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The following italicized article is from www.eonline.com:Britney Spears is selling herself on eBay.No, the "Piece of Me" singer isn't hard up for cash; she's auctioning an autographed portrait of herself for a good cause.Spears and her family donated the 5-by-4-foot oil painting to the Promises Foundation, which provides behavioral health services to low-income women and their children. The painting, titled "Mixed Media Painting of Britney Spears," was done by California artist Daniel Maltzman.Bidding started at $10,000 and ends Sept. 20. The winner also gets a letter of authenticity from the artist and a signed ownership letter from Brit's father, Jamie Spears.Check out the eBay listing to place your bid and see pictures of Britney with her portrait.Source: E! Online
The following italicized article is from www.tmz.com:In a very strange twist of events, Britney Spears can now tell people that she is, in fact, the poster child for mental health.An original painting of Brit is being auctioned off by the The Promises Foundation on eBay. It was donated to the charity by the Spears family, and was autographed by the popwreck herself. Source: TMZ
The following italicized article is from www.mirror.co.uk:For nearly two years Britney Spears has battled her demons as the showbiz world looked on in disbelief.Public meltdowns, divorce, rehab, drug problems and a bitter custody battle – it’s fair to say Brit’s life had become a total mess.Now I can reveal she is preparing to put the past well and truly behind her and make a spectacular live comeback in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve.The show at the Pearl Theatre in the Palms Resort And Casino will tell the world Britney’s back. It will also kick off a world tour that I’m told will be bigger and better than anything she’s done before.A few months ago, if someone had told me Brit was going back on the road, I’d have fallen off my Jimmy Choos in surprise.But I saw her looking amazing as she collected three gongs at last week’s MTV awards, and I was convinced she’s finally sorted herself out. My spies tell me she has been discussing the show and tour with pal George Maloof, owner of the Palms. The plan is that Britney will go on stage just before midnight, and she’s told George she wants a cast of burlesque dancers and as many fireworks and special effects as he can afford.Celebrities and industry bigwigs will be invited to fly in from LA to witness the extravaganza.A source told me: “Britney has been recording her sixth album at Palms and she is good friends with George from way back. They are cooking up the idea of making a big bold statement by making her comeback on New Year’s Eve. It’s going to be the hottest ticket on the planet.”Britney has seen in the New Year in Sin City before but with disastrous consequences.At the Palms resort back in 2003, she went on a bender with then boyfriend Jason Alexander and ended up tying the knot with him – the marriage was annulled 55 hours later. And in 2006 Britney collapsed and had to be taken home before she could host a party at Caesars Palace.Source: The Mirror
Australian dancer Shannon Holtzapffel, has been dancing with and for Britney Spears in Los Angeles. They have been filming the promo video for a track yet to be released- from her new album, which is still in production.Source: Shannon Holtzapffel.com
The following italicized article is from www.usmagazine.com:A portrait of Britney Spears is being auctioned to raise money for the Promises Foundation, which provides assistance for low-income mothers and their children.The 5-by-4-foot oil painting was created by Daniel Maltzman. Spears also autographed the artwork.The portrait depicts the singer in a bikini with her eyes closed and her arms crossing her chest. Spears' famous belly button ring is visible.The painting is being auctioned on eBay with a starting bid of $10,000. The winner will receive an ownership letter from Spears' father Jaime.The auction ends Sept. 10. As of Saturday morning, there were no bids.Source: US Weekly
