Five big ideas about Britney Spears (and America, and...)

Jeff Weiss’s new book tackles 2000s tabloid culture from the POV of a writer who covered its biggest star

- ELISABETH GARBER-PAUL

STARTING OUT with the filming of her ‘...Baby One More Time’ video in 1998 and ending with her entry into a conservatorship a decade later, Jeff Weiss’s Waiting for Britney Spears is a semi-autobiographical, semi-fictional look at America’s most famous pop star at the dawn of the 21st century, as told through the eyes of a young, hungry, ethically conflicted tabloid journalist. Weiss, 43, had been planning to write about his post-college stint as a tabloid writer for 20 years, but still did intensive research, using his old clips, journals, emails and hundreds of vintage tabloids gathered on eBay to build his vivid, Von Dutch-laden world. Here are five key observations from Waiting for Britney Spears.

1. Britney’s shaved head meant more than we knew.