In Style -- July 2002
credit: World of Britney/InStyle.com
True Brit
Britney Spears is expecting company, but when the doorbell rings the Mousketeer turned pop star nonpareil is in one of her favorite places--bed--performing one of her few talents never seen by an audience or caught on camera by MTV: She's sleeping. Apparently fame can be exhausting, even for a 20-year-old.
Britney, who flew in late last night from Tokyo, is a renowned z-catcher, which led the National Sleep Foundation to celebrate her as one of the country's most "successful sleeper" (among her less lauded titles: unofficial "messenger" for National Sleep Awareness Week). She can do it anytime, anywhere--on planes, trains and tour buses. But it's here at the family home she had built in Kentwood, La. (population 2,500), in her mother's four-poster bed that she finds the deepest sleep of all. "It's so peaceful," she will later say. "It's my favorite room in the house." Keeping their voices down so they don't wake her, Britney's mother, Lynne, her aunt Sandra, and bodyguard, Rob--a 320-pound fixture in her life who sees more of "Brit" than her family does--mill about the cozy country-style kitchen, chatting, drinking freshly brewed coffee, and nibbling on pound cake still warm from the oven. On the wall by the table hangs a framed needlepoint of the Serenity Prayer next to a three-foot wooden crucifix. "We really have been blessed," says Lynne, witting in her well-worn wicker love seat by the window. The former second-grade teacher has just gotten the news that younger daughter, Jamie Lynn, 11, has been cast in a Nickelodeon show. Another star is born. And, if she's as successful as her sister, another tabloid stable. The coverage of Britney and *NSYNC singer Justin Timberlake's relationship--perhaps best described as on-again, off-again, oops, they did it again--seemed to rival that of Enron in column inches. Lynne sighs: "Actually I think the tabloids are making Justin out to be the dirty dawg in all this. So that's good."
"She's getting her feet wet," Britney says of 11-year-old Jamie Lynn, an aspiring singer and actress. "I was worried for her when she auditioned for Nickelodeon, but she was like, diva. She is so into herself, and I think, I wish I had that. Onstage she would show me up, honey." -BRITNEY SPEARS on her little sister
The next day Britney appears poolside in her backyard, smiling, no worse for the wear of performing a concert halfway around the world for 60,000 screaming Japanese fans (one of her largest audiences ever). This summer she'll finish her tour for Britney, her third multiplantinum CD. Then she'll be promoting Austin Powers in Goldmember (she plays herself in a cameo role, and Mike Myers, in a e-mail dashed off from the set, praises the "great comedy sense" she brings to it), opening a new restaurant in Manhattan, and endorsing a line of Skecher roller skates. But for the next two weeks her only job is to enjoy the new four-bedroom Tudor-style home she built on a 7.5 acre estate a few miles from the house w here she grew up. "I've gotten to the point where I can really allow myself to relax," says Britney, who earned almost $40 million last year and ranked fourth on the Forbes list of the world's most powerful celebrities. (Oprah came in at No. 9) 'The other day I was in my room, and I was like, "I'm bored. This is what it's like to be bored!' And it was kind of cool. But I think it will only last for a week or two."
A breeze sounds the wind chimes hanging in the backyard, a multilevel tangle of flowers and trees that feature a foundation and a free-form pool. Weather forecasters have predicted record-breakingheat today, making the water seem that much more inviting. Sitting on the patio while her white teacup poodle, Lady--whose nails are painted the same shade of bright as the bows in her hair--runs around the grass, Britney points a French-manicured finger toward one end of the pool, and says, "There's a shallow area, and you can lie out on top of it--half your body is in the water, half your body is out. That was my idea. I could live in the sun."
