• Britney may end up not getting her entire appearance fee from Pure, where she "fell asleep" on New Year's Eve. Which is too bad — she needs to put that money towards a whole new wardrobe, publicist, face, image, and brain. [Gatecrasher]
  

We had a feeling that the latest image hit (for the sake of argument, let's pretend that there is still some kind of image to be hit) that Britney Spears suffered in the wake of her New Year's Eve Effen-induced nap-collapse would require that the stay-at-club mom once again communicate directly (and by "directly," we of course mean "through a carefully worded publicist statement that vaguely sounds like it might have been dictated by a developmentally stunted onetime pop star") with her fans through her website, letting them know that any fears they might have about her being on the verge of an "emergency appendectomy" are the fault of the sleep-suspicious false tabloids. Reassureth Britney:

Today's Britney haircolor has the concerned citizens at the Post, well, concerned-er: they don't even recognize the "bloated" "pop tart" anymore, and they wonder how she can get back into "the nubile shape of her glory days." Luckily, LA expert-for-rent Robert R. Butterworth, Ph.D. is here with some answers. "Other than a brain operation, I think she's going to have to get a personal trainer and work as hard as Madonna does," he tells the Post. Ahh, yes, the old "brain operation" — our psychologist suggests that all the time. Anyway, another of Butterworth's resonant insights is that even aging ex-Catwoman Julie Newmar is looking less haggard than Britney these days: "At 70, this woman looks better than Britney at 25!" We trusted Butterworth's expertise on the brain operation front, but this assertion seemed more specious. So we looked into it.

We're pretty sure what Britney Spears' manager Larry Rudolph meant by "rocky" was that his client has been navigating the choppy publicity waters that accompany binge partying and unobstructed crotch shots hitting the internets, but we prefer the quote as it appears in this People headline, with an upper-case "R" in Rocky. With America's greatest heavyweight champion underdog once again back in theaters and beating all box office odds, is there any role model after whom to better fashion Spears' increasingly long-shot comeback chances? Her return to former glory is a mere workout montage away, with the singer huffing and puffing up the Beverly Center escalator stairs to the strains of "Gonna Fly Now," and climaxing with her leaping into the air triumphantly at its summit. (Which, less inspirationally, causes Spears to lose her grip on her toddler son and watch in helpless, contorted horror as he bounces down every grooved step to the platform below.)

The question seemed inevitable following Monday's reports that Britney Spears celebrated the New Year by quickly drinking herself into a sudden, paralytic nap-like state at a Vegas nightclub, but don't get your hopes up about reading a message on her website announcing, "Whew, all this partying is making me tired! I'm going away for a little while, y'all. I can't say where, but I Promises I won't be gone more than 28 days!!!" The Scoop dutifully passes along a story from the always reliable Life & Style claiming that Spears merely checked into the spa Sanctuary on New Year's Day, where she can lock herself in the Sanctum and wash away the icky feelings caused by overindulging in Pure's freely flowing sleepytime juice in its vitality pool and deluge shower. Once initially cleansed, she can then spend some time being pampered by a session of lotus flower aquatic reflexology, in which a therapist releases blockages in her energy meridians, allowing her to momentarily put aside the nagging feeling that she forgot to tell her mother to come over and watch the babies while she jetted off for a couple of days of me-time.

We secretly feared that we'd return from our all-too-brief vacation to find the entire landscape of brain-smoothing tabloid gossip rendered unrecognizable by a new cast of characters spawned in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, but luckily for us, Hollywood's Celebutard Continuity Department was hard at work ensuring that the earliest moments of 2007 were nearly indistinguishable from those of late '06. Depending on which account you read, serial vagina-flasher Britney Spears "collapsed," "passed out," or "decided to take a little cat nap" in the middle of Caesar's Palace's Pure nightclub in Vegas (motto: "What happens here, stays here, unless we can use your drunken antics for publicity purposes"), with an unconscious/sleeping Spears either being dragged out of the venue by her ankles or floating out peacefully on a pink, fluffy cloud while dreaming of teddy bears serenading the pop star and her well-cared-for babies with soothing lullabies. Even though Britney's reps have maintained that Child Protective Services hasn't been monitoring her well-publicized return to the club circuit (they've already written off Sean Preston and the other one as losses), that's no guarantee that its Pre-Neglect Division won't view her New Year's Eve misadventures as a red flag and swoop in to tie Spears' tubes before she and an opportunistic bouncer with dreams of a short-lived music career can produce a new litter of ignored offpsring.

How was your New Years? If you're anything like Britney Spears, you got so wasted that you had to have your people carry you out of the club again. And if you're anything like the New York Post, you got so wasted that you're currently so hungover that you couldn't even be bothered to reconcile the two conflicting accounts of Spears' collapse on your website. Which is it, 'BOOZY' BRITNEY FAINTS or the AP's contradictory 'Spears Falls Asleep At Vegas Nightclub'? The latter has the maligned Spears "finally . . . acting like a new mom" by dozing off after leading the New Year's Eve countdown at Pure, and quotes manager Larry Rudolph as saying that Spears "was not drunk." The Post's own take is closer to the Daily News's, citing reports from "witnesses" who saw Spears "talking with one of her male dancers on a tented cabana bed when she said she wanted to leave, stood up and "she went into a dead faint and just fell right to the floor."

