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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
Some day her prince will come, but it's not sleazy fiance Kevin Federline. The virginal pop tart is finally making her own decisions -- and it ain't pretty.
Aug 23, 2004 | For a moment this week it looked as if pop singer and rebellious cupcake Britney Spears was about to marry her former backup dancer Kevin Federline sooner than expected. It turned out that she was dressed in wedding white just to shoot a video for her cover of Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative." Still, her face adorned the cover of People magazine, where she grinned desperately next to Federline and his perplexed-looking 2-year-old daughter; the accompanying story was about Hollywood's successfully blended families. Then came word that the lovebirds were being considered for "Newlyweds," now that shiny warblers Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey have grown too long in the tooth for the reality show. The prospect of Spears' opening her hormone-racked heart and home to cameras inspired such delight among bored Web surfers that the New York media blog Gawker soon posted several homemade petitions urging NBC to back up the rumor with a contract.
"Not only will I, the Undersigned, tune in, but millions of others who, like me, will enjoy a front-row seat to the most glorious downward-spiral of the last decade," read one of the petitions.
Oh, it's so not funny.
Usually, I would be the first to wriggle with pleasure at the misfortune of an overpaid affront to feminism. My empathy for former tween celebrities and their reality-show lives usually extends no further than to Tinkerbell Hilton, whose recent abduction was surely staged to compete for press attention with aunt Nicky's Vegas wedding. I'm not a fan of Spears' music, have not paid more than glancing attention to her romantic history or her career. But ever since she took up with this Federline, I have become strangely invested in her personal story.
And not just invested -- downright maternal. Each time I see her face or cellulite-pocked ass cheek staring out at me from the cover of a glossy weekly magazine, I crumple a little bit with a futile desire to protect her, to keep her from exposing yet another of her open, bleeding wounds to an infectious public.
I just feel so sad for her.
And it's not just because Federline is a punch line to that old "Saturday Night Live" ad for Bad Idea jeans. He left his ex-girlfriend, actress Shar Jackson, with whom he had one child, when she was eight months pregnant with their second. He promptly shacked up with Spears in a series of hotel suites and expensive resort locations. He favors a wardrobe of wife-beater tees and trucker hats. Though he failed to show up for his daughter Kori's second birthday, Federline did arrange to bring his offspring and fiancée together on the set of Spears' perfume commercial, ensuring that the good people at People were there to capture the moment. He also threw the paparazzi a bone about a month ago by staging a scene on a hotel balcony in which it looked very much as if his famous girlfriend was fellating him for the cameras. In short, the guy is a douche bag of the first order.
