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Hoping to solve the mystery of how Britney Spears, a seasoned performer with many memorable faux-lesbian and python-related VMAs performances to her credit, came to prance across that Las Vegas stage as listlessly a past-her-prime, breakfast-shift stripper who'd just been shot in a fishnetted haunch with an elephant-grade tranquilizer dart, Page Six today consults a spy who claims to have the behind-the-scenes information about the much-discussed debacle. Spears' rehearsal session, it seems, was hampered by lateness, the tragic overriding of a wardrobe professional's costume choice, and, unsurprisingly, the refusal to perform any choreography that might result in the spillage of her precious pre-show cocktail:

To make matters worse, when she arrived in Vegas, Spears didn't go straight to rehearsals.

"She went to her hotel room and ordered a bunch of food and some frozen margaritas," the spy said. "She came down, like, an hour later with a frozen margarita in her hand." [...]

"The dance number was spectacular - without her," said our spy at rehearsal. "When the stand-in was rehearsing with the dancers, in the hours they were all waiting for her, it was amazing. Then Britney showed up and refused to do anything. The dancers were supposed to lift and twirl her in the air a few times, and that just wasn't going to happen. The more complicated dance moves had to be erased because she couldn't do them."

Meanwhile, Spears was agitated because she didn't like the outfit MTV had selected for her. "MTV wanted her to wear a corset outfit. It would have looked great and covered a lot of things up, but she hated it and didn't think it was sexy enough." Instead, Spears changed into a spangly bra-and-underwear outfit she'd brought with her that emphasized her weight gain over the last year.

MTV execs weren't the only ones worried about Spears' impending debacle. Another spy said, "The dancers were texting pals, asking them to pray for them. They were worried."

The most moving of those text-message pleas for divine intervention would come from the background dancer whose genitals were volunteered for the routine's perilous crotch-grabbing sequence, a thumb-typed prayer he offered directly to the Creator Himself after Spears' rough treatment of his manhood during the initial runthrough left him writhing in pain on the stage: "Pls god, let her not crush my junk. if i live thru this with my balls i promise 2 give up dancing and go back 2 law school. amen."