A defiant Britney Spears takes on the tabloids

Britney Spears hasn’t even reached her 25^th birthday and she has already made her mark in the music world.  Not only did her first album “Baby One More Time” hit number one, she followed that up not just one more time— but three, for a total of four consecutive albums debuting at number one. No other female artist has done that, not even Madonna who introduced Britney to Kabbalah and taught her that a kiss is not just a kiss— not if it’s on MTV.

Win McNamee / Reuters file Britney Spears gets a kiss on the mouth from Madonna as they opened the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, August 28, 2003.

I met Britney right after her first taste of success, when she performed at the Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller center back in 1999.

Matt Lauer (Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting ceremony, 1999): This has been such an amazing year for you have you had time to stop and enjoy it?

Britney Spears: Actually things have been so crazy and things have been moving so fast but I was home for a week for thanksgiving and I totally realized how blessed I have been this past year.  It gave me time to really think about things. It has been really amazing.

And although she has come a long way since that interview— now a very rich woman with a reported net worth of more than $100 million— Britney says she is still the same down home girl from Kentwood, Lousiana.

Matt Lauer: It seemed for awhile that people would describe you they’d say, “She’s this great, young thing from the South,” you know, “small town girl.”

Brintey Spears: I still am, man.

Lauer:   I know.  I know.  But they—

Spears: I make good tea okay?

Lauer: But then all of a sudden they started to use that Southern background in a different way.  The tone of it changed.  All of a sudden—

Spears: They make you feel like you have to have your transformation.

Lauer: Well—

Spears:   Madonna reinvents herself.  Right?

Lauer:  Right.

Spears: Yeah.

Lauer: But they started saying, “Maybe she’s a little bit of a red neck.”  You started to hear that it wasn’t a good thing that all of a sudden it wasn’t a good thing, your roots.  They started to try and make it a negative thing.  How did you feel about that?

Spears: I think with anybody who’s doing well in the public eye or whatever, there’s always gonna be a shift because people don’t wanna see somebody happy all the time.  And they’re gonna try to take shots at people.  You know they did the same thing to Goldie Hawn when she did her show and before she did "Private Benjamin."

And then all of a sudden she became like this—“Oh my God!  She’s a star.” But they still gave her flack for her past and her—

Lauer: Does the term bother you when you hear “red neck”?  Because it’s not used in a Gretchen Wilson—proud... well, it’s not used that way. 

Spears: I think that’s just cruel, you know?  I think that’s cruelty when you judge people and—I’m not a Bible Belt.  You know, I feel like when you put labels on people like that and you do that, at the end of the day, they’re just words.  And that’s what I have to look at them as. You have to be really strong and just be like, “If that’s what you wanna say, then… you know… okay.”

And this Louisiana girl now lives in luxury in California. Because of security concerns, she did not want us to show her home. She did give us a tour of her lush backyard and admits that although she’s not desperate—she’s a housewife through and through.

Dateline Lauer interviewed Spears at her home. The popstar did not want Dateline to show her home, though she gave Matt Lauer a tour of her lush backyard.

Spears: I like to cook, try to cook, and I like to clean. I’m obsessive like that. If I watch TV, I like to watch the home-redoing-the-house shows— the whole thing— and I get into redoing the living room, the baby’s room and all that stuff.

Lauer: So do you clean the house by yourself?

Spears: I have a maid that comes in once a week, but she slacks a little bit (makes face.)

Lauer: So if I were to come here and ring the doorbell by surprise, you’d be vacuuming, doing the toilets?

Spears: Doing the laundry, everything, mmm hmm.

Lauer: See, there’s a side of you we didn’t know...

Spears: Oh honey, that is the real me, honey!

Lauer: I pictured there would be housekeepers around here.

Spears: This house is so big, I have to have some help.

In early fall, Britney will have another room to clean—never mind diapers to change when baby number two arrives.

Lauer: How far along are you?

Spears: I don’t know.  I think six to seven months.

Lauer: So you’re due in September?

Spears: Uh-huh (affirms).

Lauer: Do you know what you’re having?

Spears: I do not know.

Lauer: Are you gonna try to find out?

Spears: No, I’m gonna be surprised.  I’m very excited.

Lauer: Talk about motherhood.

Spears: Motherhood.

Lauer: Yeah.

Spears: It’s amazing.

Lauer: Is it what you thought it would be?

Spears: It’s more.

Lauer:  In what way?

Spears: I mean you could possibly never realize you could love something that much.

Lauer: Was that the way it was from the very beginning?

Spears: Oh yeah.  The moment I saw him just it’s amazing.  Words can’t really describe.

Lauer:  Tell me about him.  Describe him a little bit for me.  I love to hear mothers describe their children.

Spears: We’ll make this interview about other stuff now if that’s...

Lauer: Okay.

Spears: —okay.  I love—

Lauer: That’s all right.

Spears: —my son and you know, that’s great.  And I wanted to touch on some things with my husband because of the tabloids, that I try to keep my baby out of this whole thing.

MORE FROM DATELINE

Dateline Section Front

Mystery at Lost Dog Road Slideshow: Photos in the Bob Duke case When The Smoke Clears   Sneak peek: When The Smoke Clears Slideshow: The Christie Fleming murder Transcript: Dan Brown and Secrets Of The Lost Symbol Through The Pouring Rain In Plain Sight: Jaycee Dugard Timeline: Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping The Michael Jackson Tapes Dateline Section Front   Add Dateline headlines to your news reader: