The Britney Spears breakdown in ROLLING STONE

The new issue of ROLLING STONE is emblazoned with a picture of Britney Spears and the headline: Britney Spears: Inside An American Tragedy. You want a preview? Well check this out…

Let me set the scene: Britney is at the mall with her boyfriend Adnan Ghalib. Mall-rat teenagers are trailing them, texting each other with their phones. They can’t believe they’re seeing Britney Spears. Then Britney heads into a Betsey Johnson boutique to try on some clothes. She’s in the dressing room and Ghalib is trying to pay with Britney’s black American Express. The problem is: it won’t go through.

The card won’t go through, but they keep trying it.

“Please,” begs Ghalib, “get this done quickly.”

One of the girls runs to Britney’s dressing room, explaining the situation through a pink gauze curtain.

A wail emerges from the cubby — guttural, vile, the kind of base animalistic shriek only heard at a family member’s deathbed. “Fuck these bitches,” screams Britney, each word ringing out between sobs. “These idiots can’t do anything right!”

Ghalib dashes over to console her, but she’s already spitting, growling, throwing a big bottle of soda on the floor so that it begins to spill underneath the curtain, and then she’s got a box of tissues and is throwing them on top of the wet floor along with piles of discarded merchandise. A new card finally goes through, but by then Britney is out the door, leaving her shirt on the ground and replacing it with the red top. “Fuck you, fuck people, fuck, fuck, fuck,” she keeps screaming, her face splotchy and red as she crosses the interminable mall floor, the crowd behind her growing larger and larger. “Leave us alone!” yells Ghalib.

The siblings run after Britney to get a video to put up on YouTube, and some of the shopgirls run after her to hand off the merchandise she left behind, and there’s an entire bridal party wearing yellow T-shirts who have pulled out camera phones too. A crush of managers in black shirts and gold name tags try to keep the peace, but the crowd running after Britney gets larger, and now the shopgirls have ­started to catch up to her, one of them slipping spectacularly in her platform shoes, grazing her elbow. She pulls herself up, mustering the strength to tap Britney’s shoulder. “Um, I’m from the South too,” she mumbles, “and I was wondering if I could get a picture with you for my little sister.”

Britney turns to Ghalib and grabs his arm. “I don’t want her talking to me!” she screams. She whirls around and stares the girl deep in the eyes, her lips almost vibrating with anger. “I don’t know who you think I am, bitch,” she snarls, “but I’m not that person.”