The following italicized article is from www.news.com:BRITNEY Spears has hand-picked Sydney dancer Shannon Holtzapffel to be her dance partner in an upcoming video clip.The 23-year-old finished filming the clip for Spears' song, Mannequin, in Los Angeles this month and spilled the beans to Insider on his return home to Australia. "It's documentary style of us all in a rehearsal studio with her (Spears),'' said Holtzapffel, who dates Channel V presenter Renee Bargh. "I get very close to her. There's one part where we rest heads together and I'm resting on her neck before she pushes me away. "When it's released, it'll be showing she's back in the game. She has a new album, new music and a new future.'' Holtzapffel met Spears' choreographers in LA and they invited him to a training session with the singer, who was impressed and asked him back to be her dance partner for the video shoot. With tight security helping to keep paparazzi at bay and little information released about Spears' new album, it was a strange experience for Holtzapffel. Dancers were played just two songs from the album, which Australian Kaz James has reportedly been working on. "When we were finished rehearsing, they'd take the CD and put it in a safe,'' Holtzapffel said. "I've never experienced anything like it before.'' Originally from Queensland, Holtzapffel is now based in Sydney but travels the world for months at a time. He runs a production company, Project Moda, and has worked with pop stars including Fergie, Kelly Clarkson, Delta Goodrem and Dannii Minogue. Holtzapffel's next project is a video clip for Swedish singer Emilia de Poret. Source: News.Au
'i even congratulated britney face to face! i was so stoked! she looked gorgeous and it was nice to have the biggest female pop artist back in the game. i’m ready for her to take over again, man. no shame.'Source: Paramore's Official Website
The following italicized article is from www.dailymail.co.uk:What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Britney Spears was a lost cause - a tragic figure of fun who lost custody of her two young sons in a blaze of flashbulbs and disastrous publicity. Her shambolic appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards last September - described as a 'car crash' by critics - was widely regarded as the death knell of a once unstoppable career. As the great and the good of the music industry watched agog, a paunchy, glassy-eyed Britney stumbled blindly through a rendition of her latest record, having lost the ability even to mime convincingly. Coming after months of erratic, often drug-fuelled madness - including a lengthy stint in a rehab clinic - it marked the moment when the public perception-of Britney Spears shifted from hilarity to tragedy. Not any more. This week the MTV awards returned, and stealing the show was a bronzed vision of health and vitality who was utterly unrecognisable from the shambling figure of 2007. Britney, 26, launched the event with a short comedy sketch alongside Hollywood actor Jonah Hill, before taking the stage to a standing ovation.
Looking every inch the toned, polished megastar, she swept the board. She had previously been nominated 16 times without winning a thing, but this week her dazzling smile said it all as she picked up the best video, best pop video and best female video awards. The song, Piece Of Me, was released at the height of her troubles, and the furore surrounding her public meltdown ensured respectable sales, with top ten chart positions all around the world.
(It was not, however, vintage Britney and many have seen the recognition given to the song as evidence of a poor year for pop music.) Before taking to the stage to collect her awards, Britney stopped to hug a slim, crop-haired man with a neatly-trimmed goatee beard. To the millions of fans watching on television he was just another meaningless backroom boy. To those in the know, however, he was the person who should have been receiving the plaudits. Larry Rudolph, the pop guru who made Britney a global star, is back in her life - and he might just have saved her life, too. Russell Brand, the controversial host of MTV Video Music Awards, demonstrated a typically tasteless turn of phrase in describing Britney as a 'female Christ' - but as showbusiness resurrections go, it was certainly impressive. This, remember, is a woman who just over six months ago was forcibly strapped to an ambulance trolley and dragged off to the psychiatric ward of a hospital.
