It was always pretty obvious that once she picked herself up off the floor, a bunch of gutter journalists would be ready to knock her back down there. That's where they prefer to see her, since good news doesn't sell newspapers and Britney has helped sell a LOT of tabloids in the course of a career that in terms of headlines feels more like forty years than ten.

And so, when Britney recently visited England, the usual suspects in the press were waiting for her, their stories already written.

Did you see Britney’s appearance on the UK’s “X Factor” TV talent show? If so, you’ll have witnessed a wonderfully enthusiastic crowd reaction and a standing ovation from the four judges, Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue, Cheryl Cole and the notoriously hard-to-please Simon Cowell.

But what you may not have realised was that the performance everyone was applauding was actually a “disaster”. So said the UK’s “Daily Star” tabloid. Apparently Britney “stumbled” through her performance and “mimed badly". Angry fans (not Britney's, apparently) instantly began bombarding the X Factor website with their protests.

And, as if all of this wasn’t bad enough, Britney allegedly walked out on her audience at London’s G-A-Y club venue and refused to perform.

The only problem with this account of proceedings is.... it’s bullshit. It was a media ambush. In fact, although there were a few complaints in the immediate aftermath of the show (as there were after Mariah's appearance), the whole storm that blew up in the media by the following Monday was artificially created. It was only when the News Of The World made allegations of “miming” on Sunday that everyone else began climbing on the bandwagon.

The News Of The World is no friend to Britney. This bottom-feeding sensationalist tabloid has been the original source of publication of almost all of the smear stories that have been attached to her over the last 4 years. And it seems that The News Of The World doesn’t always take too much trouble in verifying the truth of its allegations. For example, it printed a lengthy story detailing how Lynne Spears’ book would include accounts of Britney’s underage drug-taking and sex. But this was completely false. And the tabloid has never apologised or corrected its lies.

Far from it. These lies have been repeated in countless newspapers and magazines since then, to the point that anybody who hasn’t read Lynne’s book assumes they’re true, and so Britney’s character is blackened in a highly dishonest and unethical way. As Michael Jackson remarks in “Billie Jean” - “a lie becomes the truth”.

And so the bandwagon was under way. Leading the charge the following day was - no big surprise - the Daily Star. This tabloid has a kind of bipolar relationship with Britney. It’s almost always enthusiastic about her albums, singles and videos. It celebrates her achievements too, and was the only UK newspaper to announce her position as the best-selling female artist of the 21st Century.

But the Daily Star likes to make front-page news out of Britney too, and always goes about it in the same way. Like everybody else, they know that Britney lip-synchs her stage shows. But they try to create a national scandal by “revealing” it every time she hits the UK’s shores. Back in 2004, their showbiz staff had written stories with the front-page headline “WON’T SING! CAN’T DANCE!” before her first UK show had even taken place.

It looks very much as if the same thing happened this time. The talk of “stumbling” gives it away, because she COULDN’T “stumble” vocally (since she was “miming”, naturally) and she DIDN’T stumble physically as anyone viewing her performance on YouTube can verify for themselves. It appears that the Daily Star writer simply copied and pasted what he’d written about the 2007 VMAs and assumed he had a fair chance of being right. Or was there a more sinister explanation?

Could it be linked to the “walking out on her audience and cancelling her show at G-A-Y” story? Well..... some further investigation reveals that she was never contracted to perform at G-A-Y. The venue owner admits it. He claims that he tried to persuade her to perform there on the night and that he had just about succeeded but then she changed her mind. That was why he decided to announce to the crowd that she “wouldn’t be performing”. What he doesn’t mention is something that just about everybody who was in the audience has mentioned on innumerable websites - HE leaked to The Sun newspaper that Britney would be performing even though there was no contract or agreement. HE failed to provide security and crowd control at the venue. The crowd was, in fact, totally out of control and many of those present stated quite categorically that it would have been insane for ANY artist to walk on to that tiny, exposed little stage.

However, a lot of showbiz journalists were there that night (guess why!) and one of them didn’t bother to check his facts. He decided that Britney was totally to blame for the whole sorry affair, and in a misguided attempt to show solidarity with the venue owner, lashed out at her in any way he could think of, including calling her X Factor performance a “disaster”. Unfortunately this biased and dishonest piece of work found its way on to the front page of the Daily Star. It’s sad that a national newspaper, albeit a low-end one, should have thrown away any integrity it may still have had in the cause of a gay revenge plot.

