Throw out your primers on the four stages of the celebrity life cycle. Once again, the unconventional Ms Britney Spears seems bent upon proving that denial is the phase you go into after rehab, and not before. I know. It's like someone telling you that larva comes after butterfly. But stay with her.
Last week, the recent graduate of the Promises head spa (cf Lohan) denied she had ever had a drink or drug problem, adding that she resented her mother for encouraging her to go to rehab. Indeed, Britney resented her to such a degree that she tracked her down to a TV station - it's younger daughter Jamie-Lynn whom Mother Spears is forcing up a showbiz chimney these days - and served legal papers warning her to give her grandchildren a wide berth.
This week, Britney is minded to address that photograph of her shaven-headed self attacking a photographer's car with an umbrella, an already iconic image whose unofficial caption may as well be "I'm not feeling quite myself at present". Apparently, this couldn't be more misleading.
Britney maintains that far from evincing some kind of impending meltdown, her actions were nothing more than method acting. In a note to the snapper's agency, she writes: "I want to apologise for the past incident with the umbrella. I was preparing a character for a possible movie role where the husband doesn't play his part so they swap places. Unfortunately, I didn't get the part. I'm sorry I got all carried away with my part."
Maddeningly, when asked for the name of the movie, Britney's powers of recall deserted her. But the whole explanation does prompt us to ask after other misunderstood projects that seem to have disappeared into a kind of celebrity Bermuda Triangle. In particular, this column seeks release dates for Pete Townshend's book on child pornography, and Winona Ryder's movie in which she plays a shoplifter.