She was sectioned twice in a month after doctors diagnosed her as being manic depressive with a borderline personality disorder, concluding that she was 'a danger to herself and to others.'So what is behind this extraordinary change in her fortunes? Could this really be the same young woman who used to drive around Los Angeles in a shocking pink wig, popping prescription pills like they were going out of fashion while an army of paparazzi recorded her every move? She may not have done a great deal more than smile and thank God 'for blessing me like this,' but as far as her fans and the American media are concerned, the transformation is complete. In gratingly over-the-top terms, the LA Times hailed her return as a 'triumph of the Olympian kind,' while the Washington Post headline declared: 'Spears is MTV's Comeback Kid.'But perhaps it is Perez Hilton, the leading gossip columnist whose online blog is read by tens of millions every day, who sums it up best. 'That's what people want - they want to see her smiling,' he says. 'Even if all she does is smile and wave, I say that's mission accomplished.'Even that simple achievement, however, has not been achieved without a rehabilitation campaign of military intensity. Britney has been under virtual house arrest ever since emerging from a mental health unit in the spring. It is thought to have been a voluntary arrangement, but the star has become painfully aware that her life had to change. She was, after all, mentally ill, and there were people all around her taking advantage of that fact. After her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, won custody of their two young children in February, she didn't sleep for four days and finally ended up in hospital getting the help she so desperately needed.Having been virtually estranged from her parents, Britney is now described as being 'incredibly close' to them again, so much so that her father, Jamie, now has official control of her assets. This represents a major turnaround, since at the height of her troubles Britney publicly blamed her woes on her father and Larry Rudolph. Now, Jamie says of the reconciliation: 'We've grown a lot. I've been able to come back into my daughter's life, and that was an adjustment anyway, because I'm an alcoholic and it's the first time we've really been able to share. 'It's wonderful. It's new for both of us. She sometimes calls me 50 times a day and asks me things that light my life up. But, like all daughters, she is very cunning. So she gets what she wants a lot.'At the beginning of his stewardship of Britney's assets - shared with her lawyer Andrew Wallet - Jamie gave up his career as a chef to care for his daughter around the clock at her home in California's San Fernando Valley. Along with her trusted advisers, however, he remains uncertain of her ability to cope on her own, and her affairs are likely to remain in the hands of others at least until the end of the year.
'I would hope that it stands until the end of the year, and then we'll sit back and evaluate where we are at the time, where Britney is at that time,' says her father. 'I do understand that my baby made this monster [a reference to the dire situation she found herself in] but when she was down, people took advantage.'Her mother, Lynne, has also been ushered back into the fold, despite spending their year of estrangement penning a warts-and-all book titled Through The Storm: A Real Story Of Fame And Family In A Tabloid World. Most important of all, however, has been the rapprochement between Britney and Larry Rudolph, the manager who oversaw her rise from sickly sweet pre-teen performing pastiches of modern hits on American kids television show, The Mickey Mouse Club, to global star with a £60million fortune to her name. It is thought the star's parents both contacted Rudolph after Britney hit rock bottom and begged him to come back into their daughter's life. For a long time, he was seen as a Svengali figure for her, and without him in her life she had no confidence in anything she did professionally.Those who have observed the singer for years were aware that for some time she was obliged to adopt a sweet and innocent facade which was patently false.First there was unrestrained hype about her being a virgin in a blatant bid to appeal to Middle America's puritan masses - when nothing could have been further from the truth - and then she started experimenting with drink and drugs. In short, she started to believe her own publicity and to think she could get away with anything. Not any longer, it would seem. I understand that Mr Rudolph agreed to take Britney on as a client again on the strict understanding that she would not take drugs or drink heavily, and that he would have the final say on all career decisions. This was a deal her parents were only too pleased to accept, and since Rudolph has returned to the fold the singer's circumstances have changed beyond recognition.Now, all the hangers-on are gone, Britney has been instructed to go to bed by 11pm at the latest, unless she's working, and people aren't even allowed to smoke around her. But Britney is said to thrive on such strict parameters.She has also overhauled her diet. Having lived on burgers, pizzas and sugary drinks for over a year she is limited to 1,200 calories a day. 'It may not sound much, but it's a lot of food if you eat the right things,' she says. 'And no sugar. I don't eat fruit or even drink fruit juice because of the sugar.' The results are there for all to see, with Britney dropping two dress sizes and almost two stones in weight. But just how realistic is this regime over the long term? Such concerns pale into insignificance when one considers how far Britney has come, and her family are delighted that Rudolph agreed to return. Negotiations to win him back were not easy. He is understood to have been wounded by the barbs aimed at him by a woman he had supported for so long.
