'Waiting for Britney Spears': 5 shocking (allegedly true) stories from a former tabloid writer
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.
Read more: Britney Spears' highs and lows — a timeline from 'The Mickey Mouse Club' to her tell-all memoir
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.
Read more: Britney Spears' 13-year conservatorship is done. Here's how we got here
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.'
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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Going viral right at the start of his tour was a learning experience for Lacy. 'It was a culture shock for me because I was so used to being niche, a cool music-nerd person,' he says. 'I think going on the road post-Covid and going viral at the same time invited a lot of rambunctious kids who are going to concerts for the first time. So at first, my body rejected it. And then I think by the end, I was so happy with their rambunctiousness because I'm like, 'Oh, this is their first show. I'm showing them how to be at a concert, so I want to embrace that energy myself.' ' After that tour, Lacy went relatively quiet, a move that's somewhat atypical for an artist who just had a Number One hit and the biggest song of his career. 'Anyone else in my position would be like, 'Ride this wave,' but I know I'm going to be here for a little bit. I ain't worried about that shit,' he says. 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I think the saddest part is kind of just finding out for yourself what those things are. But he still be around, though. I got a relationship with the dead. I feel him sometimes.' Having family overseas taught Lacy about different levels of poverty around the globe. Even after his father died, his mom would send money to his family in the Philippines. 'We grew up in a three-bedroom with one bathroom, and we would pass up on McDonald's,' he explains. 'She was still communicating with [his family] via Facebook and sending MoneyGram for like 50 bucks. She's like, 'In the Philippines, you're rich, so you got to remember that.' ' Lacy mentions never seeing his parents show intimacy. He sees his current relationships as 'trying to, like, correct their wrongs somehow. I guess I just want to prove to myself that I'm not them.' Lacy comes from a musical family. His mother was once an aspiring singer and has sung background vocals on Lacy's songs, along with his sisters. When he was around 10 years old, Lacy started playing guitar after watching the band in his church. 'At the end of the service, they would just shred, and I would sit there and watch with my jaw to the floor, not moving,' he says. By then, he'd already become enamored with the guitar thanks to hours playing Guitar Hero. 'When I was 10, I was obsessed with the instrument. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to be around it. I wanted to hear it,' he says. Before long, he'd start lessons. When Lacy was in high school, his mother encouraged him to join the jazz band, which he did. Around 2012, his friend and classmate Jameel Bruner (Thundercat's younger brother) would fatefully introduce him to Matt Martians and the rest of the Internet, just as Odd Future started taking off. He started hanging around the bandmates, who were all much older than him, as they rehearsed. 'It's kind of like the first freedom I got as a teenager because I grew up super sheltered. But my mom started to let me chill a little bit. I would go there, just watching. And I was really quiet. They called me Lil Steve.' ('I literally just changed his contact in my phone a couple months ago from 'Lil Steve,' ' Syd tells me.) Martians wanted to ensure that Lacy was well positioned to launch his own career. 'I would start telling him, 'Look, we need to put together an album. Doesn't have to be long, doesn't have to be crazy, convoluted, but the world needs to be presented you by yourself,' which is why on Ego Death, he's in the band, but I chose to put him as a feature on 'Palace/Curse.' I wanted to set up that transition to him being known as his own entity.' In 2017, right before he turned 19, he released Steve Lacy's Demo, recorded largely using GarageBand on a beat-up iPhone. Even early on, his songwriting skills stood out. Demo includes the sleeper hit 'Dark Red,' a bouncy earworm that to date has racked up nearly 2 billion streams on Spotify alone and feels almost like a precursor to the equally infectious 'Bad Habit.' John Troutman, chair of the Smithsonian's division of culture and the arts, heard about how Lacy recorded the EP after reading about it in Wired. 