In a People magazine cover interview hitting newsstands today, the 20-year-old pop tart finally and completely sheds her Mouseketeer ears--dishing about drinking, smoking, breaking up with 'N Sync's Justin Timberlake, celebrating her parents' own bust-up, bird-flipping in Mexico and returning to the singles scene.

"The first week, I was so excited I was off that I partied every night. I drink," the technically underaged Spears tells the mag of her recent post-tour lifestyle. "[But] everything in moderation. Smoking, drinking, sex--why is it such a big deal with me? As you get to 20, you grow up, you experiment. You feel more comfortable in your skin."

How comfortable?

"I don't have trouble with nudity or sex," says Spears, also the cover girl on the new issue of Us Weekly. "When I was younger, honestly, I walked around the house naked."

Okay, for those of you still digesting that last bit of info, hurry up, because it doesn't end there.

Spears describes the breakup of her parents--mom Lynne and dad Jamie are ending their 30-year marriage--as "the best thing that's ever happened to my family. My mom and dad, bottom line, do not get along."

She also concedes to People that she raised a middle finger to photographers who surrounded her car in Mexico last month and recently hung with Leonardo DiCaprio at the Playboy Mansion. "He looks hot these days," Spears says, "but all I remember is seeing a bunch of naked girls and thinking, I got to get out of here."

Lest you think the Britster has gone completely blotto, she denies suffering a "breakdown" following the end of her tour (it closed out July 28 in Mexico, following a non-lengthy five-song set) and the opening of her poorly reviewed New York City restaurant, Nyla. (Trust us, the duck-and-wild mushroom étoufée is not the culinary delight you might have imagined.)

Brit does admit, though, that her split with Timberlake was more than difficult.

"[It] was horrible. Very upsetting, and it took a lot out of me. He was my first real love, and I doubt I'll ever be able to love anyone like that again," says Spears, who will be a presenter at Thursday's MTV Video Music Awards in New York, where Timberlake will debut a number from his upcoming solo CD, Justified. "But I'd rather spend two days with my soulmate than the rest of my life with some guy who doesn't mean as much."

Looking to the future, the popster says she wants to dive back into the dating pool ("I'm just a girl wanting a guy to love me," says Brit, channeling Julia Roberts in Notting Hill), relax by the swimming pool of her $1.7 million Hollywood Hills mansion ("I'm rich, freakin' rich") and shed her goody-goody image ("I never wanted to hide who I was, but until about a year ago I was trying to fit an image and trying to be someone I wasn't").

Her well-publicized break from the music world apparently will not extend to Hollywood, as she tells People she's reading a romantic comedy script that she may begin filming in October.

As for her fans being there when she does decide to, oops, do it again, in the music biz, CosmoGirl! entertainment editor Carissa Rosenberg says Spears' time out is not the career suicide some are making it out to be.

"It's not a matter of her losing [fans] or not losing them. She's always going to have to go on to the next thing. And they are interested in what's in front of them. So she can take a few months off or a year off, and if she comes back with something they like, they'll be into it.

"She's a 20-year-old, and she's just trying to figure out who she is, like every other 20-year-old."