The big question Britney had to answer in 2000 was: 'Is she a one-hit wonder?'

Sure she wowed them with her breakthrough video and CD, which kept spawning hit after hit, like "Crazy."

But could she make lightning strike twice? Britney had an answer to all the doubters.

Her second CD, "Oops, I Did It Again," proved she could, in fact, do it again -- and again. The appearance during the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, where she ripped off her suit to reveal a nude-colored, sequined costume, secured her place in the music industry firmament.

By age 19 she was a bonafide pop star and a multimillionaire, hawking her own fashion doll and later a video game and books.

Lea Goldman: The tours are selling out and the endorsers start knocking on her door.

Britney's stunning success on the tour circuit, combined with her knockout looks and moves, made her a corporate marketer's dream.

Lea Goldman, former Senior Editor, Forbes Magazine: Pepsi, Clairol, Sketchers, Samsung, Kirin Beer in Japan, which is a big market. So really the names you want to have if you're a top-notch star, she's bagged.

That deal with Pepsi? One of the biggest in the soft-drink company's history, reportedly netting her as much as $10 million a year.

There was so much money and fame for Britney. Some of her friends back home in Kentwood would wonder if it was all a bit too much, too soon for the town's favorite daughter. Yet it seemed there was no stopping her. She even had the handsome, popular boy to go with all the good fortune, Justin Timberlake, then a member of the hugely successful boy band *NSync.

He was a pop star in his own right. The two were now the music industry's "sexy young couple."

Even more than her mother, Justin was the person Britney could trust, the one who knew what it took to make it to the top and survive.

Vanessa Grigoriadis, Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone magazine: Any of her old girlfriends have said that she was so deeply in love with him. And that he really became the person who was like the one person that she didn't feel was trying to get anything from her.

Britney could also count on Justin to be secure about her growing fame. In promoting her 2002 debut movie “Crossroads,” she told NBC's TODAY show about her kissing scene with another boy.

Britney Spears: I'm thinking of Justin, I’m thinking of Justin!

Katie Couric: Did Justin feel OK about that?

Britney Spears: Yeah, he was fine. He just knows that's a part of what we do.

Her fans might have wanted to hear the steamy details, but their moms, who were buying the records, definitely did not. The press picked up on it, especially when Britney tried to calm parental fears with this public declaration…

Britney Spears: Yes, I’m a virgin...

Apparently, though, Britney should have been speaking in the past tense.

Vanessa: They both basically said that they were sleeping together during that time … I mean, it's kind of amazing that more people didn't see through that at the time.

But if Britney thought she could control her relationship and the way everyone else saw it, she was about to get a hard knocks lesson. Just after the release of Britney's first movie, “Crossroads,” the couple dropped a bombshell: they were calling it quits. Rumors were swirling.

Vanessa: There have been certainly accounts that she did, you know, cheat on him, and that is why he broke up with her. And that's something that's weighed heavily on her, because it was a decision that she made out of weakness.

Later that year, it appeared Justin was putting truth to the talk with the song “Cry Me a River,” reportedly about Britney's infidelity and their breakup.

It wasn't the only loss she'd suffer that year. Months after her split from Justin, Britney's other world in Kentwood, La., was coming apart. Her parents were getting divorced. It would later surface that Britney's father had been battling a drinking problem for years. Perhaps this might have been the time for Britney to take a break, to slow down. But she couldn't.

She was now the engine of a well-oiled world-touring machine. Britney, with her flying suits and slithering dancers, was only just warming up for her wildest act yet.

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