As we told you a couple days ago, Brit’s on the cover of the latest issue of Flaunt Magazine and we finally have the full photoshoot and interview. Plus, a new magazine cover. SHE LOOKS BEAUTIFUL!!!

“Is it safe?”— Laurence Olivier, Marathon Man (1976)

It is a day without shadows, it is hot, and Los Angeles is ugly.

An elderly woman emerges into the bright light cautiously, hunched beneath a cheap umbrella. In her wake, she drags a handcart filled with groceries and clothing. Oblivious to the discarded chewing gum made soft again by the sun, her orthopedic shoes airlift sugary pink strings from the curb’s surface. As she shuffles past the marquee of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, it’s not that difficult to pretend she is just an upside-down puppet reporting for work.

Up the block, inside an air-conditioned trailer, Britney Spears leans her face into a flame. With a Marlboro Menthol dangling from her pursed lips, she moves the cigarette into the fire until the tip of it turns orange. She leans back and exhales a minty, snow-white cloud that drifts over to the miniature kitchen and vanishes somewhere behind the unused microwave.

And her hand is shaking.

“Oh, I’m so weird,” she says. “I get nervous in a lot of situations. Parties, clubs. When there are a lot of people around, I’m a weird, anxiety-ridden person.”

I make her nervous. I am a stranger. I know next to nothing about her ninth studio album, Glory. To date, every inquiry sent to her management about album details is left unanswered, or rejected outright. It is recommended I reach out to her label’s president for a comment. Three questions are sent; a single response arrives via email. It manages to be both polite and meaningless.

“Britney spent time crafting and perfecting the music for this album to create something special for her fans,” writes RCA President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Corson. “Glory is truly a special album and reflects where she is in her career and her life right now. The reception has been very strong for the music and we expect that enthusiasm to increase when the album drops.”

The struggle to breach the micromanaged insulation of one of the world’s best-known pop stars is not to be mistaken for a list of petty gripes, or even complaints. It is entirely understandable why Spears would be cautious, especially now, when cameras hide snugly in every pocket and purse. The paparazzi is everyone. Every question I am not allowed to ask hovers somewhere, invisibly, in the space between us. In this fragment of time, I begin to realize Spears is not playing defense. She’s on offense. And it’s working.

“I don’t understand your question.”
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