Britney Spears for OUT Magazine

Letting her hair down.

OUT Magazine April 2011 Issue
Editorial: "Britney E-mails Her Heart"
By Noah Michelson
Photographed by Ruven Afanador
Styled by Neil Rodgers

Last-name-no-longer-required Britney is on the cover of Out Magazine's "Ladies We Love" issue and Out gets a little high-strung in defending her:

"There are few things our culture has come to relish more than fattening up a pop star on a greasy diet of hype and frenzied devotion, only to then turn around and eat her alive an album or two later. It’s become a national pastime we practice in the less savory corners of the Internet or while unloading our Aquafresh and baked Cheetos onto the check-out line conveyor belt. Nobody knows this better than Britney Spears."

So there, you nasty Cheetos-eaters. Although we question the idea of using Cheetos to characterize Britney's critics. Then again, their word choices here ("fattening up a pop star," "greasy diet") might just be a case of those saucy queens at OUT doing what the British call, "taking the piss." To be fair, we take their point about a culture that builds up its stars only to mercilessly tear them down, but that old canard only gets trotted out for those celebs who have had problems. It's not like you ever hear it said about Meryl Streep or even Halle Berry. Yes, we can be cruel to celebrities but ultimately, the public is no more responsible for Britney's problems than they are Charlie Sheen's or Lindsay Lohan's. Although that comparison probably isn't fair since Britney isn't really on the downward spiral she was a couple years ago.

Where were you the first time you heard one of your songs on the radio?
I was in New Orleans, and I was so excited. It’s such a cool feeling to hear your own song play on the radio. I still have the same kind of excitement when I hear any of my songs today.

How did you spend the first big check you received?
On a bright white Mercedes convertible.

If you hadn’t become a superstar, what career do you think you would have chosen?
I was in seventh grade and it was career day and I remember thinking that I wanted to be an entertainment lawyer. I always knew I would be in this business somehow. I think this path worked out way better.

It's mostly boilerplate email interview stuff, but they do sneak in a couple of curveballs, like what she would think if her kids were gay and stuff like that. You can check the whole interview, as well as some videos here.

But what we really want to talk about here are the pictures:




O...kay....

Color us confused. We get why ultimately Out would want pictures like these, because let's face it, they're link bait, designed to get talked about all over the internet. We just don't understand why Britney would agree to them. Because kittens? Girl looks BEAT. And the thing is, we don't think she had to look this bad. The makeup, hair, clothes, and lighting all seem designed to make her look old and past her prime. Sure, she's not the fresh-faced teenager in a schoolgirl uniform of 10+ years ago, but she's hardly in such bad shape that they couldn't have done her up all glam and pretty. Like we said, we get why Out did it; we just don't get why Britney did.

[Photo Credit: Ruven Afanador via out.com]

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Labels: Britney Spears, Magazine Cover/Editorial, Out