Britney Spears sure started 2004 with a bang.

The fun-loving pop princess partied into the night with pals at the Palms hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve — sparking a controversy over just how much she had to drink.

A report in the London Daily Mirror said the 22-year-old singer put away so much champagne she had to be carried out of the hotel's club Rain to her suite by bodyguards.

"Britney was drinking loads at dinner," said the Mirror. "When the meal was over she and her friends went to the Ghost Bar, which is at the top of the hotel, to see in the New Year. She wanted to see all the fireworks.

"Basketball star Kobe Bryant and the Hilton sisters were in the bar, too. Afterwards she went to Rain, which is also in the hotel, and carried on partying with her friends. She must have drunk at least three bottles of champagne."

A spokeswoman for Spears said the singer was drinking at the hotel that night, but was never drunk.

"Like any other 22-year-old, she had a couple of drinks with friends and family," the spokeswoman said. "She left about 1.30 a.m. ... and her bodyguards, as they are paid to do, took her to her room. No way was she carried out or anything. That's ridiculous."

Another source tells us the truth is somewhere in between.

"Britney was schnauckered, but not as drunk as reported," says our Las Vegas snitch.

"She could stand and walk by herself. Her bodyguards did clear her path and escort her out of the club, but that's standard practice. But her friend was very drunk and was carried out by a bodyguard."

Spears flew into Las Vegas on Wednesday after spending Christmas with her brother, Bryan, her sister, Jamie Lynn, and her mother, Lynne, in the Caribbean. Bryan also accompanied her to Nevada.

She checked into a $10,000-a-night suite at the Palms. Spears and a party, including an unidentified gentleman friend, enjoyed a seafood platter, with wine, at the hotel's Nine steakhouse around 8 p.m.

"She was having a really, really good time," says a source at the restaurant.

The Daily Mirror reported that Spears checked into the Palms under the name "Alotta Warmheart."

"That's kind of cool," her spokeswoman told us. "And she does have a lot of warm heart. She's a lovely girl."

Originally published on January 2, 2004

Oops, she did it?

Pop tart Britney Spears got hitched early yesterday morning in a quickie Las Vegas wedding, making good on a joke that went a little too far, People magazine reported on its Web site early this morning.

But then, according to a source who spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday, she quickly arranged to have the marriage annulled.

The saucy Southern belle strolled down the aisle - in jeans and a baseball cap - with a man named Jason Allen Alexander, who, like Spears, hails from Kentwood, La., the mag reported.

The 22-year-old pop princess was escorted to the altar by a hotel bellman, with no family or friends on hand for the magic moment at the Little White Wedding Chapel on the Strip. Reps at the chapel wouldn't comment.

At least Spears is in good company. The midnight matrimonial hall claims Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines and Stone Cold Steve Austin among its famous clients.

But it's apparently not destined to be one of the chapel's longer-lasting unions.

The two arranged an annulment Saturday afternoon in the presence of several people, including a Las Vegas lawyer, said a source close to Spears who spoke on condition of anonymity. The signed annulment will be official when the courts open Monday morning, the AP source said.

The wedding whopper follows a doozie of a New Year's Eve party at the hip Ghostbar in the Palms Hotel.

People Magazine reported that Spears and Alexander hatched the plot Friday night in another bout of partying at Ghostbar, and got bouncers to fetch a lime-green limo to take them to the chapel.

Once there, they were told they had to go get a marriage license, which they did. The Associated Press obtained a photo of the signed document.

Originally published on January 4, 2004

Britney Spears gave paparazzi a lens-full when she straddled her new boyfriend in a public park in Sweden this week. But her reps are denying, denying, denying that she ever posed for nude photos.

The singer showed she was back in the saddle of lust when she mounted dancer Kevin Federline while he was lying on a rock in Stockholm. Staring up at Brit, Federline appeared to have put out of his mind his eight months' pregnant girlfriend, former "Moesha" actress Shar Jackson.

While she frolics around Europe with her love rat, Spears' reps here are dealing with a set of nude images that turned up on the Internet - rumored to be from a Playboy shoot.

The steamy black-and-whites turned out to be a look-alike model, shot last year by Long Island photog Eric Striffler. Striffler told us he was "flattered" that anyone thought he had photographed Spears for Playboy, and would definitely be available for the assignment.

"I could provide her with my phone number if she wanted to do it," he joked.

It's no secret that Hugh Hefner's girlie glossy has been after Spears for years. Her rep, Leslie Sloane Zelnick, told us, "Playboy has called many times. They even offered her to pose on the cover, wearing clothes. I still said no. She doesn't want to go that way at this point in her life. I'll never say never.

"Maybe in her 40s or 50s."

The country boy Britney Spears married and then jilted is spilling the beans on their romance - detailing how the pop tart seduced him, proposed to him in bed and then let her family and lawyers break them up.

Jason Alexander, 22, claims that after their 55-hour Las Vegas marriage was annulled, Britney sent him packing and even changed her phone number so he couldn't call, Britain's News of the World reported today.

He's reportedly devastated that she's engaged to dancer Kevin Federline, 26, just seven months after their quickie wedding.

"I didn't tell the world about this before because I still hoped we'd get back together," Alexander said. "But I now realize she won't come back to me."

Alexander, who grew up with Spears in Louisiana, said they had shared a only few kisses before she invited him to Sin City for the New Year. But they were only in the hotel suite for a few seconds before she stripped naked.

"She was an animal in bed," Alexander said.

Early on Jan. 3 they were "chatting in bed, cuddled up and naked, saying we didn't want the trip to end," he said.

"She said, 'I want to ask you something but I don't know how to.' I told her she could ask me anything. She acted really shy and said, 'Will you marry me?'

"I said yes and she jumped out of bed, flung her jeans on and yelled, 'Let's do it now.' She was ecstatic. She didn't even put her panties on in the rush as she slipped on her jeans."

But after the two tied the knot, the Spears clan rushed to Vegas and barged into their suite.

He said Britney's handlers told him the marriage would wreck her career and pressured him into signing annulment papers - while his bride refused to stick up for him.

After the union was dissolved, they had one last dinner before Spears' brother handed him a plane ticket home - in economy class.

"Britney gave me a hug and a kiss and that was it," he said.