THE US: Pop star Britney Spears married a childhood friend from Louisiana in an early-morning ceremony - but quickly arranged to have it annulled, a source close to the singer said last night.
Mr George Maloof jnr , owner and operator of the Palms Casino Hotel, confirmed that 22-year-old Spears married Jason Allen Alexander of Kentwood, Louisiana, on Saturday at a Las Vegas wedding chapel.
"Nobody knew it was coming," said Mr Maloof, a friend of the star.
The two arranged an annulment just hours later in the presence of several people, including a Las Vegas lawyer, said a source close to Spears.
The signed annulment will be official when the courts open this morning, the source said. Calls to Spears's representatives were not returned.
Spears and Alexander travelled by limousine to the Little White Wedding Chapel on the Strip after a stop at the Ghostbar, a club in the Palms Casino Hotel.
The chapel staff told the couple they couldn't get married without a licence.
They were then taken to the Clark County Marriage Bureau office in the downtown Las Vegas courthouse.
They applied for and were granted the marriage licence, then driven back to the chapel, where they were married.
The bride wore a baseball cap and torn jeans to walk down the aisle escorted by a hotel limousine driver, the source said.
Spears was still staying at the Palms Casino Hotel yesterday morning. Yesterday, People.com, a US Internet showbusiness site, quoted a source close to Spears as saying the wedding was a joke that went too far and the singer was already planning an annulment.
"I don't know what's going through her mind," the website quoted "someone close to Spears" as saying.
She released her latest, In the Zone, in November, storming to number one on the music charts with the aide of a publicity blitz.
To promote the album, Spears has posed topless, appeared in several television interviews and caused a major stir with her kiss with Madonna during the MTV Video Music Awards. - (Reuters)