BRITNEY Spears mimed her way through her much-hyped X Factor comeback show last night - but still managed to blow away the audience.
The pop princess lip-synched to her new song Womanizer because, insiders told me, she wanted to concentrate on her dance routine.
And after her shambolic public outing just over a year ago, where she stumbled around the stage at the MTV Awards, who could blame her?
Like everyone watching X Factor at home, I waited with bated breath to see if she had recovered from the demons that have plagued her—and the signs were positive.
I was just two rows from Brit, close enough to see the sweat on her brow, and watched as she gave it her all.
And I can reveal that earlier she left Simon Cowell uncharacteristically speechless—when she admitted she hadn’t watched the show from her dressing room.I was the only journalist backstage when Britney met the show’s judges and I saw her stun Simon, 49, into near-silence.
I couldn’t help but giggle when the usually cocksure music mogul was reduced to a bumbling wreck despite having rolled out the red carpet for Britney’s UK comeback performance.
He asked her if she had seen the five remaining acts perform moments earlier— covering her songs—and she responded with a point-blank “No!”
There followed a moment of awkward silence as Simon stood open-mouthed in amazement before blurting out: “Oh, that’s okay, not to worry."