Britney Spears Totally Back On How I Met Your Mother For Sure

Mentally-wayward popstars appearing on desperately mediocre American sitcoms is a bit like buses, isn’t it.

You go years without seeing, say, Syd Barrett cameo on Home Improvement, and then suddenly Britney Spears decides to appear on How I Met Your Mother twice in quick succession, thus making her identical to a bus in that one unconvincing respect.

Yes, we know that we’ve hardly stopped yammering on about Britney Spears returning to How I Met Your Mother, but this time it’s official - a contract has been written and Britney Spears has either signed it or wiped a dirty finger along the bottom of it because she’s still not allowed near anything as sharp as a pen yet. Whichever one is true, the deal’s been done.

If you haven’t ever seen How I Met Your Mother - and we’d guess we’re speaking to the majority of you here - the show revolves around the conceit of an old man describing his youth to some children in flashback with the intent of explaining how he met their mother, and the audience has to slowly guess who their mother is as well. It’s a bit like The Jeremy Kyle Show, only slower and not as funny.

Anyway, the chances of Britney Spears being the mother have just doubled. It’s still a fairly unlikely proposition, though, because the children in the show can speak in full sentences, don’t exclusively eat Doritos and live in a house instead of a grotty trailer. It’s clues like this that you have to look out for.

Why have Britney Spears’ chances just doubled? Because she’s only officially signed up to make her big How I Met Your Mother return after weeks of speculation, as The Associated Press reports:

Britney Spears, who proved she’s worth a cool million viewers to “How I Met Your Mother,” is paying another visit to the CBS sitcom. Spears will reprise her role as bubbly secretary Abby in the May 12 episode, CBS said Monday. “We’re all so thrilled to have Britney joining us once again,” series executive producer and co-creator Craig Thomas said in a statement. “And just to head it off at the pass this time around: Yes, Mom, Britney’s very nice and no, I can’t get her autograph for you,” Thomas added, jokingly.

No wonder, really - last time Britney Spears appeared on How I Met Your Mother the show received its highest-ever ratings. True, having Britney Spears appearing on a sitcom a few weeks after she was taken to a psychiatric hospital reeks of opportunistic stunt-casting, but getting a few more viewers to watch a TV show is probably more important than a young woman’s mental health, all said.

One person who’ll either be thrilled or mortified about Britney’s return to How I Met Your Mother is Neil Patrick Harris, who recently seemed to say that having Britney on the show was a stupid idea.

He’s since backtracked like mad over the claims, but that hasn’t stopped Britney Spears from inserting a contractual obligation stating that one full third of her new How I Met Your Mother episode should involve her jabbing her nicotine and Cheezum-stinking tongue into Neil Patrick Harris’ mouth over and over again as a nasty lesson about dissing her in public. Probably.

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Spears reprises guest role on CBS’ ‘Mother’ - AP