By Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY
If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a squadron of unflappable pros to get Britney Spears (news) camera-ready.
There's the hairdresser, adroitly adding extensions to Spears' poufy blond mane. The makeup artist, dabbing on mascara and applying silvery eye shadow. A stylist, sewing away on a machine set up in the corner of the Manhattan hotel suite. A publicist, flipping through glamorous stills of Spears. And the singer's personal assistant, talking on a phone nearby.
In the midst of all the mayhem squirms the fidgety songbird, who in 30 minutes will appear on MTV's Total Request Live- and in one week releases her fourth album, In the Zone.(Related item: Britney photo gallery)
"I admit it, I'm nervous. I'm trying to play it off and be cool, but I'm freaked out about it," says Spears, uncharacteristically covered up in a bright pink turtleneck, tight ripped jeans and cowboy boots.
She might have reason to be, given that her new disc, which will be released Tuesday, eradicates any memory of the pigtailed, virginal Spears who burst on the scene in 1999 with her spunky debut, ...Baby One More Time. And if it's true that you write about what you know, then this Spears is intimately acquainted with hangovers and heartaches.
Spears, listed as co-writer on nine of the 14 tracks, moans, groans and whimpers about letting loose in clubs, falling in lust and having fun between the sheets. Yet she shrugs away any concern that the new, mature Britney might turn off the teeny-boppers who propelled her to mega-stardom. "I'm 21. So what?" she says. "Besides, I think my fans have grown up with me."
Laura Morgan, entertainment director of Teen People, doubts that Spears need worry about being a washout.
"She's reached icon status," says Morgan, who has interviewed Spears before. "Teens love her the same way our generation loved Madonna (news - web sites). She has a built-in curiosity factor, and people want to see what she'll do. Plus, her fans are rooting for her. They're ready for a new Britney."
And this Britney, as the following lyric snippets illustrate, is all grown up.
"She don't wanna behave" (from Brave New Girl)
On her new album and in countless skin-baring magazine spreads and accompanying interviews, Spears has gone to pains to prove that she's no one's innocent naif anymore. She drinks. She smokes.
She infamously smooched Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards in August. She has even earned the wrath of Maryland's first lady, Kendel Ehrlich, who at a conference in October on domestic violence said that if she could "shoot Britney Spears, I think I would." And Spears has gotten cozy with a married man, dancer Columbus Short.
And when she takes the stage, as she'll do when she launches her tour in March, she flaunts more skin than you'd see on a packed Rio de Janeiro beach.
Spears professes to be puzzled by the media obsession with her, but she gladly feeds it with seemingly endless promotional appearances. The frenzy is so intense that when she flew home for a few days recently to recuperate from the flu and eat plenty of ice cream, eight paparazzi cars followed her around - in bucolic Kentwood, La.
"I don't get it. I love what I do," she says. "I enjoy singing and dancing, but I'm pretty retarded. Just a big dork. Very silly."
Yet when pressed to provide examples of her self-described goofiness, Spears changes the subject.
If it's difficult to have an unrehearsed, unguarded moment with any wary celebrity, it's nearly impossible to get anywhere near the core of the media-savvy Spears, who cheerfully chirps out canned responses to any question you throw her way.
And this Britney, the self-assured woman who bounds over to the room service tray to find her grilled salmon lunch when the waiter can't serve it fast enough, is clearly in charge.
"She's the antithesis of being a puppet," says Lauren Christy of the Matrix songwriting trio, who worked with Spears on the ballad Shadow and saw her choose the melody and lyrics she wanted for the song. "She tells everyone what she will do."
And she knows how to say no, says restaurateur Bobby Ochs, who worked with her on the now-shuttered Cajun-style eatery NyLa in New York. "She knows what she wants. I haven't seen anyone boss her around."
"Got a little messy. Can't be like that anymore." (from Early Mornin')
Then there's the Spears who has become a tabloid mainstay for her love of the nightlife. She likes to go out, but, arguably, so would most 21-year-olds with the world at their pointy-toed stilettos. Both Spears and her mother, Lynne, deny that it's anything more than that. "If there was a problem, I would be there, tending to it, but there's not a problem," Lynne Spears says. "The crueler it gets, the further I stay away from it. Ignorance is bliss. I tell my friends that I don't want to hear it."
In fact, Britney adds, the media get it wrong.
"We went out one night in London. We ordered hors d'oeuvres and didn't even really drink," she says. "I'm not at all wild. Maybe I need to get out and see the world a little bit."
Scott Sartiano, co-owner of the New York hot spot Butter, where Spears has been a frequent diner, says she's pretty cool, given who she is. She comes in with girlfriends and a bodyguard or two, orders her food and drinks, and tips well.
"She's a young girl, very famous and rich, and wants to have a good time, but I've never seen anything more than that," he says. "She's never had any crazy demands."
Well, not all the time, says Spears' younger sister, Jamie Lynn, a budding star with her own Nickelodeon show.
"She gets what she wants, but she's not a mean person," says Spears, 12. "She would do anything for me and my family. She's such a nice person, and they take it the wrong way. We're very, very close. It hurts my feelings when people say she's mean."
"I guess I need you, baby. You're haunting me." (from Everytime)
Whether that tune refers to Spears' highly publicized failed relationship with singer Justin Timberlake (news) is anyone's guess. She won't answer any questions about her love life but says she can see herself settling down with a family in five or maybe 10 years.
"Madonna and Faith Hill (news) give me hope," she says. "You've got to find a balance. You do your job, you do what you've got to do, but you look at it as your job. That's not what life is all about. I definitely think that you can stay home for six months, go on tour for three months, you can work it out."
She finds balance through frequent massages, she says. Exhaustion never gets the upper hand because she's "a really energetic person, with so much cooped-up energy in here," Spears says.
Given that Spears has lived the majority of her formative years in the spotlight, it's questionable whether she can exist outside it or whether she's even capable of separating the Spears brand from the Southern-accented real person behind it. Still, the one word that those who know her and have worked with her use to describe her is, repeatedly, sweet.
"I did two tours with her, and back then she was very laid-back and sweet," says dancer Brandon Henschel, who last worked with Spears two years ago. "She hung out with us in the catering room on the buses, went out to dinner with us, was just one of the crew and was very cool like that."
But, he adds, "she does not get a break at all, at the level of fame she's at. She can't even have a conversation. You wouldn't believe how people would stick their faces right between us while we were talking downstairs in a hotel. It bugs her."
"There's some things you don't know" (from Showdown)
Namely, Spears says, that "I'm a really normal person. People think this is so glamorous. But it's not."
Yet can Spears exist without the attention and adulation? Observers doubt it. David Elkind, author of The Hurried Child: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon (2001) and a child development professor at Tufts University, says that if her new album underperforms, Spears could be headed for trouble. He has never met the singer or treated her but recognizes the warning signs.
"She's a little bit panicked that the fame and popularity might come to an end," he says. "Once you get into that mold of being adored and admired, it's hard to give that up."
On this day, Spears is certainly in her element, surrounded by an army of admirers. Her makeup artist praises her beauty, and Spears tries her best to look bashful. Even though her 2002 film debut, Crossroads, underperformed, she still dreams of starring in a big-screen musical, à la Moulin Rouge, and playing "dark roles" in movies.
Yet she says she's most content not on stage or during photo shoots. "I'm happiest when I'm with my family, chillin', watching TV and cutting up. My new rule is, every three weeks, I go home."
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Kind of an interesting read. Hope it hasn't been posted.
Chasing Britney (USA Today Article) 
