‘Waiting for Britney Spears': 5 shocking (allegedly true) stories from a former tabloid writer

Los Angeles Times

6 hours ago

In his new book, 'Waiting for Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly' — a mix of fact and fiction — music writer and L.A. native Jeff Weiss brings us back to the last gasp of the celebrity gossip-mongering machine of the early aughts. It was the prelapsarian age of the dumb phone, when we weren't all taking photos of everything all the time and paparazzi were commanding six figures for shots of Angelina Jolie's baby bump.
Fresh out of college and dreaming of Pulitzer glory, Weiss instead takes a job with Star magazine — called Nova in the book — to pay his rent and winds up being present during ugly episodes of the celebrity stalking era: Britney Spears' meteoric rise and career lows in the early 2000s, a few years before her personal and business affairs were placed under a court-ordered conservatorship controlled by her father, Jamie.
Weiss bears witness to this particularly gruesome episode with clenched teeth, filing dispatches for rent money alongside photographer Mel Bouzad (referred to as Oliver Bournemouth in the book), who acts as his Virgil, smoothing the writer's way through Hollywood's red velvet ropes. Weiss in short order is engulfed by Spears' world until it becomes his organizing principle. The writer becomes an unrepentant co-conspirator in the plot to knock down Spears, one breaking news item at a time. 'We wanted more and more, until she had no energy left to resist and no place left to hide,' writes Weiss. Here are some of the most shocking stories from the book.
As a cub reporter in 2004, Weiss gets a hot tip about Spears' wedding to Kevin Federline at the Studio City home of a Spears confidant. Accompanied by Bouzad, Weiss scouts a neighboring house and pays off its owner in order to witness the nuptials next door. 'An hour before the ceremony, the bridegroom swaggers in in his white undershirt,' Weiss writes. 'The groomsmen look like lost members of 98 Degrees, wearing squiggly goatees and gummy-worm braids.' After the reception, where Federline 'removes [Britney's] garter belt with his teeth,' the wedding party packs into black SUVs wearing monogrammed Juicy Couture sweatsuits: 'Britney's announces Mrs. Federline. His just reads, Hers.'
Weiss' Britney beat is temporarily placed on hold so he can dig up information on Ben Affleck's budding relationship with actor Jennifer Garner. In search of the duo, Weiss drives to Affleck's Brentwood house. He's in luck: Affleck materializes and hops into his car, prompting Weiss to tail him. 'My wobbling, elephantine car is no match for his agile V12 Mercedes, but I somehow keep up,' he writes. But Affleck is onto Weiss and swerves across lanes of traffic along the 101 en route to the San Fernando Valley. Weiss is nearly side-swiped by a Range Rover, 'and suddenly, it's over. [Affleck's] car heads into the parking lot of Bob's Big Boy.' When the visibly shaken driver emerges from the Mercedes, it turns out to be Affleck's brother, Casey.
On assignment for People magazine in 2005, Weiss attempts to sneak onto Brad Pitt's beachfront compound in Santa Barbara, hoping to grab some tasty morsels about the megastar's new relationship with Jolie. He has been tasked, alongside a two-paparazzi team, with monitoring Jolie's son's fourth birthday party. 'I'm on the verge of breaking open one of the decade's biggest stories,' he writes. 'For the last six months, you haven't been able to buy a Snickers at the supermarket without missing the all-caps headlines' about the love triangle between Pitt, Jolie and Jennifer Aniston. No sooner does Weiss climb a bluff and whip out his binoculars than he is surrounded by 'four goons' with Glocks tucked into their shorts. He is harassed and finally released, but not before Pitt appears. 'He shakes his head slowly, confidently, letting me know that I've lost.' The next day, Weiss himself becomes a tabloid story: In the U.K., the Daily Mail headline reads, 'People Paparazzo Popped Trying to Snake Pitt.' Weiss has his first 15 seconds of infamy.
In 2007, Weiss and Bouzad chase Spears — recently divorced from Federline — to a nondescript hair salon in Tarzana. 'Shielded by her security, Britney scurries in like a frightened deer,' Weiss writes. From an open window, Weiss hears Spears tell the hairdresser, 'I want you to buzz my hair off.' When she refuses, Spears grabs the trimmer and clicks it on: 'The extensions are hacked into lifeless scraps … the stray hairs curl on the floor like writhing snakes.' Hours later, Spears' hair is auctioned on eBay. 'The bidding reaches $1 million before the online auction house removes the listing. The authenticity of the hair cannot be verified.' In her own memoir, 'The Woman in Me,' Spears explained the reason for the bold act. 'Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back,' Spears wrote.
That same year, Spears attempts a musical comeback with a new album and series of one-off performances. Weiss nabs an exclusive interview with the pop star at a rented mansion in the Hollywood Hills. It doesn't go as planned. A disoriented and agitated Spears shows up late, rejects the pre-selected wardrobe choices for the photo shoot and locks herself in the bathroom. Finally, Weiss' moment arrives. Over lunch, 'Britney shrugs and summons me like she has something to confess.' Weiss is about to get his first face-to-face with Spears, but it's a false alarm: She thinks Weiss is a production assistant. 'She hands me her empty plate filled with bones and fat to throw away.'