HOLLYWOOD - Although Britney Spears, whose new album In the Zone (formerly titled Get in the Zone) hits stores Nov. 18, seems to be cultivating a more adult image lately, the pop starlet says that's not the case.
"The record label wanted me to do certain kinds of songs, and I was like, 'Look, if you want me to be some kind of sex thing, that's not me,'" Spears tells Esquire magazine in its November issue. "I will never do that. I'm still doing what I love to do."But Spears, who recently appeared topless in the Sept. issue of Elle UK and on Rolling Stone magazine's October cover, doesn't exactly appear to be practicing what she preaches. On the Esquire cover she wears only a white sweater and heels in a re-creation of an old Angie Dickinson photo, and the pictures inside are reportedly sizzling.
In the article accompanying the photos, Spears tells writer Chuck Klosterman she doesn't dress provocatively and swears that she never thinks for a minute about the possibility she's a sexual icon for millions of American males. "I don't even want to think about that. That's strange, and I don't think about things like that, and I don't want to think about things like that," she says in the article excerpted on Esquire.com. "I'm concerned with the kids out there....I'm not worried about some guy who's a perv and wants to meet a freaking virgin."
Spears reportedly also says she doesn't see herself as being too famous: "I'm famous, but I'm not famous like freaking Brad Pitt or Jennifer Aniston. But in my weird little head, I just think we're all here to inspire each other. We just bounce off each other and show the world what we can do."
In fact, Spears bounced off a bevy of musical bigwigs for her soon-to-be released album In the Zone. The first single to be released from the album, a track titled "Me Against the Music," features Madonna and has already been sent to several producers, including Outkast and Madonna mixer Peter Rauhofer.
Spears described the video for "Me Against the Music" to MTV News.
"We've hooked up [again], but I've learned not to talk about my personal life," Britney said of Madonna. "But basically that song is about just being in a club and being oblivious to everyone and just zoning out and just freestyling. And it's me and that beat."
The video for "Me Against the Music," directed by Paul Hunter, was shot earlier this month in New York and will premiere October 13 on MTV's Making the Video.