” she points out. “And the whole world was like, ‘Ohmigod, she’s gone. . . . ’”

For just two or three weeks, she indulged herself: massages, eating strawberries and chocolate and watching Steel Magnolias and America’s Sweethearts with her girlfriends. Then she set about creating In the Zone.By early 2003, Spears was testing out new songs by taking them to clubs such as Show, in New York — the venue name-checked on her new Moby-produced track “Early Mornin’.” She became a nightclub regular last year. Though tabloids ran tales of her drunken exploits, she insists these were exaggerated. “I’ll just have two or three drinks now and then. I’m not really too much of a drinker,” she says cautiously. “Usually when I’m in a club, I’m kind of working, believe it or not. I usually write a song, go there and play it over the loudspeakers.”

But In the Zone is different from what came before — for the first time, she cowrote most of the tracks: eight of 13. “I was already writing songs when I was overseas touring,” she says. “The only thing that was scary to me is that I didn’t know if they were good.”

Do you trust people who tell you they’re good?

“No. You can’t trust anybody,” she says. “You have to go with your feelings.”

The songs on In the Zone are sexy, occasionally downright lascivious. On “Showdown,” she whispers, “I don’t really want to be a tease/But would you undo my zipper, please?” Such tracks as “Early Mornin’ ” depict her trawling the dance floor to pick up men (a scenario that she insists is purely imaginary).

Despite the raunchiness, she’s clearly more comfortable singing about sex than talking about it.

“I never really talk to anyone about my sexual life,” she says flatly.

If In the Zone has a theme, it’s Spears’s awakening to her sexuality as a single woman.

“Yeah,” she agrees, “but I think it’s tastefully done. I don’t believe in projecting yourself in a dirty way. But I like doing it because I haven’t had that for a while. I was kind of obsessed for a while. People who talk about it all the time, when they don’t have it. . . . ”

Don’t have what?

“Sexuality in their lives.”

In other words, the picture she keeps by her bedside is not of some hunk, but of Mikey, her dog. “Ohmigod! Mikey. He’s so cute!” she trills.

Single-womanhood has never been as graphically explored as it is on “Touch of My Hand.” “Another day without a lover,” she purrs, “the more I come to understand the touch of my hand.” It’s about Britney being on her own and, uh, touching herself.

Where did that come from?

“Mmm. Well, I don’t know. It’s a clever idea, because there hasn’t been a song about masturbation.” (Editor’s note: Technically speaking, there have been lots — see the last page of this feature.)

And masturbation is something everybody does?

“Yes,” she says, yawning as if suddenly bored of the topic.

Do you get worried about the reaction a song like that will receive?

“Like what?” she snaps. “Bringing people together to talk about masturbation? That’s why I did it.”

It is?

“Well if they don’t like it, don’t listen to it.” She erupts in a burst of edgy laughter.


On Saturday, Speats is at NBC studios in New York to appear as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live.

Spears gamely goes through a skit based on The Kiss, with SNL poobah Lorne Michaels lecherously trying to persuade her and Halle Berry to touch lips.

“I already did that Madonna kiss at the VMAs,” Spears’s scripted reply goes. “I feel like it’s already been done.”

Off-air, Spears affects shock at the reaction to The Kiss.

“It’s freakin’ huge. Like, shit. So many girls kiss each other. What’s the big deal? I don’t get it. I’m honestly so busy doing my thing, I don’t pay much attention to the magnitude of things until someone says, ‘That was a big deal.’ ”

Missy Elliott said, “We all knew Madonna would do something like that — but Britney? It was like seeing a nun kissing a rapper.”

“She thinks I’m a nun?” Spears giggles. “It’s so weird how our universe works. One part of the world thinks that I’m, like, so sweet. And another part of the world thinks I’m this sexy vixen. I don’t understand it.”

Yet that contrast clearly helps make the Britney Spears brand so powerful. It has been there from the beginning, when she herself chose the schoolgirl outfit for her “ . . . Baby One More Time” video. She appears genuinely bewildered when mothers attack her for encouraging their children to look sexy. Recently, at a conference on domestic violence, the first lady of Maryland, Kendel Ehrlich, said, “Really, if I had an opportunity to shoot Britney Spears, I think I would.” (She later apologized for the comment.)

What would you say to someone who says something like that?

“I would say to chill out. I’m not responsible for their kids. The only person I worry about is my little sister, and that’s it. I’m not here to please another family, just mine.” She pauses. “I don’t know. I think it’s a good thing for kids to be able to express themselves.”

Did you find it odd when you were interviewed about The Kiss on CNN by a bow-tied Tucker Carlson?

Spears looks completely blank. She does this a lot. “Oh,” she suddenly remembers. “The fuddy-duddy guy? He was so sophisticated. It was like, ‘Go take a Valium.’ Bless his heart. He was really into the interview a bit too much.”


On the small SNL stage, Spears and her dancers rip through In the Zone’s first single, the Madonna collaboration “Me Against the Music.”

Dancing and singing, Spears is in her element. She drips song-and-dance confidence. Within a few seconds, her shiny hat falls off, sending her blond hair everywhere, but Spears doesn’t miss a step. When it comes to Madonna’s verse, she can’t help mouthing along to the words. She’s clearly elated to have had Madonna guest on her new album.

Spears has been a Madonna fan for years. The first time they met, Spears said awkwardly, “I think I should hug you.” “I was kind of pitiful,” she says, smiling at the memory. “I didn’t know what to say. I can’t believe she’s on the record.”