Goaded on by her new management, Britney had told the world that Rudolph colluded with her father to 'force' her into rehab against her will. The implied subtext being that they were both motivated by greed and a desire to get their hands on her money.It is worthy of note, however, that in years gone by he also represented Britney's teenage sweetheart, Justin Timberlake - himself a huge star earning many millions of dollars every year. When the couple split up he could have jumped either way, but remained loyal to Britney. Industry insiders believe this principled decision has personally cost Rudolph five million dollars as Timberlake's career has soared. And he remains reluctant to discuss his return to the fold. Earlier this summer, he went on record to admit: 'I have spent time with her, and she is on the right path because she has people around her who care about her well-being. But this isn't the time to talk business. This is a time for healing.'The Rudolph connection led to one slightly awkward moment behind the scenes at the MTV awards this week, when the heiress Paris Hilton invited Britney to 'hang out and party' with her. (The pair know each other of old, and last year spent many a night together drinking into the small hours.) An embarrassed Britney is understood to have made her excuses and left, for fear of invoking the wrath of her manager. The next day, Britney and Rudolph were spotted leaving the Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills. Britney was dressed in a modest black outfit and resolutely refused to smile for the paparazzi who had been alerted to her presence. And, with the old team back in harness, Britney had successfully hidden from photographers for months, working quietly on her health and fitness in preparation for a renewed assault on the charts. There is even talk of bringing Britney's trusted PA of a decade's standing, Felicia Culotta, back into her inner circle after the pair fell out at the height of Britney's mental health problems - whereupon Felicia resigned her position to become a teacher. Not all associates are so welcome, however. A restraining order has been taken out on Sam Lutfi, the manager who dominated her life last year (Britney's mother, Lynne, claims that Lutfi would grind up prescription pills and put them in Britney's food, hoping to put her in a coma that would allow doctors to cure her of all addictions). Meanwhile, Britney has made a well-received cameo appearance on the hit television show How I Met Your Mother, and has been back in the studio recording material for a new album. She has even been granted access to her sons, Sean, three, and Jayden, two. For all her rediscovered self confidence, however, it has been noted by music critics in the U.S. that Britney's MTV awards comeback consisted of little more than smiling, being polite and walking in a straight line. Just a few months ago she was barely capable of performing any one of these feats, let alone all three at the same time, but the jury is still out on whether she can ever recapture past form. The latest speculation surrounds a mooted appearance on stage with Madonna for the Los Angeles leg of the latter's current world tour, though doubts persist as to whether she will be up to it. Whether Britney will be able to maintain her delicate equilibrium at all over the long term, only time will tell. But if Larry Rudolph has anything to do with it, the girl America is falling in love with all over again might just succeed.Source: Daily Mail
In People Magazine's latest issue, Lynne Spears opens up about her insecurities as a mother, Britney & Justin's relationship, Britney's first and second marriage, her stay in rehab, the hospital visits and more. A very well-written, positive article.Source: Breathe Heavy
Britney opens up to OK! Magazine about her latest album, her relationship with mom Lynne, and her current support system in their latest issue out on stands now. "Regardless of what people might think, Britney's isn't upset about Lynne's book," an insider tells OK!. "I'm at a stage where I really appreciate her a lot more," Britney said. And according to Britney, her next album is her "best work ever." "It's more urban. I'm working with producers who are just amazing, and I'm writing every day.""Britney's road back is such an extraordinary journey that it is being documented daily on videotape by one of her staff members," reports OK!. "Some of the video will be seen on her reworked Web site, which will relaunch in advance of the album release." Source: Breateh Heavy
Britney Spears steps out for a business dinner Thursday at Hollywood's Little Door Restaurant while MTV's VMA host – and Spears's promo partner – Russell Brand (not pictured) dined there as well. "He came over to her table and said hello," a source tells PEOPLE. "They were not having dinner together."Source: People
The following italicized article is from www.people.com:Britney Spears and her family have donated an autographed portrait of the singer for charity, with a starting bid of $10,000 on eBay. The 5-by-4-foot oil painting of the pop star was given to the L.A.-based Promises Foundation, which provides behavioral health services to low-income women and their children. "The Spears family gave us this painting out of their generosity," says the organization's director, Lisa Rogg. "It was their idea for the auction." The eBay page shows several photos of Spears standing next to the artwork, as well as a letter of authenticity from her father, Jamie, which states: "I hereby verify that the portrait of my daughter, Britney, has been in our home since it was completed by the Daniel Maltman Studio."Source: People
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The following italicized article is from www.eonline.com:
