Britney almost spared the world her atrocious “performance” at the VMAs – by trying to back out ten minutes before she was set to perform. She heard from K-Fed that her sons would be watching and she begged him not to let them see her, saying she would be half naked and it wasn’t appropriate. K-Fed said “You walk around the house naked all the time! What’s the difference?”

MTV told her she better suck it up/in and go on or they were going to sue her saggy ass. And I thought the girl had no clue that she isn’t all that anymore.

What’s more is that she was drinking vodka backstage and took a Xanax right before she went on. Earlier rumors had her coked up before her performance, but a mellowing drug like Xanax makes more sense. At least she has an excuse now other than being unprepared and hung over.

The Enquirer has learned that Britney, 25, tried to back out of the show at the last minute, popped a Xanax just before she went on stage, and sobbed like a baby after her dismal performance.

“Britney was completely numb (onstage) and it showed,” a music industry insider told The Enquirer.

Before performing “she was backstage slugging down shots of vodka. She thought it would calm her nerves, but all it did was make her dancing completely uninspired….”

Britney did show up to perform, but she had a meltdown backstage when her ex-husband Kevin Federline called to say their two young sons would be watching the show.

“Britney started yelling at Kevin that she didn’t want the boys to watch because she felt her nearly naked body and provocative dance moves would be too much for them to see,” said her friend.

“Kevin fired back: ‘But you walk around the house naked all the time! What’s the difference?'”

While getting last-minute touchups to her hair and makeup, Britney dropped a bombshell – telling producers she couldn’t perform.

“Britney knew that her rehearsal hadn’t gone well. But it was 10 minutes before she was supposed to go on stage – and the MTV bigwigs had a fit!” a source revealed.

“They told Britney that if she didn’t go one, they’d sue her. So she agreed to go ahead.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, September 24, 2007]

They should have let Kanye West perform on the main stage, he’s annoying but I think he was right to bitch about performing in one of the party locations instead. It was too late ten minutes before to prepare another act though, and Britney should have realized the day before that it wasn’t going to work. She probably couldn’t have backed out at that point, either, due to the fact that MTV was promoting the hell out of her “comeback” appearance.

We reported earlier today that all of Britney’s partying might come to a sad conclusion for the young mother. It is thought that she might lose primary custody of her infant sons to her ex husband, due to new allegations that are set to be revealed to the court.

Commentor Fabiola Thing mentioned after last week’s terrible performance that it seems like Britney doesn’t want to perform anymore and is just doing a half-assed job because she doesn’t know what else to do but wants a way out. She seems to be taking that approach to parenting, too.

There was a rumor last week that Britney was going to apologize at the Emmys for her awful VMA performance, but that never happened. Host Ryan Seacrest said she had an open invitation.