Spears: In control

New York, May 10 (AP): The baby bump is for real.

Britney Spears told US talk-show host David Letterman yesterday that she is pregnant with baby number two. “Don’t worry Dave, it’s not yours,” the pop princess quipped on The Late Show.

The revelation ended weeks of speculation in entertainment magazines, which have been regularly publishing pictures of Spears’s apparently expanding waistline.

Spears, 24, and her husband, backup dancer-turned-rapper Kevin Federline, 28, were married in 2004 and have an eight-month-old son, Sean Preston. Federline also has two children, Kori and Kaleb, with his former girlfriend, Shar Jackson.

Child welfare officials and a policeman reportedly visited Spears’s home in April after her son accidentally tumbled from a high chair.

In February, authorities visited the home after photographs showed the singer in a car with her son in her lap, rather than in a car seat as required by law. Spears later apologised, saying she held the boy in her lap because of a “horrifying, frightful encounter with the paparazzi”.

Spears rose to fame at 16 with a naughty schoolgirl image and the multi-platinum album ...Baby One More Time.

‘Forget about men’

Britney Spears went from Curious to Fantasy, and now she’s In Control. Those are the names of her fragrances with Elizabeth Arden. The company says more than 10 million bottles of the three scents have been sold since the launch of Curious in September 2004.

The names are not a coincidence. “As I get older, the names go with my age,” said Spears. “This perfume is for empowered girls who want to take over the world ' forget about the men!” she said just ahead of a news appearance to celebrate her collaboration with the beauty company.