'It sounded like one of those stories that is just so incredible on so many different levels because it reflects his extraordinary talent at such a young age musically and as a producer,' Troutman says. Troutman and his team were putting together an exhibit called 'Entertainment Nation,' and they reached out to Lacy in 2017 to acquire the legendary iPhone. The show opened in 2022. 'We opened right when 'Bad Habit' was top of the charts, so the young folks who came through knew exactly who he was and were so surprised and delighted to see the iPhone,' says Krystal Klingenberg, a curator at the Smithsonian. 'We've seen teenagers bowing down in front of his phone,' Troutman adds. In 2019, Lacy sang about his queer identity for the first time, on his debut studio album, Apollo XXI. On 'Like Me' he opens with a sort of preamble: 'This is about me and what I am/I didn't wanna make it a big deal/But I did wanna make a song.' Lacy says he 'kind of waited' to come out. 'I hid everything until I started doing things,' he says. 'For example, I really love dance, all styles, contemporary, tap, hip-hop. I love modern dance. But growing up, I couldn't explore that 'cause I never wanted anyone to call me gay before I told them I was anything, gay or whatever, you know? It'd probably be easier if it were just like, 'I'm g-word,' but I'm not g-word. It's fluid, and queer is a lot harder to explain than just being a gay dude.' 'For a while, I was just on this synth and on my bass, but I feel like a rock star again, a guitar rock star.' Lacy maintains a mischievous relationship with social media. He's liberal with how much he posts to his main feed on Instagram, and he'll occasionally pop out on TikTok, posting clips using current trends or showing up in videos with popular creators. And though he hasn't been doing it so much lately, Lacy's also known to clap back in the comments. Before officially coming out, fans on Tumblr and Twitter had already put together that he was queer. After a since-deleted tweet about racial dating preferences, a full-blown hate train emerged. Lacy says he learned from the experience. 'I appreciate it now, I understand where it's coming from, and I have empathy for it,' he says. 'I remember at the time it was really hard to hear,' he says. 'I was just 18, that's how I came out, bro,' he says. 'People found out about me kissing boys and girls from me getting canceled. But I needed that because my shit was too perfect. My little ass was gassed the fuck up. So I needed to be humbled. It was good for me.' As a queer Black artist, Lacy is cautious not to position himself as any kind of spokesperson. For Lacy, it's more important that all shades of experience see the light of day. 'I feel like my whole mission is the humanization of Black people,' he says. 'We have so many spectrums of emotions. I think it's so limited when it comes to what we can watch and ingest.' That idea is part of what made Kendrick Lamar's Pop-Out concert so special for Lacy, who appeared onstage alongside a host of West Coast rappers. 'That was so beautiful and profound because I think when you're in Compton, you only see one type of music being blasted. So I never expected what I was doing to be respected or a part of the conversation of what Compton is,' he says. 'So to be there and to feel that love and to be amongst other artists from Compton, who are doing the thing that Compton is too, was very special.' Though his appearance at the event seemingly miffed Drake, who called him a 'fragile opp' (something akin to being an enemy) on a stream with xQc last year, Lacy says he found the comment endearing: 'I love Drake; I grew up listening to Drake and shit.' A word that comes up a lot in our conversation is 'fluid.' I get the impression that very little remains fixed with Lacy. 'I love how my fluidity has just felt through the music,' he says. 'I feel like a lot of people use the gay bug to market their shit. And I never did.' Music allows Lacy to express all of the different parts of himself. 'It helps me form an identity somehow. Like the story writes itself, you know?' He says his favorite song of his is 'Static,' from Gemini Rights, 'because it was so honest.' The song finds Lacy unfiltered about his romantic frustrations. 