It’s only four years since a 16-year-old girl released a risqué single that
went straight to No 1, a single that mobilised an entire generation of
tweenies to lay down their pink lunch boxes and start dressing like
slappers. Oh, yes: you might not remember the skinny girl from the Mickey
Mouse Club, but 50m record sales later, you’ve certainly heard of America’s
favourite va-va-voom blonde, the totally grown-up Ms Britney Spears.
“Hit me, baby,” purred the self-proclaimed teenage virgin in the first of
several phenomenally saucy videos. Audiences hadn’t enjoyed being teased so
much since Desperately Seeking Susan, when Madonna invited some bloke in a
suit to get into the groove by showing him her armpits. Beside Britney,
other teen stars didn’t stand a chance. To keep up, Christina Aguilera has
had so many piercings that the wind howls through her, and wears hipsters so
low, she lives in constant fear of dropping her car keys. But Christina just
looks mucky compared to Britney, the sex bomb who flosses.
We meet in Los Angeles, where Britney is in between shooting her new video
with Madonna and arduous dance rehearsals. She’s friendly, upbeat and says
“gosh” for every “hell”. Although, at one point, she describes herself as
“trying to be in a state of just being”, she’s refreshingly natural for
la-la land, and didn’t get up at 7am that day for organic oat bran.
“But this is the first day in ages I’ve slept late, and I ate cheese grits,”
she says, in a voice as girlie as you’d hope. “I’ll work today, even though
my body’s completely worn out.”
It’s that go-to-it attitude, as much as star quality, that has kept her at the
top. Britney says she’s done “maybe a katrillion” interviews in her short
life. I wonder if she ever gets bored and sends a double along instead, as
Michael Jackson does. Spookily, I saw her double once at a Hollywood party.
“I saw that too,” she marvels. “It was a girl who’d won a TV show, and her
prize was to be me for the evening. She really looked like me, it was kind
of weird. Really bizarre.” I figured it wasn’t her. The double had a big
bum.
Luckily for Britney, she has, despite the frenzied speculation about her
imminent crackup, a sensible mind-set, and it’s this that equips her for the
surreal life of a fantasy girl. There are more than 1,000 Britney websites,
all full of kids who seem to believe they have an inside connection with
this young woman, and the papers churn out pictures and stories daily.
“Oh my gosh, there’s been so many stories, I try not to read them,” she says,
unfazed. “But I do remember something about me being an alien.” What about
the rumour that she did a striptease for Ben Affleck? “Hell, no!” she
screams. “Oh, that’s horrible.” Or that she climbed through the window of
Prince William’s dormitory? “No, but I would love to,” she says seriously.
I’d read that he sends her dirty e-mails every day. “No. But I would love to
get an e-mail from Prince William.”
Apart from William, it’s Madonna that Britney has most recently been linked
with. At this year’s MTV awards, Madonna planted a smacker on her during a
tribute number. And in a sort of pop blessing, Madonna has decided to appear
on Britney’s new single and video, Me Against the Music.
“The concept is me going into a club and Madonna being there, but I never get
to actually see her. It’s like she’s a spirit watching over me,” she says,
sounding surprisingly like a star-struck apprentice. “At the very end of the
video, we come together in a weird way. It’s something so crazy, I can’t
tell you.” Does this mean Madonna has now handed her pop life-force to
Britney? “I hope so.”
If Madonna really is going to retire to Surrey with a tweed skirt and a dead
pheasant over her shoulder, Britney certainly deserves Ciccone’s crown. Aged
eight, Britney had an agent and enough star quality to make the Spice Girls
look like New Faces at the Skegness Ritzy. The Debbie Gibsons and Tiffanys
of the pop world burn out. But Britney understands that, like her idol,
Madonna, it’s all about keeping them guessing. She didn’t waste any time
ripping off the school uniform to reveal a red PVC respray and a stage
number involving a python and a tiger. Not so much innuendo as Kamasutra
appendix.
“I look back now and what was I thinking, having a freakin’ tiger in a cage?”
she says. “But at the time, I was just filled with adrenaline. It could all
have gone Siegfried and Roy.
“I’ve been doing this for so long,” she continues, “I get on a roll. The first
couple of shows I’m nervous, but it’s called acting.” Her pre-stage ritual
is true Britney get-to-it: “I say a prayer — do sit-ups. Sit-ups are the
prayer.”
Unlike Madonna, Britney actually had a virgin phase, whereas Madonna vaguely
remembered feeling like one. Britney really did love her fellow Mouseketeer
turned boyband singer, Justin Timberlake, and hoped they’d get married.
Nobody knows why they split, but Justin’s cheap-shot song Cry Me a River
wasn’t exactly sporting. Would she release a record about a mystery
ex-boyfriend called You Sing Like a Girl? A brief pause. “No,” she giggles.
Since she announced she was taking a year off, the press have labelled her
Crazy Party Britney, and photographs of her clutching cigarettes, drinks and
men have littered the papers. But it’s not just the papers that got
obsessed. After she went to a gig with Fred Durst, rock singer with the
appropriately named Limp Bizkit, he boasted of conquering Spears. Britney
calmly said that they only went out for a drink. Fred then got online and
rambled desperately about their sex life on his website, like a delusional
stalker. Britney is unimpressed and doesn’t want to talk about it. “It’s a
little bizarre,” she admits. “I made the mistake of announcing I was taking
a year out. I should have just gone to India for four months and said
‘peace’. But you live and learn.”
The list of men she has been linked with is endless, including Ireland’s very
own bad boy Colin Farrell, but at the moment she is unattached.
“Unfortunately, no men. Actually, make that: ‘I’m kind of happy being with
nobody, maybe for six to eight months.’” So the Farrell thing wasn’t true?
“Unfortunately not. But I’d love to be linked with George Clooney, Brad
Pitt, Colin Farrell — again — John Cusack ... there are so many cute guys
out there. Orlando Bloom is so cute!” she says, with a “whooaarrr” in cute.
“But I’m completely dumb at this. I’m constantly working.”
Maybe her luck will change. After all, she is an Anglophile, and it’s worked
for Gwynnie and Madonna. “Oh, I love London! I have to get a place there,”
she says, really quite passionately. “It’s the one place where I feel
anonymous.” What, at the heart of the tabloid beast? “I know you’re all
like, ‘the press is crazy’, but I love it. When I’m not working, that’s
where I feel at home. I love the clothes, the shops...” Especially Harvey
Nichols — she always tries to stay in a hotel in Knightsbridge so she can be
near the store. “I do! I stay right across the street.”
Still, there’s more to London than Harvey Nicks — she admits she hasn’t been
to a pub yet, or stuffed her face with fish and chips, but adds, generously:
“Unfortunately. I have a lot to experience in England.” And when she pitches
up in Knightsbridge, there’s hope for the lads. Would she consider an
English boyfriend? “Oh, yes!” she says emphatically. Even given our
comparative lack of high-pressure showers and orthodontics? Does the English
sense of humour make up for it? “Yes,” pronounces America’s female icon.
“Maybe so.”
