Waiting for Britney: A Tabloid Writer Comes Clean

Jeff Weiss has a lot to say. He’s in the middle of a Zoom, which has swerved from the early-2000s Los Angeles club scene, to his favorite hard-boiled detective novels, to what it was like in the pre-iPhone era when we all had to print out directions on MapQuest. Charlie Brown has been referenced, as has Twin Peaks, more than once. More generally, though, he’s talking about his upcoming book, Waiting for Britney Spears, out June 10 — a semi-autobiographical, semi-fictional, almost 400-page look into America’s most famous pop star at the dawn of the 21st century, as told through the eyes of a young, hungry, ethically conflicted tabloid journalist. “I certainly wouldn’t call it a Golden Age,” Weiss, 43, says as his tabby’s tail swipes into the frame. “But that was an era, right?”