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Image credit: Britney Spears Photograph by Martin Schoeller

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In the Zone

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''I'm feeling much better,'' Spears cheerfully announces, swatting away the hair curler dangling down her brow as a stylist and makeup artist knock elbows trying to get at her head. It's Monday, Nov. 10, and she's back in a New York hotel -- the very one where this global saga began -- preparing for tonight's crucial album-launching showcase on MTV's ''Total Request Live.'' And she does appear to be her perky old self again, if not entirely recovered. Her nose is a little stuffy and her eyes slightly watery, but after a week in her mom's care, the flu, at least, is under control. ''I never, ever get sick,'' she says, ''so when we got to Paris I thought I was dying. My fever was so high I was out of my head. I had this French doctor -- I couldn't even talk to him. Finally I was like, This is silly, I just need to go home.''

Spears says her label was ''not happy, not happy at all'' with her decision to cut the tour short, ''but sometimes you just have to say, 'No, I'm not doing that -- I have to get some sleep.''' Excessive partying and too much work, she insists, had nothing to do with her collapse. ''It was the flu,'' she states, flatly. ''My assistant was sick before me -- she was in bed for a day or two -- so there was something going around.''

Maybe she's right. Perhaps it was merely a bug. But it's not hard to imagine a relapse -- if not another flu, then some other costly public hiccup -- as Spears ticks off some of what's on her to-do list now that she's back on her feet: resume hyping ''In the Zone''; shoot another video; brainstorm with her ''creative people'' for the full-fledged performance tour she plans to kick off next March (she's organizing a group trip to Vegas for ''inspiration''); work on her next album (''I'm already writing songs''); and, if she can squeeze it in, start her own record label (''Maybe by next year,'' she hopes).

But this well trained, media-driven Mouseketeer wouldn't have it any other way. ''I've never liked to chill out,'' she says, ignoring the army of beauticians, bodyguards, and publicists buzzing around the room in preparation for tonight's big event. ''I tried taking a break once. I announced that I was taking a year off. It lasted three weeks. I have so much energy, I need to keep busy. I need to be working all the time. It feels normal to me,'' she says, sniffling into a tissue. ''It feels healthy.'' (Additional reporting by Michael Endelman)

(This is an online-only excerpt of Entertainment Weekly's Nov. 21, 2003, cover story.)