How do you walk away from $15 million? The thing is, it’s not like Britney Spears has never seen $15 million. She should have $15 million several times over by now. The problem is that it’s never enough. Even when she can barely function without pharmaceutical assistance, and the governance of both her father and her fiancé, it’s still never enough. $15 million is the price tag for exposing her fragile mental health on what’s essentially the biggest stage ever. Live network television is FOREVER. You can never, ever erase it.

Unless of course they negotiated a pre-tape just for her. But if that’s the case, doesn’t that disturb the integrity of the show?

Assuming then that not even Britney Spears can turn a live show into an edited one, how does she get through the series, and several hours of spontaneous programming, on her own?

Like I said a couple of months ago, there’s no way this goes down without someone in her ear. They will feed her the dialogue. They will give her the quips. All she’ll have to do is repeat what she’s hearing into her microphone. Monkey see, monkey do.

Here’s Britney on stage yesterday - two short sentences, dutifully memorised, and NO MORE.

But what happens when monkey snaps?