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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Britney grows up, faces life

By Donna Freydkin
USA Today

With a lusty CD out this week, pop star Britney Spears is 'freaked' — but in control, too.

Associated Press

If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a squadron of unflappable pros to get Britney Spears 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 assistant, talking on a phone nearby.

Amid all the chaos squirms the fidgety songbird, who's preparing to appear on MTV's "Total Request Live" — and has a new album, her fourth, "In the Zone."

"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 "In the Zone," out this week, 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. 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.

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. 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.

She's no puppet

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, eight paparazzi cars followed her around — in bucolic Kentwood, La.

"I don't get it. ... I enjoy singing and dancing, but I'm pretty retarded. Just a big dork," she says.

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 canned responses to any question you throw her way.

And this Britney, the self-assured woman, 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."

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. ..."

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'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' 12-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn, a budding star with her own Nickelodeon show.

"She gets what she wants, but she's not a mean person. ... She would do anything for me and my family. She's such a nice person, and they take it the wrong way," says Jamie Lynn.

Outside the spotlight

"I guess I need you, baby. You're haunting me," goes the lyric from Spears' song "Everytime." Whether that tune refers to Spears' failed relationship with singer Justin Timberlake is anyone's guess. She won't answer questions about her love life but says she can see herself settling down with a family in five or maybe 10 years.

Spears 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."