Feb. 19, 2007

In the wake of the Great Britney Spears' Be-Balding of 2007, we've officially passed the point where we can poke fun at the paparazzi-captured drama she creates, the bad decisions she makes and the punchline she's become. Now, we're just worried, both for her well-being and, more importantly, for the well-being of sons Sean Preston, 17 months, and Jayden James, 5 months.

Sure, there are people in this world far more deserving of our sympathy than a self-indulgent, attention-craving, blame-deflecting, semiretired pop star whose teen rebellion phase has apparently arrived one decade and two children too late.

But even our hard old hearts softened at the sad sight of Brit's fuzzy skull shorn of its oft-mocked faux, fried and matted locks, and the even sadder sight of the kitschy chin-length platinum wig she picked out to cover it (somewhere, Betty White searches in vain for her missing "Golden Girls" coif).

Video: The demise of Britney

Video: Shear madness for Britney

So what's behind Spears' Friday-night defacing spree (caught on film, of course), when she also added a couple of questionable ink stains to her body, and what has she been doing in the days since her apparent meltdown moment (hint: there's sunbathing and club-hopping involved)? Here's the latest:

Flipping Her Wig: Britney, 25, didn't let the media maelstrom over her cueball make-under deter her from her usual routine. On Saturday, she tossed on her unflattering wig and a bikini and headed to the see-and-be-seen Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles with some friends -- and sans her sons -- to catch some rays poolside, where an eyewitness says she was "smoking cigarette after cigarette," according to E! Online's Marc Malkin. The next night, she was back out on the town, hitting The Roxy, where a private birthday bash was taking place. People reports Spears, in wig and sunglasses, went unnoticed, but beat a hasty retreat when one of the revelers started doing a karaoke version of her long-ago smash "(Hit Me) Baby One More Time." "It didn't seem like it was done on purpose -– no one really seemed to know that she was there," a mole tells the mag. "I guess it was a bad rendition of the song or something, and she left." Meanwhile, a spy offers a disturbing picture of her attempted check-in at the Mondrian, alleging to the London Daily Mail that she was in tears and repeatedly saying, "Nobody wants me anymore." The Daily News, however, reports she was in "good spirits."

Mane Mantra? The chatty owner of the unchic Tarzana salon where the not-quite-ex Mrs. Kevin Federline buzzed off her frequently tangled extensions tattles that her seemingly unquiet mind was on her sons. She "kept rambling on and on about her kids. She kept saying, 'I know they are trying to get my kids away from me. I know they are!'" stylist Esther Tognozzi alleges to the Chicago Sun-Times. "It was all so sad and so very strange. She must have said, 'I am a good mother! I am a good mother!' about a dozen times. It almost was like she was in some kind of trance." Tognozzi adds to the New York Daily News that she refused Britney's request to shear off her hair for fear of being sued, even as her bodyguard insisted, "It's her body. She can do what she wants." When she again demurred, Britney "grabbed the clipper I usually use to trim neck hair and sideburns, and she started to shave herself." And contrary to what Tognozzi told the Sun-Times about Brit's alleged babbling, she recounts to the News that she "was OK. She was kind of flat, just there in body but not emotionally."

The Second Thoughts: In yet another example of that cause-and-effect phenomenon we discussed last week, Tognozzi informs the Daily News, "When she finished, she looked at herself and said, 'Oh, my God, my hair's gone. I just shaved my hair off.'" Just hours earlier, a paparazzo had complimented Spears' extension-crammed chocolate mane, which prompted her to chirp, "Thanks, I think I'm going to keep it this way." Her postshave explanation: "I lied."

Tress Distress: Spears had a tumultuous week before her pruning, starting with a bikini-swapping, cookie-tossing sojourn in New York; a purportedly nanny-free stopover in Miami; and an all-too-brief stay at the unfortunately named Crossroads rehab facility in Antigua (her rep, who initially denied the visit, later confirmed it to "Access Hollywood"). What's more, she winged back to Los Angeles not on her usual private jet but in the last row of coach, says People, which adds she came close to missing the flight. "She was really upset," an eyewitness tells the mag. "She [said] to the agent, 'I've got to get on this plane to get home to my kids.' She looked like she was about to cry." The waterworks continued in the moments before scalping off her uncomfortable extensions. Before entering the salon, she reportedly sat in her SUV and cried for a good 10 minutes.

