Jan. 14, 2008

"Please stop it. Leave me alone." So beseeched an inexplicably British-accented Britney Spears as she rendezvoused with paparazzi flame Adnan Ghalib on Friday while surrounded by the usual scrum of shutterbugs.

By Sunday, however, her unconvincing, Garbo-esque calls for privacy had turned into four-letter rants, as she ordered Ghalib's co-workers (still in that clunky accent), "Get out of my [bleeping] face!" and declared, "I'm [bleeping] over it!"

But while the unsound, tabloid-topping tragedy's lips say, "Go away," her public outings and wardrobe choices scream, "Take my picture! Over here! Look at me! I'm doing something harebrained and possibly headline-worthy!"

Spears, who senselessly decided to bail out of a critical custody hearing on Monday, made a symbolism-loaded sartorial statement when she turned up a Los Angeles Mercedes dealership on Friday afternoon with Ghalib.

Brit and Adnan shopping on Friday

For the car shopping expedition, she chose to don the very same backless, butt-skimming white lace minidress she wore while sharing wedding cake with Kevin Federline at their 2004 nuptials.

"They came in to get an estimate for a new car for him," a dealership staffer tells People. "He drives a rental car now ... He was looking into the different lease and purchase options for sport cars."

So, is Spears, whose $100,000-plus Mercedes was impounded last week when she abandoned it after getting a flat, bestowing a new ride on her reportedly still-married squeeze, who appears to be earning his keep by carrying her purse and manhandling his fellow cameramen as her de facto bodyguard?

"It didn't seem like she was getting the car for him," says the dealership snitch, who adds that Spears didn't say a word during negotiations.

The rest of Britney and Adnan's weekend was equally retail-oriented. They went searching for a sofa on Saturday, with Brit toting two worse-for-wear-looking pooches, followed the next day with a drug store pit stop and some shopping at the mall.

Ghalib's sudden promotion from long-shadowing photographer to boyfriend du jour has sparked plenty of tabloid speculation, from rumors he's now shacked up at Spears' pad to talk that they may be looking to get hitched (hence the dusting off of the wedding dress).

"He can make somebody feel like a million dollars; he could make a girl feel so good," a Ghalib insider tells the New York Post. "With her, he found the perfect prey."

The British-raised, follicularly foolish lensman, who may or may not be separated from his wife, is "a womanizer, an egomaniac who would ramble on about everything," snipes another source.

Meanwhile, a mole maintains to Britain's News of the World that Ghalib's wooing of the intervention-needing cautionary tale, whom he's squired on quick, PDA-tinged trips to Palm Springs and Mexico in recent days, is part of a nearly two-year set-up to secure his fortune.

"Whenever she was vulnerable and the [paparazzi] pack were flashing shots of her in a really bad way, Adnan would make a careful show of putting down his camera to help her with bags or into a car," the spy tells the tab. "Over time she grew to trust him, and all the while he was giving her his card and even sending flowers. He knew not to rush it, and because he was different with his accent and foreign looks, she began to believe he was different from all the rest. But it was all part of his master plan."

Continues the source, "All he wanted to do was get close enough for some special pictures. But now he daren't lift a camera when he's with her or she'll ... kick him out. So instead he's cleverly changed tack, says he's planning a long-term relationship with Britney and that they have discussed marriage. He is still wed so he knows he can't do anything until there's a divorce from his wife. He's probably working on that already."

Meanwhile, a Spears confidante claims she has delusions of grandeur when it comes to her future.

"She's been discussing all these wacky plans to reinvent her life and convince the courts she is a good mother," the mole alleges to the tab. "She has discussed in depth a fake death, moving abroad and even plastic surgery. It is scary to hear her romanticize about these insane plans. She believes she could spend six months away and make a comeback as Britney the world's best mother."

Just don't expect her to spend any time out of the spotlight seeking treatment for what many armchair psychologists believe is a bipolar disorder.

"They're not sending me to the nut house!" the New York Post quotes her as yelling during a cell phone conversation with a "close friend" while zooming around L.A. early last week. "No one can make me go if I don't want to go -- and I ain't goin'!"

Britney, apparently upset over rumors that her family has been considering committing her, grew more agitated as she drove, says the paper.

"See that? I just went through another stop sign!" she supposedly yelped at her pal. "See what you made me do? I'm gonna hurt someone out here!"

According to the paper, Spears later warned, "I'll kill myself before I let them lock me up again! So tell Mama and Daddy I said so!"

Britney's gurney-strapped meltdown on Jan. 3

Speaking of being locked up, details continue to emerge from her screw-loose Jan. 3 standoff with police, when her reported refusal to hand over Jayden James, 1, to Federline's bodyguard ended with her being carted off to Cedars-Sinai Hospital.

According to TMZ, when Britney finally emerged from the bathroom where she'd holed up with Jayden for close to three hours, she was only (or, from the glass-half-full perspective, at least) sporting a pair of panties.

Spears was said to be "incoherent" as she screeched at officers, "What the [bleep] are you doing in my house?" and, "I don't need your [bleeping] help."

TMZ says her emotions see-sawed from "laughter to rage to sobs," and at one point she bellowed, "You will do as I say."

Before paramedics carried Britney out of her house on a gurney, they reportedly attempted to get her to put on a sweater over the see-through nightie she had slipped on, a modesty-protecting suggestion she didn't cotton to.

"Don't cover me up. I'm [bleeping] hot," she purportedly yelled, although it's unclear whether she was referring to her internal temperature or a skewed perception of her own attractiveness while in the midst of a meltdown.

As for Jayden, Us Weekly reports he had several bruises and a bite mark on him, which Federline's bodyguard told police the tot had before he arrived at Britney's house hours earlier (seems Sean Preston, 2, may have bitten his little brother).

TMZ also asserts that an assistant informed police that Spears had been "popping pills" -- or "vitamins," as she allegedly calls them -- all day, and a bottle of Prozac was found in her bedroom.

And in a disclosure that might explain Brit's decision to don her wedding dress, her nanny told the cops that she would often "dress up to the nines for no reason" and parade around her pad before changing again.

One person who has no intention of ever helping Spears select an ensemble: Tim Gunn.

"I would refuse," the "Project Runway" mentor declares to People. "There is no amount of money and I'll tell you why: I can't want you to succeed more than you do. And it's obvious that she doesn't want to succeed. I think of her right now as being in exile from the human race and she needs major, major help."

Gunn, who says he feels "deeply sorry" for Britney, adds, "There was a time that we were all marginally amused by it and then it just became a repugnant horror show. No, I wouldn't even be remotely interested in [making her over]."

Criss Angel and Brit on Aug. 15, 2007

And finally, Criss Angel continues to wring every ounce of publicity he can from his brief association with the pop calamity. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the off-putting "Mindfreak" illusionist reveals the big plans he had for Britney's galumphing, listless performance at September's MTV Video Music Awards performance.

His ideas included dividing her into "two Britneys and then four Britneys," a dicey concept given the reaction to just one Britney in a Bedazzled bra and panties, and "literally" transforming her into birds, which would be quite a guano-infused trick indeed.

Angel says it didn't come to fruition because he "needed 100% commitment" and "a lot of rehearsals," with Britney eventually concluding the magic act "wasn't for her."