Britney Watch: Belgium, Babies and a Sad Ballad

Did Britney Spears get a sudden hankering for really authentic waffles? Reports out of Belgium this week claimed the erratic starlet popped into an eatery in Antwerp -- wig askew and bodyguards in tow -- and asked to use the bathroom.

The scenario certainly sounds plausible enough, especially in light of the unusual Brit blackout over the last few days and rampant tabloid speculation that she's ready to pack up sons Sean Preston, 23 months, and Jayden James, 11 months, and flee the country to avoid the increasingly acrimonious custody battle with ex-hubby Kevin Federline.

But it looks like Spears didn't jet off to sample the many delights Belgium has to offer. On Wednesday, she was spotted cruising around Los Angeles in her Mercedes CLK with Sean and Jayden.

OK! reports she left her Beverly Hills mansion and rode around with the tots for about two hours without making any stops (at one point, she hit a dead end and had to turn around), eventually returning home around 6:30.

"The kids were in the back of the car and Britney just seemed to be driving aimlessly," says a spy. "She was going up and down random streets in different neighborhoods."

But could she soon be driving aimlessly on the other side of the road?

OK! believes she may be eyeing a move to England (Star's money is on France), and posits that she's already practicing her accent.

"She thinks her only hope is to move to London for a fresh start," a spy tattles to the mag. "She is so scared about losing her boys that her mind is racing trying to think of how to keep them."

(Given that Brit couldn't even take the tykes to Las Vegas without hearing from Federline's legal pit bulls, this purported plan may need some more mind-racing.)

According to Life & Style, her chubby-cheeked boys were also at the forefront of her mind when one of its operatives ran into her at a Los Angeles hot spot last week.

After a few pulls on her Seabreeze, a down-in-the-dumps Brit supposedly told the reporter, "My babies are my life. I love them more than anything."

Meanwhile, OK! claims Spears' former manager, Larry Rudolph, whom she drop-kicked to the curb following her reluctant trip to rehab in February, stopped by to visit her on Tuesday.

That bit of news will likely be of interest to Federline's lawyers, who have reportedly been trying to serve Rudolph with a subpoena related to the custody dispute.

In a phone chat with "Access Hollywood," Rudolph joked that he was on vacation, "hiding out from Kevin's processors."

No word on what Britney might have discussed with her onetime handler, although perhaps they touched on reports that she flaked on recording a duet with former flame Justin Timberlake.

The New York Post claims Brit was set to warble on a Justin-penned, Timbaland-produced track, only to bail out without explanation at the last minute.

"It's crazy," a source tells the paper. "She's looking for a comeback, and this would have not only been a huge hit, but something she could have opened the MTV Video [Music] Awards with and really blown everyone away."

But an insider tells Us Weekly that there were never any plans for Timberlake to record with Spears, insisting, "There have been lots of discussions about who Britney is working with and Justin has not been one of them. Nothing with Justin was ever even discussed."

By the by, there's still no confirmation as to whether Spears will actually appear at the VMAs on Sept. 9, despite her late night hotel meet-ups with ooky, publicity-craving illusionist Criss Angel, who has ostensibly been helping her plan her performance.

Still, at least one Angel pal harbors no illusions that their tête-à-têtes -- whether personal or professional or both -- are based on mutual affection.

"Criss is a magician -- he knows how to do low-level hypnotism," the snitch suggests to Us. "If he ran into Britney Spears, I'm sure it was like shooting fish in a barrel ... He'll charm her for a couple weeks, get bored and drop her, probably after the VMAs."

Nice.

Anyhoo, word from Life & Style is that the bygone popster has a handful of songs she could lip-sync sing at the VMAs, including one soulful -- in a junior-high kind of way, at least -- love-gone-wrong ballad that was leaked on the interwebs Thursday.

In a vocal that Randy Jackson would kindly describe as "pitchy," Brit woefully moans, "Every day, I'm in a daze/Looking for that someone/And every day, I sit and kneel and pray/Oh sweet love, can I get some?/ So, why do you desert me, baby boy?/ I need your love right now."

There's also a brief interlude in which Spears pretends to converse on the phone with her inamorato ("Hey baby, what time you gonna get home? Oh, really?") before she brings it on home.

"Some day when you see my face/You will think that you have won," emotes Britney. "And some day when it's all away/Our love just begun."

But was the dramatic track not meant for public consumption?

"This is obviously just a demo and not a finished or official release in any way," a source close to Spears poohs-poohs to Us. "It is a shame someone would leak unfinished, unmastered and incomplete work."

Related Posts