It’s not just that she’s on the record; Madonna wrote the verse unbidden. “I just asked her to do a little thing,” Spears says, “but she really went there. She did a lot of stuff to it.”

Spears was in a hotel room in Boston when the tape arrived. When she heard the verse Madonna had added to the song, she was, she says, “beyond surprised.” She cried.

“Hey Britney/You say you wanna lose control/Come over here; I got something to show ya. . . . ”

The lyrics could be Madonna generously passing the baton to the new talent. But they also sound like a taunt from the old guard to the uptight youngster. It’s time to lose control.

“If you think you’re so hot/Better show me what you got. . . . ”


Backstage, Spears doesn’t hang out with the stars. She stays within her own comfort zone. She prefers to hang out with her girlfriends. They have, she says, recently discovered hookahs. Spears’s favorite smoke is strawberry-flavored tobacco. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as hookah until two weeks ago,” she says.

She stops abruptly and asks, “Hookah’s not like weed, is it?”

No.

She looks relieved.

Spears has drifted from her Baptist upbringing toward New Agey, self-help therapeutics. She reads books like Peter Maurer’s My Way: A Layman’s Guide to Atoms, Physics, and the Human Experience (not much physics, but a lot of Buddhism) and books on relaxation and self-realization like Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. On her wrist she wears the same Kabbalah-inspired red thread that Madonna wears. “It’s supposed to ward off evil and people judging you and constantly giving you the evil eye,” Spears says. “Once it’s had as much as it can take, it falls off.”

She fingers it. “It’s supposed to fall off every six months. Mine falls off every other day,” she deadpans.

The second song Spears performs on SNL is “Everytime.”

It’s not her greatest ballad, but the lyrics, about a breakup, are certainly heartfelt. She sings, “I make believe that you are here/It’s the only way I see clear/What have I done? You seem to move on easy.” It’s a song to a lost lover she wants back. “I have made it rain/ Please forgive me/My weakness caused you pain/And this song is my sorry. . . . ”

Spears and Justin Timberlake were rumored to have split because she allegedly cheated on him with choreographer Wade Robson. Timberlake sang about the breakup on “Never Again” and “Cry Me a River,” which blamed Spears for what happened. “You don’t have to say what you did,” he sang. “I already know — I found out from him.”

Are you an autobiographical songwriter?

“I write about myself and my experiences, but not to the point where it’s so personal I feel self-exploited.”

But “Everytime” appears to be about your ex.

“Umm,” she says, then pauses.

Is it?

She answers flatly: “That’s a personal question.”

So you’re not saying that it’s not about Justin — you just don’t want to answer because it’s personal?

Tight-lipped agreement: “Mmm.”

There follows the sort of uncomfortable pause you hope Spears will fill. But of course she doesn’t.


Four days after SNL, we’re cloistered in a small conference room in Trump Towers in Manhattan. Our interview is not going especially well.

Do you know how much money you have?

“I don’t know,” she says, exasperated. “I know how much money I have in my trust fund, but that’s a personal question.”

We’re not asking you for figures. Just, are you the sort of person who keeps an eye on her money? Do you know how much a quart of milk is?

“I don’t know — $4.50?”

During your so-called hiatus, when Christina and Justin released their albums and both of them did well, didn’t a part of you sit there and think, “Damn, I’ve got nothing out”?

“I had my moment. I had my time. I think it’s inspiring when Shakira or Avril Lavigne does something. Gwen Stefani. Madonna. We’re all true artists. We’re just here as vessels trying to bring some light to the world. That’s all it boils down to.”

So you never suffer from bouts of paranoia?

“What are you talking about?” she says, suddenly testy. “I just don’t understand where you’re coming from.”

Did you hear about how U.S. soldiers found a picture of you on the wall inside one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Iraq?

“They did? That’s scary.” She picks up a bottle of water. “So what?” she suddenly asks, suspicious that Blender is trying to pin something bad on her.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, you were mentioned as one of the reasons people were hostile to America. You were alleged to represent the immorality and hegemony of American culture.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Did you ever hear that?

“This interview,” she says, “is way too deep.”

Pause.

Given that you’re just beginning to promote your new CD, you’ve got months of interviews ahead of you. It’s going to be trying, isn’t it?

“Yes, it is.”

How on earth are you going to cope?

Suddenly for a second, the ice melts. She relaxes with a sudden burst of laughter. “Oh, I don’t know. Gosh,” she says. “I work out at night and I box, and that relieves a lot of stress. I love to box.”

And presumably you imagine that you’re striking a journalist every time you hit a punching bag?

“No!” She laughs again. “I’m sorry. I’m being kind of rude right now,” she says. “And I feel bad about saying the stuff about Christina. . . . But there’s been some shady stuff there.”

Later, we travel down to New York’s Gotham Hall, where Spears is rehearsing for a prime-time concert special for ABC. When she arrives, she’s herded straight in front of the cameras for an E! interview that has been shoehorned into her airless promotion schedule.

Earlier, Spears had insisted that this time around, she doesn’t really want or expect the sort of megastardom that she once enjoyed. Does anyone believe a pop star when she says that? Maybe Spears really means it, though.

“You know,” she says, “I’m not at the point now where I want to sell 50 million records. I’ve been there. Done that. I just want people to enjoy the music.” She pauses for a beat. “Although it would be nice to go to number 1.”