A defiant Britney Spears takes on the tabloids

Britney Spears: I’m very, very blessed. But my safety, my privacy, and my respect are three things that I feel like are trying to be taken away from me right now. As a mother I have to speak up and say something. I have to speak up.

Matt Lauer • Profile

One of Britney Spears’ songs is called “Do Something,” and that’ s just what a defiant Britney Spears set out to do in a Dateline interview broadcast Thursday — and she’s taking on the tabloids.

After a year of screaming headlines scrutinizing her husband, their marriage, and most stinging of all, her abilities as a mother, she’s not just dealing with some bad press— but an image implosion.

Matt Lauer, NBC News:  Oftentimes in my end of the business, we have to beg people to do interviews. And yet it seem as if you’re anxious to talk at this particular state in you life. You've got some things you’d like to address.

Spears: I think because I was pregnant with my son, I didn’t want to do interviews. I wanted it to be a little private. But I think 90 percent of the world would agree that the tabloids have kind of gone a little far with me lately. You try not to respond to trash because that’s what it is. But you know, I think they’ve crossed the line a little bit.

So Britney is drawing her own line in the sand— taking on what she sees as an overly intrusive and downright dangerous tabloid press.

It’s just one of many things we discuss in a refreshingly honest no holds-barred interview.

A pregnant Britney invited us to her California home to talk about it all: her career, her past loves, the state of her marriage, and those now infamous mommy mistakes.

Lauer: You’ve got this incredible place that you call home that you and Kevin built together. Is it a sanctuary… or at times does this feel a little like a prison?

Spears: No, it’s a sanctuary totally. My dad comes here and he’s like “Oh my god, I feel like I’m at a resort. It’s awesome here. I love it.”

Although she seems to still be a sweet Southern girl, dressed down in casual clothes, chewing gum firmly planted in her mouth, it may surprise you that Britney Spears has become one tough cookie. 

Spears:  I don’t allow anybody to change me. I still walk out of my house in rollers when I take walks. I do not care what people think and I think that’s why they keep on talking is because I know they can’t touch me.

Lauer: So you have a little bit of a “blank you” attitude about it now.

Spears: Yeah, basically. I mean you have to. I mean, I have to live my life. I have a family now and I just think it’s absurd to let other people influence the way you live. 

Britney is of course no stranger to being under the media microscope. The 24-year-old has been in front of the cameras more than half of her young life. We first got to know her as a pre-teen Mouseketeer along with future boyfriend Justin Timberlake and fellow singing sensation Christina Aguilerra on "The New Mickey Mouse Club."

And then, just six years later, she hit the big time. Clad in that now famous school girl uniform, a then 17-year-old Spears became a sensation with “Baby One More Time,” her first number one hit.

She was not just a pop star but a phenomenon, selling millions of records and attracting worldwide media attention. But she says the scrutiny she’s living with now is a completely different ballgame.

Spears: It’s not just like how it used to be where they would just like take your picture, give you respect and then you’d walk by. It’s like scary. They just come out of nowhere. And you’re like… “oh my gosh.”

Lauer: Without giving anything away, you live in a house that’s surrounded by a fence. You have a gate. You’ve got security, you’ve got a detail— people who are here all the time. Without that you would feel vulnerable...

Spears: And I still have helicopters [hovering over my house] that come twice a day.

Lauer:  Just trying to get a picture of you at the pool?

Spears: Just anything. And they put the captions on their magazines, “Baby in danger” and stuff like that—which is really silly. But I wouldn’t be in danger if I didn’t have like this impactful thing around me all the time. I just feel like the editors they don’t realize that there’s not just one magazine—there’s other magazines and they’re all paying to get a story. And I think that's where the energy from the people is coming from. It’s kind of scary. I can’t really leave my home right now.

And also scary, in a world built on image, is how all those headlines— that Britney has a lousy marriage, that her husband plays around, that she is a bad mother — no matter how untrue are affecting just how the public sees Britney Spears.

Not that she’s hasn’t been down the bumpy road of damage control before. As she transformed herself from the idol of little girls everywhere to a sexier version the boys could like as well, people began to question whether she was an appropriate role model for their kids.

And she only added to the controversy by vowing to remain a virgin until marriage— a pledge that was questioned every time a new sexy video was released.

Lauer: Let me ask you if there was a turning point. It seems to me as an outsider looking in, it seemed for awhile you lived a charmed life. You were that blonde little girl that everyone loved, the squeaky clean image—even if every once in a while you kinda sexed it up a little bit and caught people by surprise. And everybody said great things about you. They wanted you to be a role model for their daughter. And then all of a sudden it seemed that the press turned. And they decided that maybe you were someone they wanted to take some shots at.

Spears: They like to have the person they pick on. I feel like I’m a target and I feel like other girls are. At a certain point in everybody’s career, they’ll get it.

Lauer: But when did it happen in your career? Was there something you did that brought it on?

Spears: Usually breakups in personal lives. It starts to happen. Look at Jessica Simpson for instance. They’re being so rude to her right now… her split with Nick.

Dave Hogan / Getty Images Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears attend the MTV Music Video Awards together on September 7, 2000.

Britney says her own breakup with first love Justin Timberlake four years ago was the beginning of the end of not only their love affair, but the press’ love affair with her.

By the time a wounded Justin alluded to a betrayal by Britney in his song “Cry Me a River,” it was clear Britney spears was no longer America’s sweetheart.

Lauer: So do you think perhaps the breakup with Justin was when you started to sense the tide turning a little bit in your life?  There were allegations about infidelity. Did that put the spotlight on you in a negative sense?

Spears: Yes, I do. There was a little shift there definitely.

And then, she gave the tabloids a present wrapped in a big bow: a quickie Vegas wedding to her childhood friend Jason Alexander in January 2004 and almost as quick was the annulment that followed.

Spears: Oh that was just silly.

Lauer: But do you think that gave the press something to talk about?

Spears: Yeah, definitely.

She says she understands now that the marriage was an act of rebellion on her part.

Spears: I was on the road for awhile and again I was doing a lot of what I was told instead of what I wanted to really do. And I didn’t know how to break out of that. So in my young mind I’m like, “I’m gonna just get married to someone of my home friends.” You know what I mean. It was just like something. But I have no regrets with anything I’ve ever done.

And that includes her relationship with her present husband Kevin Federline, father of their 9- month-old son Sean Preston.

When Britney met Kevin in a Los Angeles club two years ago, he was a back up dancer and already a young dad, having fathered a child with actress Shar Jackson and another baby on the way.

Lauer: So much was written and said about the way the relationship began between you and Kevin. Not so much about the way it began, but the time of it's beginning… that he left his girlfriend when she was pregnant.

Spears: Uh-huh.

Lauer: I think six months pregnant, Shar was at the time, Britney. Did that bother you?  Did you stop and think,  “Wait a second. That’s a very delicate situation.”

Spears: Actually, I didn’t know. I didn’t know until two months later. But I don’t blame him because him and his friends—I’ve talked to his friends about this. They weren’t technically together when he came to me anyways. But that happened with Julia Roberts too. But it’s more talked about and more of an issue with me. Her husband was married. But for some reason it’s like, "boom, in your face" when it happens with me and it’s really none of anybody’s business.

Britney is referring to Julia Roberts’ relationship with husband Danny Moder—who was married when they met but did not have any children.

Lauer: You said a couple of times to me already you believe in karma. And as someone who is now several months pregnant, do you ever stop and think, “You know, he left someone else when she was a couple of months pregnant.” Does that ever cross your mind?

Spears: No. Cause we’re very happy together right now.

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