2007 was a REALLY bad year for Britney Spears, 35. She was in the middle of divorcing Kevin Federline, 39 and fighting over custody over their two sons. She shaved her head bald then bounced in and out of treatment centers. By summer her team thought a “comeback” was in store at a place where she always shined, the MTV VMAs. The world watched in horror as an out of shape Brit stumbled around the stage, unable to pull off any of her signature dance moves. She barely even attempted to lip sync to “Gimme More” and her grooming was terrible, with a poorly styled blonde weave that looked like it came from a dollar store.
She opened the show that year and it was hyped up as her big return after so many rocky months. But the second she turned towards the audience you could see in her eyes that she totally wasn’t there. Britney’s outfit of a sequined black bra and boy shorts highlighted how her once flawless and tight body was long gone. Every time she tried to shimmy, shake her boobs or do any kind of sexy dance move it just came across as awkward and sad.
This was BRITNEY!!! The same woman who in years past at the VMAs had blown our minds in a nude bodysuit with banging dance moves to “Oops I Did It Again” in 2000, a performance that set the bar in sizzle for all other artists to ever follow. She topped herself in 2001 by dancing around with an albino python in her arms to “I’m a Slave For U” in a sexy barely there green costume. In 2003 she kissed Madonna, 59, during “Like a Virgin” at the VMAs as the world went wild. How could this possibly be happening, this awful nightmare that was Britney 2007? Who was this person? Cutaways to the audience showed the likes of Diddy, 47, and Rihanna, 29, watching with looks of horror on their faces. For Britney’s ups and downs in pics, click here.
It was her professional rock bottom. She was clearly unwell and in no shape to be onstage in front of millions. Many at the time said it was a career ending performance that she would never be able to recover from. Fortunately her father was later granted conservatorship over the star and with medication and therapy, she turned her career around in the years that followed. She triumphantly returned to the VMAs in 2016 for the first time since the debacle looking sensational, dancing her heart out in a skimpy yellow outfit to “Make Me” and made the world right again!
HollywoodLifers, did you think Britney’s 2007 VMAs appearance was going to be the end of her career?