June 19, 2006

For those wondering how the gum-chomping, air quote-pulling, cleavage-crammed calamity that was Britney Spears' tearful "Dateline" tête-à-tête with Matt Lauer could have happened in this era of carefully orchestrated PR moves, the New York Post has your answer. Seems the NBC folks "were shocked" when they turned up at the swelling pop starlet's Malibu estate and discovered she was all alone, with no publicists on hand.

"When [the crew] got there, they thought they had the wrong day," a mole tells the paper. "During the interview, no one was there to rein things in."

Britney also "insisted on doing her own hair and makeup," which might explain her baby chick-colored tangle of extensions and trowel-applied face paint, not to mention the false eyelash that came loose during her waterworks.

(We can only assume Spears also made the unwise decision to don a tank top so perilously low it appeared she was hiding two bald men beneath it, and a denim mini-skirt so high it recalled "Basic Instinct" -- and not in a good way -- every time she re-crossed her legs. There's still no word on who convinced Lauer it was a good idea to forgo his socks.)

During the interview, Britney, 24, defended her "awesome" marriage to Kevin Federline (even if her body language seemed to suggest otherwise) and her maternal instincts with perpetually imperiled future tell-all author Sean Preston ("I know I'm a good mom").

But the importance of having a publicist overseeing things was obvious when she mistakenly compared her hook-up with K. Fed, whose then-girlfriend Shar Jackson was six-months-pregnant with their second child, to that of Julia Roberts and Danny Moder (he and his ex-wife had no kids).

And though the privacy-pleading popster declared, "I do not care what people think ...," is that why she opted to go solo for what should have been a crucial bit of image burnishing?

"Britney is a grown-up and makes her own decisions," her mouthpiece curtly explains to the paper.

Meanwhile, the Federlines were the picture of a happy family on Thursday in Miami as paparazzi snapped them cavorting in the sea with Sean P.

While in town, the underemployed and overly fertile former backup dancer-turned-ersatz rapper demonstrated his newfound work ethic by hosting a shindig Friday night at hotspot Mansion to promote his forthcoming CD, "Playing with Fire" (yelling into a microphone and swilling champagne for the camera is considered work, right?).

And that's not the only way K. Fed, who recently asserted to "Access Hollywood" that he's "been paying for everything out of my pocket," is earning his keep. People reports he's landed a modeling gig with clothing company Blue Marlin to shill for its Five Star Vintage line. The campaign is set to debut this fall.