At least she should have plenty of spare time to look after the kids.

Britney Spears's long-awaited career relaunch at last night's MTV Video Music Awards produced some excruciating car-crash television when the fallen superstar opened the show with her new single, Gimme More.

The 25-year-old singer dressed up like a stripper in black sequinned bikini and knee-high boots but appeared to forget both the words and the steps during the performance at the Palms casino in Las Vegas.

Spears was out of synch as she lip-synched and at times just stopped singing altogether. Her limbs were leaden and her expression was mostly that of a rabbit caught in the headlights. Her hair, still growing back after her decision to shave her head in a Californian salon in February, was a mess.

"Your performance was beyond pathetic," wrote top celebrity blogger Perez Hilton in an 'open letter' to the star. "The old Britney Spears, who was at one point (a long time ago) truly great, would be embarrassed by your lack of professionalism and utterly s**teous appearance at the VMAs."

Steve Hall, writing on the Adrants weblog, said that a few years back, before her marriage to the dancer Kevin Federline, the birth of their two children and the their subsquent divorce, "Spears would have been all over that stage exploding with high energy dance moves".

"But at least twice last night, she had to be hoisted up and down from a riser like an overweight kid trying to climb out of a swimming pool... It's really not a good thing when the backup dancers exude ten times more exuberance than the star."

Spears's fans defended her by claiming that the show she had been planning to put on with the magician Criss Angel - involving lots of mirrors and illusions - had been turned down at the last minute by the show's organisers.

Once one of the biggest selling female recording artists in the world, Spears has not released an album in four years, appearing in the news only because of her private life.

She is currently engaged in a battle with Federline for the custody of their two children, Sean Preston and Jayden James - described by the comedian Sarah Silverman during last night's show as "the most adorable mistakes you'll ever see".

Another troubled female star, Amy Winehouse, continued her losing streak at the awards when Fergie, Rihanna and Gym Class Heroes beat her to take home Female Artist of the Year, Video of the year and Best New Artist, respectively.

Last week the singer’s face fell as she watched Klaxons pick up the prestigious Mercury Music Prize she was tipped to win.

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