Spurn and Coif: Was it a battle with her mom over rehab that caused Britney to pick up that pair of clippers and cut off her long, dye-damaged locks? The New York Post floats the possibility courtesy of a source from the X17 photo agency, which was on hand to document her 'do don't for posterity. The insider tells the paper that Brit and her mom, Lynne, who was spotted giving the thumbs-up to photographers over the weekend in Los Angeles, have been at odds in recent days due to Mrs. Spears' "demand" that her daughter get control of her downward spiral. This could explain Britney's reaction immediately after her chrome-doming. "She just looked in the mirror and said with tears in her eyes, 'Oh, my God, I shaved it all off. My mom is going to be so upset with me,'" Tognozzi relates to Us. (In the version of events she gave to People, the stylist quotes Spears as uttering the slightly more believable line, "'My mom is going to freak.'") Meanwhile, Britney's erratic behavior, which compelled her former assistant and friend Felicia Culotta to issue an online plea ("I cannot save her from herself, nor can I commit her to any type of treatment program against her wishes and will," she said in a letter last week to That Other Blog. "I am throwing my hands up and realizing that I am helpless over another ..."), may also be alienating her current staffers. "She's going to have no one who cares about her," an insider tells Malkin. "Even her security is getting fed up. She keeps running them around town until 4:30 in the morning."

Alternate Lock Unload Theories: Soon after getting her noodle buzzed, Spears hit a tattoo parlor, where she purportedly had a pair of lips permanently etched on her wrist and a cross inked onto her hip. When a waiting shutterbug asked why she decided to rock the Sinead look, she pouted (via the Post), "Because of you." Later, says Us, when tattoo parlor denizens inquired after her fleecing, Britney offered an explanation open to interpretation: "I don't want anyone touching me. I'm tired of everybody touching me." Was she referring to the minions who are forever maintaining her ever-changing mane or maybe the control exerted by her comeback-minded handlers? Or was she making some sort of empowerment statement in the wake of getting dumped by a gum-flapping Isaac Cohen and supposedly having a slumber party with a couple of the dancers who let her try on their bikinis last week in New York City (via Us)? It remains unclear, although Robin Leach's Luxe Life believes she might have decided to lose her locks simply because they were so damaged they had "broken off and thinned to the point where bald-spots had begun to appear."

The Head-Shrinking: "Britney's just so uncomfortable in her own skin that every minute is agony for her," Beverly Hills, Calif., psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman posits to the Daily News, adding that her G.I. Jane phase could be "a rebellious move that's meant to prevent herself from being hurt by another man. By making herself less attractive she's cutting off her femininity. She's saying, 'I don't want men to touch me, not just physically, but my heart.'" Chimes in New York psychotherapist Jane Greer, "I think what you are seeing is her anger being turned against herself. She's trying to reinvent the role that she had when she was a pop princess but hasn't been able to fit in. Her clothes don't feel like they fit anymore, she feels like a misfit and she's now stripped herself to the bare essentials to try to claim back her identity." Can you handle one more? Psychoanalyst Bethany Marshall goes for the "terrible twos" defense, telling ABC News, "This is a major form of acting out. She's not using words and language as a way to express what's going on." The doc adds, "She's doing things -- the crotch shots, shaving her head, the tattoos. It says that she hasn't learned to assert herself and become independent through self-assertion rather than through acting out. The hair represents the stylists, the handlers, people who are in control of her life and manage her looks. Now she's saying, I'm in charge of my looks."

Rosie the Rescuer: Rosie O'Donnell is renewing her offer to aid and shelter Spears and her brood. In a trademark punctuation-optional posting on her blog, the "View" co-host daydreams about playing savior and ponders the price of fame: "britney shaved her hair, out out damn spot/in the movie in my mind, she says yes, help me, and i do/somehow, we both connect -- get through she is saved/somehow so am I ... i want them to come live with us, somehow thinking there is healing here, it worked for me/u can carve out something real there in pretend-ville/real life awaits, as perspective shifts/compassion aids healing."

Bye-Bye to Beverly Hills: Britney might want to consider Rosie's offer of room and board, given the current flux of her housing situation. The Los Angeles Times reports she's selling the furnished, 7,000-plus-square-foot Beverly Hills digs she impulsively purchased in January for $7.5 million, $300,000 more than she paid for it. No word on where she plans to settle, given that the Malibu compound she shared with Federline is also on the market. Her estranged hubby is reportedly set to pocket half of the proceeds from the sale of the palatial pad, which is listed for $13.5 million.