It’s Sept. 7, 2000. Everyone has survived the Y2K scare, George Bush and Al Gore are competing for the presidency and Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears are the king and queen of the golden age of pop. It seems as though nothing can stop the power couple as they arrive at the red carpet for MTV’s annual Video Music Awards. Timberlake’s band, *NSYNC, is nominated for multiple awards, and Spears is ready to give a show-stopping performance of the title track from her multi-platinum selling album “Oops!… I Did It Again.”    By the age of 19, Spears had proven herself a force to be reckoned with. She sold nearly 40 million copies of her first two albums and was well on her way on the road to success.Fast forward to 2004. Spears and Timberlake’s teen royalty relationship has ended after rumors of infidelity, and a spur of the moment marriage is the first step in the de-throning of the queen of pop. Six months later, in July 2004, Spears was wed again, this time to her boyfriend of three months, Kevin Federline. By age 24, Spears had released her first greatest hits collection, given birth to her first son and was one of the top-selling female artists of all time. Things weren’t looking too bad for the teen pop sensation.    Fast forward to 2007. Spears and Federline have divorced and are in the middle of a bitter custody battle over their two sons, Sean and Jayden. She is seen partying all over Los Angeles, stepping out of cars with no underwear on, attacking paparazzi and infamously shaving off her lovely locks.  While Spears’ personal life was spinning out of control, the dedicated performer tried to continue her pop career, with the release of her fifth album, “Blackout,” in October 2007. Another performance at the VMA’s was predicted to be Spears’ long-awaited comeback to her former pop glory, but her dismal performance of “Gimme More,” the album’s first single, was just the opposite.     Even true fans like myself couldn’t deny the dull performance, and many people thought this was the last of Spears. And the next few months of chaos only got worse.  An emergency check in at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Jan. 3 seemed to be the end for the once upon a time queen of pop. Later that month, Spears was taken to UCLA Medical Center and put on an involuntary psychiatric hold until she was released amid speculations that she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In the 10 years since her first release, “Baby One More Time” in 1998, Spears had gone from pop sensation to media maniac, and after a failed comeback attempt in 2007, the singer’s career seemed to be finished for good. But things aren’t always the way they seem in the world of Britney Spears, as she is currently in the midst of what many music industry professionals are calling the biggest comeback of all time. A successful guest appearance on “How I Met Your Mother” and three Video Music Awards at the 2008 VMA’s started Spears’ latest comeback attempt. And a tour for her sixth studio album, “Circus,” is predicted to complete the package. The 286,000 first-week download sales of “Womanizer,” the first single from “Circus,” marks the biggest opening-week tally by a female artist since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking digital downloads. The song also jumped from No. 96 to No.1 in one week on the Billboard Top 100, making it the biggest jump in history.  MTV aired a documentary titled “Britney Spears: For the Record,” two days before her 27th birthday and the release of “Circus.” The documentary showed a candid Spears, talking about her recent experiences and how she has grown up as a result.The documentary was an eye-opening look into her real feelings about her life and the direction in which it is headed. While she is programmed for success and going through the motions of a major comeback, many Spears fans, including myself, are worried a fragile Spears may not be ready for the spotlight again. But ready or not, Spears is pulling through with two successful television performances and record sales likely to surpass the 300,000 that pundits predicted. “Circus” is the No.1 downloaded album on iTunes, and the music store has deemed the entire week Britney Spears week. The fate of Ms. Spears is yet to be determined, but with her successful album release and plans for a 2009 worldwide tour in the works, the successful comeback we have all been waiting for seems imminent.  But whether Spears rises to her former glory or not, with more than 83 million records sold throughout her career, she has proven herself a legend in the world of pop. – – – -Contact Victoria Toups at [email protected]