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Behind the VMAs: Britney ripped mercilessly

  • Story Highlights
  • Britney Spears' performance met with disbelief and mockery
  • Observer: "She soooo should have stayed home. ...What was the point?"
  • Jermaine Dupri bought tequila for everyone
  • Next Article in Entertainment »

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- Embarrassing. God-awful. Painful. Excruciating.

Spears

Britney Spears' performance was dismissed by many. "Look at her," said one observer. "She's barely moving."

Those are but a few of the words that audience members used to describe Britney Spears ill-fated "comeback" performance at the MTV Video Awards at Las Vegas' Palms Hotel Sunday evening.

When Spears hit the stage the crowd roared. Moments later many were staring in stunned silence. Train wrecks have a way of doing that to people.

One woman dressed in a low-plunging floral gown did manage to eke out a few words. They were not nice.

"Britney looks like a hot, sweaty mess," she declared, as the singer lip-synched her way through her latest single, "Gimme More." "Look at her. She's barely moving."

Others criticized everything from Spears' weight (mushy midsection) to her hair (cheap wig or weave) and still others wondered if she was, in their words, "on something."Video Watch Spears on stage as spectators squirm »

In the past, Spears has managed to deliver memorable performances (dancing with a yellow python; making out with Madonna), but in a women's bathroom at the Palms Hotel, none were discussing her glory years. When not touching up their lipstick or fixing their hair, the ladies had a ball eviscerating Spears.

Teetering on perilously high stilettos, one woman in a skirt the size of a handkerchief pronounced Spears' career over. "She soooo should have stayed home; it was really sad. What was the point?"

It was a question that would be asked repeatedly throughout the evening. At Tao, the restaurant where celebrities like Janet Jackson and Alicia Keys partied after the show, talk of Spears' debacle raged.

Tommy Lee and Kid Rock's brawl also had people buzzing. "My friend who was right there said that Kid Rock threw the first punch and then it just erupted into mayhem," one reveler said, before waxing rhapsodic about Pamela Anderson and her, ahem, virtues. Photo See stars turn out for the show »

Hip-hop mogul (and Janet Jackson's boyfriend) Jermaine Dupri was far more interested in delivering a hurting of a different kind. Not satisfied with the level of intoxication in the room, he ordered 10 bottles of Patron tequila for the crowd.

"I want everyone in here to get drunk," he yelled. "I want people stumbling home. We're partying tonight." Impromptu performances by rappers like T.I. and Nelly and singers like Robin Thicke soon followed.

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Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx also put on a brief show, singing a few lines from the hit song "Golddigger." Champagne, and not tequila, was his drink of choice. He spent much of the evening swigging from a bottle of Dom Perignon as an assortment of women danced around him. A brunette in skin-tight jeans and a tank top flashed her breasts repeatedly.

Foxx, sporting black sunglasses and a do-rag, smiled brightly. "It's crazy up in here," he crowed. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

All About Britney SpearsLas Vegas

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