If Britney Spears wanted to distract the paparazzi from that fresh tattoo on her wrist, she sure picked a heck of a way to go about it.
A newly bald Britney was spotted entering a Sherman Oaks, California, tattoo parlor Friday night. She emerged a little bit later sporting a... Wait a minute! Bald?!
A bystander interviewed by L.A.'s KABC-TV, which filmed Spears heading into Body & Soul Tattoo on Ventura Boulevard, said the pop star had shaved her head because "she didn't want people touching her anymore."
In fact, Spears didn't even want anybody to cut her hair for her. Celebrity photo agency X17 (X17online.com) captured before and after pics of Shears, er, Spears doing the job herself.
First, at 7 p.m. Spears headed to a San Fernando Valley hair salon, brown locks tucked under a hoodie. A series of photos then shows Spears wielding the electric razor as she proceeds to give herself a buzz cut that will surely rival "the Rachel" as one of the most talked-about 'dos of the year.
After unshackling her pate, Spears went to a nearby tattoo parlor and was inked with a black, white and pink cross on her lower hip, and red and pink lips on her wrist.
A source told E! Online's Marc Malkin that Spears' mother is tearfully distraught over her daughter's latest move, telling him the family is "in major intervention mode."
News of Spears' head-shaving, tattoo-inking antics came amid intense speculation earlier Friday that the increasingly pooped-looking "Toxic" singer was in rehab. But there was no confirmation from her camp, only conflicting reports that Spears was already out of rehab.
According to Extra, which first advanced the rehab story, Spears checked into an unidentified treatment facility about two days ago.
Later, both TMZ and People reported that while had Spears checked into a treatment facility, she'd checked out a day later.
The site of the singer's reputedly brief stay was the Eric Clapton-founded Crossroads Centre on the Caribbean island of Antigua, People said.
"We believe that the majority of individuals suffering from addiction have the capacity for recovery if given the proper foundation to begin their journey," Clapton says on the clinic's Website. "At Crossroads we help provide that foundation."
In an email this week to Hollywood.com's That Other Blog, former Spears assistant Felicia Culotta wrote that she was "crushed/saddened/heart sick" by the entertainer's apparently crumbling foundation.
"WE (as in her family and nearest and dearest—ALL of whom are not on the payroll anymore!!) are doing EVERYTHING in our power to get help for Britney," Culotta wrote.
Spears, 25, has been a fixture on the club circuits in Los Angeles, New York and Las Vegas since filing for divorce from husband Kevin Federline last November.
Giving the paparazzi ample photo opportunities, the mother of two has exited cars sans underwear, enjoyed the company of exotic dancers and napped and/or passed out during a New Year's Eve bash. In a posting on her Website last month, Spears chalked up the reports to the media "exaggerating my every move."
Last weekend, while former boyfriend Justin Timberlake and former MMC colleague Christina Aguilera were starring at the Grammys, Spears was in New York City, spied stepping out of a vomit puddle located in the backseat of her limousine.
Even Spears' much-mocked estranged husband has enjoyed a smoother ride of late than the onetime Grammy winner. While Spears reportedly lobbied, unsuccessfully, to star in a Super Bowl spot, Federline poked fun at himself in an ad for Nationwide Mutual Insurance.