Hit Me Baby 30 Times: Pop Princess Britney Spears Turns Thirty

"Hit Me Baby, Thirty Times...HARD!"

Hard to believe, but Pop Princess Britney Spears hits the Big 3-0 today.

It's been a roller-coaster ride for the former Mouseketeer, who shot to fame as a perky Lolita-esque teenager in the late-1990s. She's had love affairs with superstar hunks (Justin Timberlake), married a wannabe rap star who turned into a chunk (Kevin Federline), had a couple of kids, got a D-I-V-O-R-C-E and experienced a requisite mental breakdown, all played out in the headlines. Even her younger sister Jamie Lynn got in on the act, getting pregnant at the ripe old age of sixteen, cementing the Spears clan's L'il Abner schtick.

She once shaved her head American X style and took a golf club to a car belonging to a paparazzo! Her perfumes (Trailer Trash, Padded Cell Curious, Fantasy) have earned her mega-millions. She incited controversy by driving around with her sons Sean Preston and Jayden James in her lap and not in a car seat. She was photographed walking around barefoot on the dirty streets of her hometown in Louisiana for The People of Wal-Mart (She should be their official spokesperson). She made quite a statement appearing in a sexy outfit with an albino python draped around her at the MTV Music Awards, only to completely humiliate herself years later at the same awards ceremony, doing a shoddy lip synch performance, dancing like a drunk panda bear and looking paunchy instead of sexy.

Yes, Britney's sure had a lot of living in those thirty short years. So, Happy Birthday, Britney. Keep on entertaining us with your wacky antics.