Which she does--and quite well--figuratively speaking? The former Star Search winner is the only female singer in history to have her first three albums debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Charts. (Sales total $46 million worldwide.) And then there are those video-genic features: wide-set eyes the color of Hershey's Kisses and full lips, which today are shining with gloss. Her caramel-colored skin is offset by a white spaghetti strap top and sweats slung low enough to reveal a G-string and a tattoo of the Chinese symbol for "mysterious." Another tattoo-a rind of flowers--encircles one of her bare toes. She doesn't know it yet, but she has made the papers again today, caught smoking a cigarette on a balcony in Australia by a long lens camera. She is so busted. "I'm sad, I'm sad, man," Britney says when she's told, trying not to smile. "Uh, I don't have a recollection of me ever doing that. I'll have to see the picture."
Lifting herself from a wrought iron chair, Britney grabs her Pepsi, dispensed from her very own vending machine, and heads into the house. "I don't drink only Pepsi," says the company's multimillion-dollar spokeswoman. A coy smile: "Sometimes I drink other things." More thoughtfully she adds, "I think if you do everything in moderation, it's OK. The only thing I'm addicted to is taking baths at night." But while she might indulge in the occasional cosmopolitan or Midori sour--"I don't know what's in them, but they sure taste good"--don't believe everything you read, even if it is accompanied by a picture of her hanging out the window of a moving car. Says Lynne, "A girlfriend and I walked into Wal-Mart one day, and she said, 'Oh my gosh. Look at this Lynne. They're talking about how drunk Britney is over in Europe!' Britney was holding a [nonalcoholic] Red Bull in her hand. Oh, Lord. I laughed at it. I was a youth once upon a time myself." Lynne adds, "Id go out with my friends and play foosball and have some drinks. I mean, we've all been there."
"Britney's the nicest person in the world, Really! A lot nicer than me," says her 11-year-old sister, Jamie-Lynn.
"Britney and Justin are two young, wonderful people," says Lynne. "You never know what's going to happen down the road."
"I would love, love to be on Sex and the City. It's my favorite show in the world," says Britney, who appears in the new Austin Powers film. "I think we're all kinda like the characters on it in a way. You want to be the sex goddess. You want to be the girl with the cute clothes." -BRITNEY on her acting ambitions
But we haven't all been under the scrutiny Britney has, especially when her love life is concerned. Britney and Justin, who met as Mouseketeers, were romantically involved for more than two years before breaking up (for the first time, anyway) last March. "We're climbing two different mountains. His priorities are different from mine right now," Britney says philosophically. But she can't escape the constant reminders. "You go out to a club, and people say, 'Are you fine? Are you fine?' And it's like, 'I'm here, aren't I?'" Another option occurs to her: "What if I was some weakling and I was like, 'Whaaa!' Crying!" She breaks into laughter.
Not long after they decided to try the let's-just-be-friends thing--"It wasn't a bad breakup," Britney says. "We still talk all the time"--Timberalke was photographed in a Hollywood club with a brunette. "Of course it's kind of hurt sometimes, and you wonder things," she says, recalling the picture. "But you learn from it and grow. I'm trying to get to that point." She flashes a "show must go on" smile. Nigel Dick, who directed four of Britney's music videos, says, "I really feel for her. She can't do anything without a 1,000 mm lens in her face. It's the deal stars make with the devil."
In fact, not since Brooke Shields has anyone been put under such an intense virginity watch, prompted by Britney's claim to a reporter in 1999 that she would remain chaste until her wedding day. "What's the big deal?" she asks, getting riled up. "I find it interesting that everyone finds it so interesting. It's bizarre." Her way of coping is try to disconnect herself from her persona. "I'm in complete denial that I am 'Britney Spears,'" she says, making quotation marks with her fingers. "Do you understand what I'm sayin'? I'm just a human being." Says Dick, "When I met Britney she wasn't a prima donnish kid who thought was already a superstar. She was 16 going on 16, not 16 going on 35."
