10 Unsolved Mysteries About The Life And Career Of Britney Spears

1. Catfishney

Did Britney go trolling around online looking to chat with her fans? Maybe! In 2010 and 2011 a girl, or perhaps a series of girls, sounding suspiciously like Britney started to pop up in chat rooms frequented by fans. This mysterious girl called herself a series of pseudonyms such as Alice and Martha. Surprisingly only a few instances of this were recorded, but all of them are fascinating. You’d think somebody who sounded that much like the princess of pop could make a bundle of money on her skill, but so far nobody has come forward as the impostor. Was it Britney herself? With her isolated lifestyle it’s not entirely inconceivable. Britney herself has tweeted about “messing around” on GoChatGo with her assistant. Listen to this sample and this sample and decide for yourself.

2. Original Doll

The plight of this album is legendary among Britney Fans. A few tracks have surfaced, either through official release or leaks, but for the most part the public has only a vague idea of what this project would have been like. Britney announced the album and played the demo of the intended lead single “Mona Lisa” on KISS-FM during late December in 2004. She had arrived at the studio with zero notice or promotion and launched herself at the stations’ hosts. Her label has since denied the existence of the album, which Britney had claimed was more than half finished. In 2004 Spears did not have a Twitter or Facebook account with which to communicate to her fans directly, so it’s likely that Spears surmised that a radio station would be the quickest and surest way to get the job done. The lyrics to “Mona Lisa,” much like a lot of Britney’s early discography, would prove more insightful and prescient as time passed. Perhaps if Britney had been able to complete the project without the alleged label interference she’d have been in different circumstances today.

3. Rebellion

Related to Original Doll, Britney released a clip of this track to BritneySpears.com, on which she had been posting personal letters and media to her fans. The track itself is interesting only in that it showed a new, darker, and defiant side to Britney as a songwriter. Fans have obsessed over this track for years, building it up to be the holy grail of Britney’s unreleased catalog. The lyrics, though fairly benign, have been interrupted to reflect Spears’ attitude towards the public, her family, her management, or even the Illuminati. What’s strange is that, for all that value and focus placed upon it, the actual track has yet to leak to the public.

4. “Merry Christmas!”

With absolutely zero explanation, Britney randomly hauled out the holly, screaming “Merry Christmas!” during a performance of “Do Something” on The Circus Tour …in March. Why did she do this? Nobody has any clue.

5. Plastic Surgery

Google “Britney’s nose” or “Britney’s boobs” and you’ll found over a million online debates over what exactly, if anything, Britney’s had done. Her nose has subtly changed over the years, but that could be due to contoured makeup and aging. Her breasts, long the topic of public consumption, have seemed to grow and shrink with a mind of their own… but then again we all know about the magical powers of water bras. Spears has clearly had occasional lip injections and has been seen visiting liposuction clinics. I tend to think its really none of our business what she does with her own body. The objectification of Spears has been detrimental to her and to a generation of girls who watched us pick her apart. Despite this, the issue is undeniably a huge topic of debate.

6. Jason Alexander

Nowadays Britney is the queen of the Vegas strip, but once upon a time she was one of it’s just-add-water blushing brides… for all of 55 hours. Spears married childhood friend Jason Alexander (not to be confused with George from Seinfeld) apropos of nothing and then, perhaps realizing her mistake, had it immediately annulled. Alexander later said of the incident “‘We were just looking at each other and said, ‘Let’s do something wild, crazy. Let’s go get married, just for the hell of it.’” No other explanation of the event has ever been given. Years later Alexander (allegedly) hired a Spears sound-alike to fake some private and scandalous phone calls from the star. Those have never really been explained either.

7. Censoring “Sin”

“Living in ‘nis’ is the new thing”? Uh, what? On Britney’s #1 single “3” somebody down the line decided that the track about threesomes needed the word “sin” censored. Why? “Sin” isn’t an expletive, and it’s far from the most objectionable content on the track. Yet it was altered. Was English not the first language of the staff at Spears’ label? Who knows?

8. The “Gimme More” Video

The “Gimme More” video we have today was only intended as b-roll (b-roll sounds like a dance movie Britney would have done) for the plot of the video as it was originally conceived. Spears’ original concept would have seen a dark-haired rebellious version of the star murdering and attending the funeral for a blonde-haired Spears. Some, but not all, of footage of the video has been leaked online. Why wasn’t all of it shot? Spears was the biggest star in the entire world and at the height of her infamy during the video’s shoot and the label wasn’t willing to pony-up for a proper video? Strange.

9. Justin Timberlake

The prince and princess of pop broke off their fairytale romance and we have no idea why. Their post breakup song releases “Cry Me a River” and “Everytime” have insinuated that Spears cheated on Timberlake, allegedly with mutual choreographer and songwriter Wade Robson. Did they really end their years-long romance over a one-time affair with a mutual friend? Cheating has been said to simply be a symptom of the real problems in a relationship.

10. The 2007 VMAs

– Tighten your weaves, kids. We’re about to talk it through. Britney is known for her show stopping VMA performances and this one, well… this particular performance certainly stopped the show. Britney opened the proceedings with a dance and lip-sync run of the track “Gimme More” and the public found the results underwhelming. Spears looked (relative to her former self) out of shape, drowsy, and lost. It didn’t help that this even occurred right as YouTube was catching on with the general public, allowing the world to relive the number over and over. Criss Angel was originally tapped to design illusions for Spears’ performance, but he’s stated that plans were dropped after Spears felt it would require too much rehearsal. Maybe she should have reconsidered that notion. So what happened? Was she high? Was she just underprepared? Did she crack under the pressure of expectation? I hope she writes a memoir one day and tells the whole story once and for all.