Britney's Just a Woman, But She Breaks Just Like a Little Girl

Following her performance at last year's MTV Video Music Awards, it could be said that anyone with cable television is pretty familiar with Britney's outside. Her skimpy, flesh-colored costume landed her on the front page of the New York Post (which ran her picture with the headline BRA-HAHA OVER TEEN HEARTTHROB'S SKIMPY OUTFIT — BRITNEY SPEARED) and subjected her to dogged criticism about her appropriateness as a role model for young girls. The argument goes like this: By baring her navel with aplomb, Britney is encouraging little girls to become underage vamps. "I think it's not that deep," she says, exasperated. "I like wearing those clothes. I like, when I'm onstage, to be an entertainer. When kids are younger and have a recital once a year, that's their time to go onstage and put on their little costume and do their thing. And that's what it's like for me. I put on my cute clothes, and I go onstage and I do it. If the song calls for me to wear something a little voluptuous or sexy, I like to go there."

I tell her that since she's an adult, I think she should be allowed to dress however she likes. That if she were male, no one would be getting up in her grill about her clothes. That girls should be encouraged to be comfortable with their bodies. And, moreover, I say, what's wrong with being sexy? "Yeah!" she exclaims, her voice returning to its more jovial pitch. "I don't understand it. What's the big deal? Honestly, I walk around my house naked, so I'm not very modest or whatever. I think the body's a beautiful thing, and you should not hide yourself. If you feel like wearing something that makes you feel good about you, and you want to wear a push-up bra, I say, 'Go for it." And, with some seriousness, she adds, "You should be proud of your sexuality. Just because I'm young doesn't mean I can't be sexy. It is so flattering that kids look up to me. But at the end of the day, I don't like being a role model. I'm not perfect, I'm human, just like everybody else. Everybody's got an opinion about you, but the only one that matters is your own."

Call it mundane, call it zen, you could even call it compulsive: Britney says one of her favorite ways to spend her rare moments of free time is "freakin' organizing my rubber bands." No shit? "I get the big ones in one little stash," she says, gesturing like she's making separate piles and then bursting into embarrassed laughter. "I love it. It makes me happy."

Keeping things in order, though, is something she's very serious about. Disorganization, she says, makes her mad quicker than anything else. "I don't stand for stupidity," she says. "If I think something's not done right with my schedule, I call my manager and freak out. That's the one person I do lose my temper to. Bless his heart! I feel bad."

There are no Svengalis pulling Britney's strings, she insists, and she's the first one to protest if she thinks she's being taken advantage of. "She calls the shots," observes Laura Lynne. "At first, when you're starting out, you have to do what the record label tells you to do. Now she's very much take-charge."

If she's a diva, she's certainly the world's politest one. Despite all the pressures she's enduring — the unrelenting public scrutiny of her relationship with Justin, dire predictions that teen pop is a fad whose end is near, the process of recording an album that will be considered a failure if it is anything less than a blockbuster — Britney seems unflappable. And, however much she's in control, in the studio she is as docile and compliant as a kid trying to impress her chorus teacher. "Do you feel like singing today?" BT asks her. "Sure," she says, lifting her eyes from the chipped nail polish on her toes. "I'm ready." She picks herself up from her chair and shuffles out the thick, soundproof door. Moments later, she's in the recording booth, barely visible amid the shadows.

[From Issue 877 — September 13, 2001