• The top 9 celebrity sex tapes that never existed—much to our collective chagrin. [Derek Hail]
  

Essentially, what we're looking at is this: Britney Spears shows us a good solid week's worth of muff, and all we get to see on her website is some eerily Heaven's Gate-esque stream of purple shit emanating from a framed nine lines of grammatically incorrect tripe.

• "As Britney keeps losing her identity and credibility within fans and industry people, so is World of Britney," says the webmaster of the popular site, explaining why he's closing its virtual doors forever. We're still in her corner, though, obviously. Classy makeover! Any day now! [TMZ]
  

• Before you order that Gowanus Neighborhoodie, make sure the zipper's in the right place. [Gowanus Lounge]
  

The New York Dog and The Hollywood Dog magazines have named their worst celebrity pet owner of 2006: Somewhat fittingly, the honor bestowed upon Paris Hilton last year goes to her partner in cooch-flashing, pooch-neglecting crime, Britney Spears:

Serial cooterbitionist Britney Spears may have recently rediscovered the confidence enhancing pleasures of the ladies' underpanty, but it seems as though she still hasn't quite gotten out of her system all the "on the town with friends"-going (even on her birthday, y'all!) she's sacrificed over the past couple years in the name of a higher, procreational calling. TMZ's camcorder-equipped centurions were on hand to capture yet another of her nocturnal adventures, a carefree evening of baby-free fun that turned dark when a bystander at The Standard "pulled the car door open and proceeded to jump around crazily." The stunning video is here, with the googley-eyed, lunatic leaper in aqua satinware making his terrifying appearance just before the midway mark. Like a crazed Muppet out of her darkest nightmares, Britney won't soon forget his shameless mugging for the paparazzi, nor those chilling, final words of "Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay!" before he got bored and wandered away, and she courageously managed to slam shut her SUV door.

We all remember just where we were and what we were doing back in late November, when the entire world very nearly shook itself to pieces over the sight of Britney Spears's extremely naked vagina. Those few of us still alive may justly wonder at the long-term effects. Long-term in the sense of approximately three weeks, that is. Intern Mary is on the case, and we knew our universe had changed forever just with a glimpse at the raw data — 87 Britney Spears press mentions pre-vagflash, and a staggering 464 mentions post-vagflash. After the jump, consider the numbers.

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are now posted several times a week—so send them in before attending to other basic human needs. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you saw Andy Dick fight a losing battle with the call of nature in the Beverly Center 8th floor men's room.

· Take a good look at this guy. (Record producer "DJ Jazzy" Jonathan "JR" Rotem, if you must know his name.) He was supposedly seen making out with Britney Spears, meaning that there's at least a fifty percent chance he'll be the father of her next child.
Meanwhile, Paris Hilton valiantly defends Britney Spears' mothering skills and partying ethics, claiming that a woman with small children who likes to get out of the house once in a while to flash her cooch isn't necessarily a bad mom.
Lindsay Lohan's hitting the pole, but she's not taking her clothes off. We'll grudgingly put up with such shenanigans from someone of Natalie Portman's abilities and level of class, but not from someone whose career high points are Mean Girls and begging Al Gore to ask the media to be nice to her.
Hey, Bigfoot pleasuring a unicorn! [Note to Fox Interactive types—disabling embedding on your promotional videos makes them much less fun. Free the handjobbing Sasquatch!]

We just didn't know it was Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (seriously, she wasn't in New Kids on the Block, like, at all). It's only an 80% match, though — Brian at Banterist gave us the idea to do this by sending us the top match, Jake Gyllenhall, but we're not seeing that one at all. Also, Myheritage.com usually tells us we look like Johnny Depp, and it's widely agreed on that we actually look like Macaulay Culkin, so we tend to take their findings with a hefty grain of salt.

Earlier: Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Britney's Taste in Dudes

As Page Six reported today, our very most favorite coochie-flashing divorcee has a new man in her life: one Jonathan "J.R." Rotem. He's a music producer — a clip of him producing (cough) music (cough cough!) is after the jump. Also, that picture to the right is either his MySpace glamorshot or an NKOTB poster we had on our wall in fourth grade, take your pick.

Paris Hilton's publicist quashes rumors that she and Britney Spears like to engage in hot, celebutard-on-poptard action, thereby reducing public interest in their shenanigans by at least 80 percent.
Making a socially conscious studio film with an indie sensibility is just so much harder when the paparazzi won't let you get a plate of curry without harassment.
· And speaking of harassment, Superman Returns producer Jon Peters' rep calls the lawsuit with all the naked bear-hugging and boyparts-exposing allegations "frivolous."
Here's a way to protest Mel Gibson, but see Apocalypto anyway.
· This is only the second best 911 call of the day.

Unless you're blind, you undoubtedly saw Britney's bits flashed all over the internets last week. We certainly did, and it's haunted our dreams ever since. But we wondered about the logistics of a crotch shot. Are they, like, encouraged by sleazy photo agencies out to make a buck? Do celebs always know what's going on, or are they truly shocked—shocked!—to discover their undercarriages hanging out all over the tabloids (and everywhere else)? And so on and so forth. To answer our pressing questions, we turned to Harvey Levin, grand poobah of perpetual gossip roundup source TMZ, and a photographer from a major celebrity photo agency who asked to remain nameless. Their words of wisdom about Brit's vag after the jump.