Why Was Britney So Bad?

Celebrity publicist Michael Levine thinks Spears' bad performance can be blamed on the fact that she's surrounded herself with sycophants, personally and professionally. Unlike most people whose friends and family will tell them if they shouldn't be shimmying in front of an audience of millions in their underwear, Spears has no one in her life to say, "No."

"What megacelebrities do is they go into their internal house and they disconnect their internal smoke alarm. So instead of someone saying 'Britney, you look like a moron,' or, 'You're too heavy,' they say, 'You're great!'" he said. "And that's the issue. She's out of reality."

Will the fallout from her VMA performance finally get Spears back on the path to respectable pop stardom? Gemma Puglisi, a PR specialist at American University, hopes so.

"Some people say bad publicity isn't bad, that it gets the buzz out there. But these are some serious issues," Puglisi said. "It's just getting worse and worse."

But if the amount of buzz around office water coolers and the Internet means anything, it's that Spears still gets people talking. And as long as that's true, Levine thinks she'll be able to get by just fine.

"Of course I'd hire her," he said. "As long as she'll make money, people will hire her. And she's still enough of a car crash right now to be hire-able."

And it seems that Spears' performance didn't leave all VMA viewers with the same feeling of disgust. Weighing in on a story about Spears and her subpar routine, ABCNEWS.com commenter wheaton1006 remarked, "I'd hit it."

Hollywood agent Bass believes that if Spears can get her act together and capitalize on those who still think she's hot, she can stage a real comeback.

"Where does Britney go from here? I think she's got to do what she does best and put out a hit song," he said. "Talent never dies, it may go sleep for a while, but it doesn't die."