You may find it hard to believe that the Daily Star could stoop even lower, but somehow they managed it. In a ludicrous attempt to have a "second bite at the cherry" on the Wednesday, they racheted up their description of Britney's X Factor appearance from a "disaster" to a "fiasco" - yet at the same time succeeded in confirming that they had never actually SEEN her X Factor appearance! In trying to concoct a "shock horror" story about her appearance on Good Morning America they resorted to quoting haters' posts on US websites as if their existence was something new and amazing rather than the kneejerk response it actually is.

But the "substance" (if such a word can be used about mendacious trash) of their story about Good Morning America was that a "desperate" Britney, fresh from her "X Factor fiasco" was forced to resort to her raunchiest ever performance, which shocked all of America and was nothing but pure porn. They described her performance in lurid terms. It involved being like a ringmaster, wearing fishnet tights and straddling men. Does any of this sound familiar? To us it does, because it was EXACTLY the same performance AND outfit that she displayed on the X Factor! So that proves, if any more proof were needed, that the Daily Star had been busily rubbishing her performance without having seen it.

So.... what about the “miming” scandal? The studio audience didn’t boo. They seemed to enjoy Britney’s performance. Although some have declared with 20/20 hindsight that it was “glaringly obvious” that she was “miming”, that just isn’t true. I’ve watched my recording of the show over and over and not once can I see her lips fail to match the lyrics. On the “Xtra Factor” immediately after the show, James Cordon alleged that she “mimed”, but since he seemed not to notice that the version of “Womanizer” performed a few minutes previously was actually different from the single version, I have to say that his powers of observation are not of the finest. More likely, he was simply aware of Britney's reputation for lip-synching.

Now take note - I’m NOT DENYING that she “mimed”, but the reason I believe it is not that I witnessed it but because so many people are saying it. And a lot of them are saying it because they heard James Cordon say it or they read it in the News Of The World and the Daily Star! I wonder how many other people had absolutely no problem with her performance and throughly enjoyed it - until they were told not to. I’m pretty sure most of her amateur “critics” are imagining they saw things that never happened.

Some people put her microphone forward as evidence. “It wasn’t switched on! Did you see how Dermot O’Leary had to let her talk into HIS mic??!!” But it WAS switched on, for a while anyway - you can hear her say “Thank you” above all the crowd noise as he approaches her. But even if she had sung the whole thing entirely live, her mic would have been switched off after her performance anyway, since the feed from the mixer wouldn’t be used for interviews. When the X Factor contestants are singing, they use the hand-held mic, and the studio feed comes from the mixing desk, but for their interviews with Dermot there’s a little button-mic attached to their clothing and the studio feed switches to that.

But anyway. I’m not denying that she lipped. I’m just denying that it was as obvious and show-spoiling and disastrous as some people are trying to claim. Lip-synching is actually an allegation you can make about almost anybody, if you want to damage them. On at least one website, it was alleged that Miley Cyrus was also miming on the X Factor that night, and that Mariah Carey mimed when she appeared a few weeks ago. It’s almost impossible to prove whether it’s true or not, since ALL the performers on the X Factor, including the contestants, sing to backing tapes and have the benefit of “vocal support” if they appear to require it. Evicted contestant Ruth Lorenzo later issued a challenge for anyone criticizing Britney to name ANY artist who had never mimed.

But it doesn’t seem to matter in the case of any other artist. It’s ONLY when Britney appears in the UK that it suddenly becomes a front page headline sensation. The X Factor contestants have defended her, saying her performance was great anyway. Pop singer Lily Allen said the same thing on Radio One. Simon Cowell says she was extremely professional and he’d like to have her on his show every week.

It's hard to assess how much damage has been done by yet another media ambush. The BBC was still playing "Womanizer" on the Tuesday, and DJ Scott Mills was still saying how much he loved Britney. First week sales of "Circus" appeared to be going as well as anticipated, despite widespread supply problems caused by the collapse of main distributor Entertainment UK. Fans were going crazy trying to secure priority bookings for tickets to her shows at the O2 Arena in June 2009.

But the whole episode left a bitter taste and seemed spiteful and unnecessary. And when she returns for those 02 Arena shows, you can be 100 percent sure it will happen all over again. "Brit me baby one more mime" is already on somebody's computer at the News Of The World or Daily Star.

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