Britney bites back

By SAMANTHA ETTUS
Scripps Howard News Service
14-APR-05

Imagine living in a world where tabloids engage in bidding wars for photographs of you pumping gas or going to Starbucks. Or if you kissed your husband while your cell phone started ringing and your sideways glance caused a magazine's body-language "expert" to proclaim your relationship on the rocks.

That's the world of Britney Spears.

Her transition to adulthood was smooth, yet abrupt. Though exceedingly famous, she was protected by two central figures in her life: mom Lynne Spears and doe-eyed boyfriend Justin Timberlake.

But just three years later, Timberlake has moved on to a camera-friendly relationship with Cameron Diaz and a successful solo career, while Spears has skipped straight to adulthood with a quickie marriage to unemployed dancer and bad boy Kevin Federline.

If the press had cooked up a character like Federline for the once-iconic Spears to fall for, we never would have believed it. But for those of us who were watching closely, it wasn't a surprise. She had become increasingly rebellious _ smoking, partying and willfully turning her back on the wholesome image that propelled her to stardom.

Now her transition is both official and complete with her pregnancy.

The tabloids have been reporting this news for weeks, and last week she confirmed her pregnancy on her blog (online diary).

By engineering the release of her story and creating her own media firestorm, Spears marked what might be the beginning of a power shift in Hollywood.

Spears and Federline's handling of their upcoming reality series follows the same pattern, reflecting a concerted effort to direct media coverage and influence public perception.

Unlike their reality-TV predecessors, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson of MTV's "Newlyweds," Spears and Federline control the footage for their upcoming six-episode series, which will focus on their courtship and marriage. By selling already shot footage to UPN rather than allowing the cameras into their homes, Spears has governed public access to her private life. She has explained that, like her blog, this series is an effort to set the record straight _ and take control of her own story.

You can bet that this maneuver will serve as an inspirational model for other celebrities locked in their own power struggles with the tabloids. While they can't control the misleading photos or weekly speculation, members of Hollywood's elite have not lost complete control of their message.

Can we declare a winner in the battle? No.

But the field of play might have just dramatically and irrevocably shifted.

Remember: The most dependable road to the top is to treat your personal brand as your greatest asset.

(Samantha Ettus is the author of "The Experts' Guide to 100 Things Everyone Should Know How to Do" (Random House). Contact her at Samantha(at)celebrityassets.com.)