Britney Spears will not be at the tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center tonight

Britney Spears caused quite the buzz when it was rumored that she was going to be a surprise guest performer at the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in New York tonight.

Sources say that Britney was originally set to attend and give a live performance. As live as you can get for Britney, as she was expected to dance and lip-sync. At some point between the time that the plans were made and today, Britney has decided to record a taped holiday message for her fans.

So, instead of actually showing up at all for the tree lighting, she’s phoning it in. She was said to have been over an hour late for her scheduled recording time, which angered the crew who had been waiting. She was also said to have changed things for her performance multiple times and sometimes on a whim.

A source close to the TV special said, “It is Britney Spears and she can do that because they want her to boost ratings, but no one is happy putting up with this. I probably shouldn’t say this, but guys on the crew were making bets about whether she would show up at all.”

An eyewitness said, “She was originally supposed to perform live and then she wanted to pre-tape her performance instead. Then she didn’t want to do that. She keeps changing her mind and now she’s not performing at all.”

Really nice. But seriously, how many times can she re-hash the same performance of Womanizer? I was really getting tired of hearing it. And her dance moves still leave a lot to be desired.