Originally written July 29, 2005.

In a superficial sense, the OIDIA videos showed a shift of focus away from Britney’s soul to her body as her “people” realised that she was now being perceived as a super-sexy young star. Let’s take a look at them:

Originally written April 28, 2006.

Are we suffering from collective amnesia? It amazes me that so many Britney fans think her image has gone to hell and her career is in the balance. If we cast our minds back to 2003 and the period just before In The Zone was released, we find that back then things were so much worse. Yes, Britney was still assumed to be a pretty girl, and yes, she was still reckoned to be an international-class sex object. But that wasn’t the hot gossip about her at the time. The chatter among the cooler-than-**** teenagers was “She’s SOOOOOOO over!” And the media agreed.

Originally written October 24, 2005.

In this unauthorised biography, Sean Smith sets himself the task of discovering which of the two Britneys has achieved dominance - the natural, fun-loving, friendly girl who makes lots of mistakes like everybody else, or what he calls "the Britney Spears", megastar icon who threatened to take over and suppress the real Britney.

Originally written February 28, 2005.

“Blonde, beautiful, great body. Sweet natured, ditzy, maybe not too clever. Pretends not to use sex to sell her records. Fair singer, no Whitney or Mariah.” Neat, concise description. But I’ve just described Jessica Simpson, not Britney Spears. The very last thing you want as a megastar celebrity is that the media and public can put you in a box that actually fits you. If that happens, you won’t be controversial - you won’t even be interesting. And fortunately it has never happened to Britney.