Now she's going on 21, but she still lives at home, albeit one that's the envy of Kentwood. Walking through the soaring ceiling living room with it's overstuffed cream-colored sofas, Britney explains how she and Lynne decorated it together. "My Mom did almost everything in the house by the bedrooms--that was all me." Everywhere you look are pictures of Britney, Jamie Lynn and older brother, Bryan, who works for a computer company and lives in Britney's Manhattan loft. Lynne's bedroom is teeming with them, including a poster-size MTV promotional portrait of Britney dressed up as Violetta from Verdi's opera La Traviata. But it's not just photos that are here with her mother each night. Says Britney, "The bed's not that big, but I still sleep in it with my Mom and my little sister," her father, Jamie contractor, lives in the family's old house. "We moved out, and we felt bad just leaving the house by itself like that," the singer explains. "And my dad had this idea of redoing the whole thing his way. We think in three months or so, when they got finished, he might come with us." Lynne notes, "Everything about us is so unconventional."
Walking up the winding staircase, Britney goes straight for the walk-in closet in her bedroom, which reveals that in at least one regard she is really just a normal 20-year-old: It's a mess. The shelves are piled with hats in every shape and color. One wall is a rack of white plastic hangers sagging under a weight of blue jeans, the rarest of which is a pair that once belong to another media-hounded sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe. They were a gift from her accountant, who purchased them at an auction; Britney has never worn them. "Her hips were very big and her waist very petite," she explains. "I was thinking about doing something and then I thought I can't mess with her jeans!"
Among Britney's other prized possessions: the scores of fairies she has collected (her first tattoo, in the small of her back, was a fiary)--including a well-known painting of one by symbolist artist Edward Robert Hughes. "Justin gave me this last Christmas," she says softly. But there are hints that she's really not that innocent. Draped over a handle of her dresser is a pair of little pillows attached to a satin ribbon--one says "naughty," the other "nice." On the night stand sit a copy of the PG love story A Walk To Remember and a bodice-ripper titled Seduction By Design.
For now it seems that when Britney needs a romance fix, she turns to fiction. "I'm just starting to get the knack of being single, because ever since I was 15, I've been in a serious relationship. I haven't done the dating thing yet," she says. I'm the type of person who just can't go from a serious relationship and then be like, 'Oh, I'm just going to date some guy.'" There is someone Britney wouldn't mind spending time with: "Huge Grant is so cute!" she says. "I think he's the hottest thing in the world. Hello!" and yet regardless of her new infatuation--or any old ones--Spears won't be losing beauty rest over anyone. Just ask the National Sleep Foundation.
EXTRA: Behind the Scences
credit: InStyle.com
the issue: July 2002
the settings: Independent Studios, New Orleans, May 1. Her home in Kentwood, La., May 2.
hair: Hairstylist Philip Carreon used Spears's natural curl to his advantage to create loose, beachy hair. "It looked piecey, like when you've been at the beach all day," says Carreon. When she arrived he applied Kérastase Oléo-Relax to help smooth her damp hair. Then he added a palmful of Rene Furterer mousse. After separating her hair into sections and blowing dry with a round brush, Carreon rolled the sections into big pin curls, leaving the ends sticking out. After removing the pins he ran some Sebastian Laminates gel through her hair to help separate it.
makeup: "I played up Britney's tan (which she had from a recent trip to Florida) with beautiful creamy pinks," says makeup artist Collier Strong. Before adding color he prepped Spears's skin with Prada Soothing Mask, then misted the line's Soothing Concentrate all over her face. Next Strong used a bit of L'Oréal Air Wear foundation to even out her color. On her eyes and cheeks he applied two blushes by MAC: Cubic (a soft muted pink) was brushed all over, and Reed (a plum-brown) was used to contour eye creases and hollows of cheeks. The final touches included several coats of L'Oréal Voluminous mascara in black and La Mer lip balm.
wardrobe: For the cover shoot, stylist Kim Chandler packed the clothing racks with chic suits and sexy dresses by Dolce & Gabbana, Christian Dior and Gucci. The dress code for Spears's at-home shoot, however, was much more casual. She donned bathing suits in the pool, romantic tops with jeans, and her own pajamas in a few shots.
—Amy Powell
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