Millionaire Britney laments 'cruel world'

31/10/2007 - 20:17:41
Britney Spears today defended her parenting and hit back at her critics, lamenting "how cruel our world can be".

Spears, always photographed but rarely interviewed these days, also spoke about her new album 'Blackout' during the seven-minute radio talk, during which she giggled frequently as her assistant, Alli Sims, and friend, Sam Lufti, laughed and shouted in the background.

When 'American Idol' host Ryan Seacrest, who has a morning radio show on KIIS-FM in Los Angeles, asked Spears if she was doing all she could for her children, Spears replied: "Oh God yeah."

"People say what they want and do what they do and it's sad how people, how cruel our world can be," she said. "At the end of the day … you've just got to know in your heart that you're doing the best you can and that's basically it."

Spears' ex-husband, Kevin Federline, has custody of her two sons, Sean Preston, two, and Jaden James, one. A judge yesterday granted Spears three monitored visits a week.

She must also take parenting classes and submit to random weekly drug and alcohol tests.

Spears was unclear when Seacrest asked how often she would see the boys.

"That's, like, all in the court," she said. "Stuff like that, my lawyers know all that stuff."

Seacrest apparently woke Spears up when he called her for the interview, and at times she did not seem to understand his questions. When Seacrest asked if the intense coverage of her recent troubles had been "overwhelming", she said: "Wait, what?"

However, she then said: "People talk and they say what they want at the end of the day, you know in the tabloids and in the magazines.

"But you just try to keep on doing what you do, like, you know, and as long as you know what's up and you know what's true, that's all that really matters, you know?"

'Blackout', Spears's first studio album in four years, was released this week. Besides a video for 'Gimme More' and a widely panned performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, she has not promoted the record.

Spears said she did not do anything special to celebrate the release - "we watched movies … had fried chicken".

She said her favourite 'Blackout' song was 'Heaven on Earth': "It's a cool track. It's like, I love the producers who did that and it's kind of different from all the other songs."

As for rumours that she was dating Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, Spears said: "Who?"

The interview ended abruptly when Sims took the phone, saying Spears had left to take a shower.