'Lookin' for a bitch, 'cause I'm over boys,' he sings. 'I was so pissed off when I wrote that song, and I remember listening to it back, and I was like, it feels like when you're so mad you want to cry.' His new music, he says, is fueled by the same level of transparency, 'but more.' 'I'm like, I want more emotion, raw emotion. And I want to just say it to you directly.' 'I think he's always been very open,' Syd says. 'I think that's one of his superpowers. His ability to be himself no matter what anybody else thinks.' Some of Lacy's directness comes from his relationship with death. 'I grew up around lots of death,' he says, citing not just his father but also the violence in his neighborhood. 'I think it affects the way that I treat life and people. I don't feel so entitled to people's time. I just kind of want to make the most of it.' After Lacy heads to the YSL afterparty (I'm not invited), I meet up with a friend in town and head to a party hosted by a local gallery. As it happens, I run into Lacy there. He tells me the official afterparty was boring and seems to be enjoying this function, a far more low-key affair, much more. He mentions he's now run into two exes on this Paris trip — the one from last fall and his first ex, from when he was 19. Not only that, but these two exes have apparently become friends. (He jokes later about 'putting that dick on the map.') It's a scenario that would send me running for the Seine, but one that seems not to bother Lacy, as he exchanges friendly conversations with both. 'I love how my fluidity is just felt through the music. I feel like a lot of people use the gay bug to market their shit. And I never did.' It's a little after midnight, and the party has migrated from the sweaty dance floor to the sidewalk, where cigarettes and nondescript party favors exchange hands with clandestine rhythm. Lacy greets me with a hug, though I can tell he's being careful not to get too loose in front of a journalist. 'You're gonna be a part of this moment, you know,' he tells me. I joke with him about the lyrics to his new song: 'If there were ever a time to let it out, it'd be now.' He sings the unreleased lyrics in a stirringly perfect pitch before someone taps him on the shoulder to chat. The next day, we're back in Paris traffic, this time headed to L'art de L'automobile, a private garage that's more like a winding concrete shrine to classic sports cars. It's owned by Lacy's friend Arthur Karakoumouchian, known among artists as a purveyor of the finest and rarest European sports cars. The two had a mutual friend in the late designer Virgil Abloh, whom Lacy met at an Apple event before walking in Abloh's first Louis Vuitton show. ('I had a sad realization the other day,' he remembers. 'The only gift that I ever got from Virgil was a clock that went backwards.') While not totally a car guy, Lacy has an affinity for Porsches and remembers driving a Tesla when he got into an accident back in 2020. Living in Topanga at the time, Lacy was navigating a curve when a drunk driver hit him head-on. 'They were coming in my fucking lane, bro,' he recalls. 'I had a thought, 'Man, we put so much trust in these lines in between us.' ' Lacy, thankfully, wasn't hurt, but 'saw the black flash,' he says. 'It was intense, and my brain was going so many different places. I remember afterwards being like, 'If you were to die in that moment, would you have been satisfied with everything?' And I remember being like, 'I think the only thing I would've changed was I want to be more transparent.' That was my only note for myself.' This reminds me of something he told me earlier that day, about the time he met Jay-Z, not long ago. They were backstage at an event and Jay was watching one of his kids, halfway paying attention to the people around him. 'I have nephews and stuff, so I know when I'm bored with adults, I'm going to focus on the kid, you know? He was kind of doing that — watching the kid, but sitting around. And no one's talking to him. So I'm like, 'I'm about to go sit and talk to Jay-Z.' ' Does Jay-Z know who Steve Lacy is? 'I don't know. I don't think he did. So, I'm talking to him: 'How you doing, man?' He was like, 'I'm good, chilling.' I was like, 'I like your fit. What's that jacket?' He's like, 'The Row.' I was like, 'Oh, shit,' and I showed him I'm also wearing the Row. I'm stoned also, but off the ones that make me talky.' Like any stoned person would in the presence of hip-hop royalty, Lacy decided to break the ice with a joke. 