Three days before the VMAs, Britney and her entourage arrived in Vegas, and checked into her suite in the Palms. She was synced with her dancers, laughing and joking with them during their work-outs and run-throughs.Ī star stylist, Trish Somerville, was drafted in to design a tasteful, classy one-piece outfit for the night, while Ken Paves, dubbed "the hottest hairdresser in Hollywood", was brought on board to craft extensions to disguise her short hair, which was still only growing back since she had famously shaved it all off in an LA barber's shop earlier in the year. With two weeks to go, Britney had, by all accounts, mastered the routine to 'Gimme More'. In order to make sure that she was focussed and working hard during rehearsals, MTV refused to pay her fee upfront as had happened in the past, but rather released the cash in staggered payments. Reluctantly, Britney went along with the station's demands.
They insisted that Britney start rehearsing a full five weeks before the VMA show was due to air on September 9 from the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. Her team were confident that the performer of old would turn up to pull off the comeback, but MTV executives weren't convinced. Now a new book on the 28-year-old singer's extraordinary life has unearthed the gritty details and pieced together the backstage story about that fateful night when Britney, addled by too many tequila shots and a distracting visit from the one-time love of her life, truly fell apart.Ĭoming just months after her release from the Promises rehab facility in Malibu, and amidst an increasingly nasty custody battle with her soon-to-be ex-husband Kevin Federline, Britney's emotional state was already fraught enough without the added pressure of having to perform at one of showbiz's premiere events in an attempt to resurrect a flagging career.īut Britney's label, Jive Records, and her newly appointed talent managers, The Firm, were determined that the singer blitz the show to support her new album, Blackout, which was attracting strong reviews on the back of its signature track 'Gimme More'. Instead, her shambolic appearance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards almost buried the troubled pop princess' career once and for all. Rancic also mentioned the possibility that Spears didn't like the outfit MTV wanted her to wear, so brought her own, including boots that proved inappropriate, because they caused her to be unsteady while trying to dance.It was meant to be the night of Britney Spears' big comeback following her spate of public breakdowns and humiliations. "But a lot of people are saying, 'You know, maybe MTV is to blame, you know, they shouldn't have put her on, you know, it was too soon.' But if you're MTV and you get a phone call saying, 'Britney's confirmed, she's gonna open,' you're gonna say, 'Yes.' So, of course MTV jumped at this." I think this was too soon for her to try to do this.
She's just not taking her career seriously. You know, we see her every other day with the lollipop in her hand, the big sunglasses, out till 4 in the morning, doing god knows what. Of course you're gonna be tired."įor Rancic's part, she told The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen, "I do think … it was premature. She was out on the party scene all night long. To that, Dirmann said, "People were not happy with the fact that she was partying late into the night before she would go into the rehearsals and before she had this big performance. There have also been whispers, Rancic said, that Spears might have been on medication.