So, where did it all go so wide-hipped and pear-shaped for Ms Spears? Why couldn’t she just go the Shakira route and, in between hip-shaking and making millions, study the history of western civilisation at UCLA? Looking back, let’s see if we can spot any telltale signs...

Humble Beginnings

Our Britters was born in Kentwood, Louisiana in 1981 to a building contractor and teacher. A keen performer in church choirs, she failed an audition to get into the Disney Club aged eight because she was too young. All was not lost though — the show’s producer liked her and put her in touch with a New York agent. Let’s repeat again how old she was, eight. And already she’s pulling a Melanie Griffith Working Girl move. Smart.

The Disney Years

In fact, Spears was only a member of the hallowed club — most recent alumni including Vanessa “I-am-so-sorry-about-the-naked-snaps” Hudgens — from the ages of 11-13. After a year back at school, she was back in New York auditioning for pop bands aged 15. Her demo tapes landed on Jive Records desk — they immediately signed her up for her “commercial appeal”.

At the time, she no doubt drew bubbly hearts next to fellow Mouseketeer and dreamboat Justin Timberlake’s name in her diary. Or maybe, seeing as she had already had an agent for eight years, she (or perhaps her parents/record company/manager/dietician) recognised that there could be good brand synergy between them.

Baby, One More time

Aged 17, Britney arrived. Britney the jailbait global phenomenon, that is. There are varying interpretations of the significance of Baby, One More Time. Some argued it was a monster pop anthem by a teen diva worthy of picking up Madonna’s baton. Indeed, Rolling Stone magazine declared it the 25th best pop song of all time.

The counter argument was that if you start your career dressed as a sexed-up schoolgirl, sucking on a lollipop and singing about S&M, it’s always going to be tough carving anything much more substantial out of the remains. Tricky call.

Britney —the Virgin years

Kicking George “is he gay?” Michael and the WMD conspiracies into the dirt, the “have Justin and Britney done it?” question spurred on the greatest smoking gun search of the early Noughties. A few voices started to wonder if there was some conflict in her professed girl-next-door lifestyle and crazed, man-eating strumpet image. Britney herself was a little confused. Was she coolly masterminding her “angel in the kitchen and devil in the bedroom” image, or living one big fat lie?

It was around this time that she also knocked out four albums, all going to No.1 on the US charts and all of which featured at least one good song. You’ll also probably remember that snog with Madonna?

‘The lost childhood’ phase

Here is where the “telltale” signs got louder than a thundering freight train trying to wake someone who has decided to have a nap on the tracks. In 2004, we had the “joke-too-far” wedding in Las Vegas to childhood friend, Jason Allen Alexander. Annulled before the hangover even had time to kick in, a court ruled Spears “lacked understanding of her actions to the extent that she was incapable of agreeing to the marriage”. Read: she was too sozzled to speak.

The apparently out-of-character behaviour is what laid the ground for the “lost childhood” theory — which really took hold during Hairgate. It’s a compelling one. Like a battery chicken egg plopped out onto a conveyor belt, Spears was groomed for stardom from the word go. By 17, she was richer than a small country and her professional role in life was to be the underage girl it was okay for every pervy uncle to like. Maybe her need for the security of marriage was an attempt to reclaim the family life she’d never had? It was during this period that the “maybe she’s just not very bright” theories began to circulate.

Toxic

Punctuating her marriages was the truly amazing hit single, Toxic. The video featured “schoolgirl” Britney all grown up and, in an even tighter uniform, reborn as “air hostess” Britney. She also appeared virtually naked, modesty “protected” by a few well-placed diamonds. Have you watched the video recently? It makes her current “stripper” phase seem positively apple-pie wholesome.

Perhaps we could see the seeds of the current “nudity at home” charges levelled at her by her 25-stone minder sewn around... here. Thinking about it, haven’t we covered Britney not wearing many clothes before? Perhaps the difference is, it’s okay if it’s in a “professional” context and in order to titillate millions of people. Mmmm.

K Fed. The children. The step-children. Whisper it, post-natal depression?

By the time she enticed backing dancer Kevin Federline away from his pregnant girlfriend and announced she was taking a sabbatical, Britney had been in the fame game for 15 years. Like boiling water to a Pot Noodle, she wasted no time in making a “family”. Popping out Sean Preston and Jayden James, she got the “no-need-to-pull-anymore-bloat” and shyed away from the limelight by starring in her own TV show, Britney and Kevin: Chaotic.

D.i.v..r.c.e and the “who really wants to go to the gym anyway?” era

Party time for Britney! You could see her logic. I’ve married a man who makes an album called Play With Fire, while partying with other women when I’m pregnant. He also wears his hair in cornbraids. He may also want a slice of my $100 million fortune. Dump him! And, to get over it, if Paris and Lindsay can get monstered on drugs, collapse in nightclubs and take vacations in rehab, why can’t I? I’m young, I can afford a nanny, or 10, to stop me dropping the kids on the floor when I’m trying to slurp on a soda, talk on my mobile and drive my Mercedes all at the same time. Who cares if Bette Midler wants to call me a “wild and woolly slut”? At least I’m not making cheap pornos like Paris, hmph! Actually, that gives me an idea for my next video....

Hairgate

The moment when we felt complicit. Looking like a cross between a boiled egg and Ripley in Alien, Britney’s blearily gleeful stare in February, seemed to bore deep into our souls. This was clearly a CRY FOR HELP. The pathos of the scenario was ratcheted up even further when the hairdresser revealed that Britney only cried, “when she said she was worried about what her ‘Mom’ would think”. Cue much pontificating about how shaving all her hair off, wearing a ring that said F**k, getting tattooed and generally going for a one-woman grunge revival was her bid for a new start.

Britney was “acting out”, ridding herself of the bondages of fame that had suffocated her for so long, this was her moment of self-authorship. She was... taking control.

Talk-to-the-Muff

But, and it might not have been a surprise to all, Britney thought screw “reaching in”, let’s relaunch my career. So, we got Spears flashing her bits at every tabloid long lens on “muff duty” and acting heroically off-the-wall, with one rehab spell ending after she reportedly scrawled 666 onto her head, ran around screaming “I am the Antichrist!” There was a terrifically seedy LA club tour, some horrific fashion disasters, before events climaxed with her “catastrophic comeback” on the MTV Video Music Awards. A move so disastrous, the network probably sent an ambulance driven by a laughing bank manager to pick her up and take her to the show.

Now her management team have dropped her, her lawyer has quit, an ex-minder has pitched in saying he has concerns “regarding nudity, drug use and the safety of children,” and a judge has ruled, as well as twice weekly drug tests, she and Federline have to go to a “Parenting Without Conflict” programme in order to retain joint custody of their children.

Just where are the advisers, friends and family telling her “you earn $350,000 a month, what about a nice, extended holiday. And while you’re there, take a look back on all your achievements and find some anti-depressants that work”? Come to think about it, where were the advisers to counsel a 17-year-old Rolling Stone cover star with a new boob job that breasts sell, but why not wait a couple of years and grow your own?

Who was there to tell the then eight-year-old, “you might want fame now, but ever heard of Michael Jackson?”