Spears’s Awards Fiasco Stirs Speculation About Her Future

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 12 — Long before Britney Spearss dazed performance on the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas on Sunday, her comeback effort looked out of sync.

Britney Spears at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.

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It started in May, when the erstwhile pop queen marked her tentative return to public performance after a long hiatus with a string of haphazard club gigs that lasted for as little as 15 minutes, during which she lip-synched old hits like ... Baby One More Time. But no one was prepared for Sunday nights fiasco, in which a listless Ms. Spears teetered through her dance steps and mouthed only occasional words in a wan attempt to lip-synch her new single, Gimme More.

Endlessly mocked in the mainstream news media and the blogosphere, it has left her fans and her handlers bewildered. The show also left raw nerves: Ms. Spearss label, Jive Records, sent a note to MTV chastising the network over the comments of the comedian Sarah Silverman, who took the stage immediately after Ms. Spears and referred to her children as mistakes.

With her first studio album in four years scheduled for release on Nov. 13, the music industry is debating whether Ms. Spearss career can recover.

Is she going to be the next Michael Jackson? wondered Jay Marose, a former publicist for teen-pop acts like the Backstreet Boys. Shes been on her own for so long, calling the shots in this bubble.

Her predicament illustrates the hazards that await pop stars who depart the spotlight and then try to return where they left off. Ms. Spears all but suspended her career three years ago when she married a backup dancer, Kevin Federline, and fired her longtime manager. More recently, she has expressed a desire to run her own career, even while devoting time to a messy divorce with Mr. Federline and a child-custody battle.

Little wonder that the question of how to breathe new life into her career was a polarizing one — particularly when MTV, where Ms. Spears had been a mainstay, extended an offer for her to perform at its annual gala.

The idea received a mostly cool reception from Ms. Spearss principal advisers at Jive. But Ms. Spearss entertainment lawyer, Gary Stiffelman, figured she could benefit from MTV exposure, and pressed her to sign on. Mr. Stiffelman also helped steer Ms. Spears to a new manager, Jeff Kwatinetz, about a month ago to guide her through preparations for the appearance. Mr. Stiffelman and Mr. Kwatinetz declined to comment.

Ms. Spears began a program of fitness training and choreography sessions to get ready, with executives from MTV and Jive receiving updates on her progress from her management. Shortly after the preparations began, though, Ms. Spears jolted the team by shaking up her coterie of advisers, ousting Mr. Stiffelman.

Members of Ms. Spearss camp say that although she expressed jitters about performing on television again, she showed a semblance of sticking to her regimen. But once Ms. Spears arrived in Las Vegas for the awards show weekend, everything ran off the rails. For starters, she was photographed partying with celebrities like Diddy until the wee hours.

Roughly an hour before showtime, Ms. Spears insisted on a series of changes. She clashed with Ken Paves, the high-end hairstylist chosen to do her hair extensions. She also decided not to wear the custom-fitted corset designed for the performance, opting for a black bikini-style costume that revealed more of her body. Her physical appearance during her set also faced a barrage of criticism.

Her performance is the second recent public embarrassment for one of Mr. Kwatinetzs clients. A few months ago he was fired by the singer Kelly Clarkson amid a public battle she was waging with her label.

For all the buzz about her televised missteps, Ms. Spears appears to be on solid footing in one sense: she has a hot song. Since Gimme More surfaced on the New York pop station Z100 two weeks ago, it has quickly earned a spot on the playlists of pop stations nationwide and turned into a hit on Web sites like YouTube.

So far, in the first two weeks, the reaction has been bigger than anyone expected, said Sharon Dastur, the program director for Z100. She said that some listeners call to make negative comments about Ms. Spears, but then they say, When are you guys going to play the song again?

Two ringtones based on the single can be bought exclusively on mtv.com; initially, demand was so heavy that the servers handling the orders crashed for several hours. And for better or worse, the performance has also prompted loose defenses of Ms. Spears online, where one fan created a Zapruder-like slow-motion replay video that laid the blame for her awkward dancing on a broken boot heel.

It is not clear how far a hit song will take Ms. Spears, however, in the absence of other marketing efforts. Her advisers may be reluctant to risk further setbacks by pushing her to do additional performances or interviews.

A spokeswoman for Jive Records said the company is committed to releasing Britney Spearss album on Nov. 13 and were excited about the new material. Her last album, In the Zone, sold more than 2.9 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Ms. Spearss team is also eager to release a music video to counter the impressions left by the MTV debacle. But that may prove tricky, too: Ms. Spears oversaw her production of a gritty, stripper-themed clip for Gimme More that may jolt fans who are more accustomed to the slick, tightly choreographed videos that made her an MTV staple. The video is being tweaked with input from her advisers.

Only a week before the awards show, there had been talk among Ms. Spearss handlers of booking her to play a string of intimate theater performances to promote her new album. But after Las Vegas, all bets are off. Given Ms. Spearss independent streak, the biggest challenge may be convincing her to commit to a supervised makeover.

The train wreck cant be her shtick, said Mr. Marose. He added, So many people are pulling for her; they want to love her and shes making it tough.

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