'I was like, 'Man, it's fucked up you didn't book Lil Wayne in New Orleans at the Super Bowl.' He's like, 'Nah, it was all there. It would be crazy not to have Kendrick, you know?' And I was like, 'Nah, I know. I'm just fucking with you.' ' So far, so good. Feeling emboldened, Lacy mentioned one of his favorite Jay albums: 'I told him I love 4:44. He's like, 'Man, I'm happy you brought it up.' Then I was like, 'Man, you a cool dude, bro.' Then after I walked away, I was like, 'Why the fuck did I just tell Jay-Z he's a cool dude?' ' It's the type of transparency you get with Steve Lacy these days. You can be sure that whatever he's saying, he really means it. Production Credits Produced by CHIARA LAFOUR and ZOE ARICH for LAFOUR STUDIOS. Styling By KK OBIE At CLM-AGENCY. Grooming by ALEXA HERNANDEZ At THE WALL GROUP. Set Design By FELIX GESNOUIN at TOTAL WORLD. CGI MAKY. Video Director of Photography CHARLES DEVOYER for BFA. Camera operator: LAURENT GANIAGE for BFA. Videographer ETIENNE H. BAUSSAN. Video Editor: RYAN JEFFREY. Photographic assistance KAI CEM NARIN, MATHIEU BOUTANG, SCOTT GALLAGHER and PAUL MERELLE. Digital Technician ROMAIN BOE. Production Assistance GERMAIN CESENA, AUDREY GUYON and MARTIN DWERNICKI. Production Intern DUNE ALLANTE. Styling Assistance ALISA DATSENKO and LIBAN ALI. Set Design Assistance ELIJAH DEROCHE. Boat PARIS YACHT MARINA { pmcCnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 1, }, pmcCnx: { singleAutoPlay: 'auto' } } }, playerId: "4d2e11b7-633a-417a-962e-4b7e105b5998", mediaId: "9cd617c4-b9d7-470f-bf99-c230af54a203", }).render("connatix_player_9cd617c4-b9d7-470f-bf99-c230af54a203_2"); }); Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked Solve the daily Crossword
Newsweek
3 days ago
- Newsweek
Woman Films Moment She Knew Rescue Cat and Family Dog Would Be Best Friends
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. When she adopted her black cat Nova from Animal Friends Pittsburgh, Katy told Newsweek that she wasn't sure how the feline would adjust. Nova and her sister, Vega, had spent six months in the shelter after their littermates were adopted. Still grieving the loss of one of her senior cats, Katy brought the bonded pair home—only to find them hiding for months. But there was one exception. Nova seemed to feel instantly at ease around Jax, Katy's pit bull and Labrador retriever mix, adopted from the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh in 2014. In a now-viral video, Katy shared the moment Nova cautiously approached Jax before curling up beside him and "making biscuits" on his side. The text overlay said: "It's a video of my very scared, newly adopted shelter cat choosing my dog as her best friend." From left: Jax the dog and Nova the cat mess around at home. From left: Jax the dog and Nova the cat mess around at home. @5up3rn0va85/TikTok Now eight years since they met, the pair are still the best of friends. "She spoons with him every night," said Katy, who didn't give her surname. "She's still a little nervous around people, but my husband is her favorite person. My dog's pretty old now—he's hard of hearing and going blind—but she still loves him. It makes me really happy that they have each other." Like Cats and Dogs Despite the adage of "fighting like cats and dogs," the two often get along very well. A 2020 study by PLOS ONE surveyed 1,270 households that had both felines and canines. Of those, 62.7 percent said that cats and dogs living together often play together, while 68.5 percent said that their cats and dogs would sleep together. Dogs were more likely to lick cats (42.8 percent), while cats more often ignored dogs (41.8 percent), but both pets were similarly playful with familiar humans. The video gained over 3.6 million views on TikTok, and, in the comments, people shared their reactions to the heartwarming moment. "Whoever created the concept of cats and dogs hating each other was really cruel," wrote Lanie🇵🇹. User nidhiagarwal270 posted, "Your dog being so gentle and welcoming," and viewer Nicole couldn't get enough of their first interaction: "Immediately to work making biscuits for him." "This makes me so sad, cause obviously she had grown up with dogs and loved them very much before going to the shelter," commented bananapancake94. Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@ with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
