As she celebrates her 27th birthday today, Britney Spears would have liked nothing better than a long lie-in and breakfast in bed. Her wish, however, has not been granted.
Instead, she will be roused in the early hours, drag herself out of yet another unfamiliar hotel bed and somehow summon up the energy for a live performance on Good Morning America to mark the release of her new album.
After a week in which she has performed - in an unnervingly erratic fashion - to more than 50 million television viewers during a whistle-stop tour of France, Germany, Britain and her native U.S., having a happy birthday is not a priority for this talented, yet troubled young woman.
Britney Spears appeared on X Factor and mimed to her new song Womanizer
For despite her fame and riches, Britney has made it clear all she wants is a quiet life. But as has become disturbingly clear in recent weeks, that idyll remains an impossible dream.
The stark reality is that as far as Britney Spears is concerned, she does not have a life. And ever since her affairs were put in the hands of her father, Jamie, and her wealthy lawyer, the aptly named Andrew Wallet, she has not been in a position to make any decisions for herself.
Along with her influential manager, Larry Rudolph, these men make up a triumvirate who control Britney. And as she prepares to embark on a massive global comeback tour, the 27-yearold finds herself stuck on an exhausting treadmill with no end to her travails in sight.
'Even when you go to jail you know there's the time when you're gonna get out,' she tearfully confesses in a new interview. 'But in this situation it's never-ending. It's just like Groundhog Day every day.
'There's no excitement, there's no passion. I think it's too in control. If I wasn't under the restraints I'm under, I'd feel so liberated. When I tell them the way I feel, it's like they hear but they're really not listening.'
Her performance was watched by 12.8million viewers - a record for X Factor
But many fans bombarded chat forums, outraged that she didn't sing live
For anyone who watched Britney's bizarre performance on The X Factor last Saturday, it will not come as a surprise to hear that she is struggling.
Dressed in an ill-advised outfit of hotpants, fishnets and knee-high boots, she gyrated unconvincingly to her new single, Womanizer, blatantly miming on a television show which, lest we forget, is a live singing contest.
Internet forums were jammed with complaints, with the majority agreeing with the comment that 'all she can do is mime - and not very well'.
Her humiliation was complete when the show's presenter, Dermot O'Leary, had to hand Britney his microphone because hers was nothing more than a prop. She then couldn't answer his question about how the competing acts had fared because she hadn't bothered to watch them.
Later the same evening, she disappointed hundreds of fans who had crammed into London's Astoria club to see her, only to discover that she was 'too shy' to go on stage.
The singer wore and ill-advised outfit consisting of hot pants and fishnet tights
Host Dermot O'Leary gets on bended knee - but Britney replied incoherently when asked what she though of the X Factor contestants' renditions of her songs
Judges Louis Walsh, Dannii Minogue, Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowell applaud
A stark reminder, perhaps, that less than a year ago this fragile woman was being forcibly strapped to an ambulance trolley and wheeled off to the mental ward of a hospital.
Back then, she was sectioned twice in a month after doctors diagnosed her as being manic depressive with a borderline personality disorder, concluding that she was 'a danger to herself and to others'.
Her recovery - greeted with messianic fervour following a comeback at the MTV Awards in September - was initially seen as remarkable. The LA Times described her public appearance to accept three awards as a 'triumph of the Olympian kind'.
All she had done was to walk on stage and thank God 'for blessing me like this', but after a year in which she had lost custody of her two young sons and become so crazed that she had shaved her head in public, a slim and coherent Britney was a sight for sore eyes.
Now, however, the very regime which had saved her from madness is threatening to drive her back into the abyss. Since her father filed for legal ' conservatorship' this summer, so he could oversee her finances and personal affairs, Britney's life has been micromanaged to an extraordinary degree.
Britney smiles with the judges backstage - but didn't even watch the contestants' performances from her dressing room
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