One of the great hazards of supermarket shopping has always been the tabloids lining the checkout lane, assailing us with tawdry tales of celebrity misfortune. Infidelity, infertility, addiction—all are grist for our sadistic lust to see stars brought down to the same lowly level as us. As French intellectual Edgar Morin wrote in The Stars, his classic book about movie idolatry, ”Every god is created to be eaten.”

Pregnancy cleavage can be a beautiful development, but serving up one’s bosom like melons at a picnic is aggressively self-indulgent, enormously distracting and, unless you’re auditioning for a spread in Penthouse, unnecessarily vulgar.

Spears fidgeted, blathered and wept through the interview last week and one couldn’t help but gape in amazement at her astonishing aesthetic meltdown. It’s hard to recall the last time someone as famous as Spears—without any accompanying substance-abuse rumors—appeared so startlingly, slovenly wretched. The pop singer’s golden glow of stardom had been dimming, but this was the moment when it dropped below the horizon.

During the “Dateline” interview, Spears tearfully implored the paparazzi to leave her alone. Her pleas were reasonable and tugged at the heart. One came close to forgetting that she had encouraged the attention with her provocative videos, snake-charming stage performance, open-mouthed Madonna-kissing, 15-minute marriage, grotesquely narcissistic reality show and second husband known for displaying the tawdry, laconic demeanor of a pimp on weed.