
Blonde shoulder length hair.
She turns around.
Blue eyes, made so by coloured contacts.
She doesn't smile. Her lips twist slightly, acknowledging the room of hundreds of her peers. Rihanna. Kanye. Her ex-boyfriend is in the room somewhere, Justin Timberlake.
And then there are the millions watching at home.
It's impossible to know exactly what is going on behind 26-year-old Britney Spears' eyes as she stares out into the sea of round, white tables.
Perhaps she is terrified.
Perhaps, as people will later speculate, she's under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Or both.
Perhaps she doesn't want to be there at all. And despite her health battles, a messy separation, being harassed and stalked by paparazzi since before she was a teenager, there she is on stage anyway.
A spectacle.
And the people making money off her do so whether she sinks or swims.
That night, Britney will sink.
The performance.
The performance itself doesn't even last four minutes.
She looks dizzy and unsteady on her feet.
At some points, she badly lip syncs. At others, she stops lip syncing altogether.
As she performs a series of movements, she looks like a hostage. No one is enjoying this performance less than Britney Spears herself.
She wears a bra and underpants, black and sequined, with high boots coming halfway up her calf.
Her youngest son isn't even one. Her eldest son is a few days off turning two.
That of course won't stop the commentary about what her stomach looks like in lingerie.
No one in the room appears to be moving. Cuts to P. Diddy, Rihanna and 50 Cent's straight faces will be used as evidence that the performance was universally shocking. Celebrities in the room couldn't even pretend to like it.
50 Cent's face during Britney Spears' performance.
Top Comments