KEY POINTS:
Forget the mud-slinging gold-digger and the drunken former Mad Max man - trashy white pop princess Britney Spears has been judged the year's worst-behaved celebrity by New Zealand star-gazers.
Britney may even have got off lightly. The Herald-DigiPoll survey of 1000 people was taken just before worldwide tut-tutting over her Commando performance in late November (her knickerless exit from a car outside an LA nightclub).
Instead 31 per cent of those polled got in early with their disapproval, voting Britney the worst-behaved star of the year for failing to buckle in her infant son, Sean Preston, in February.
For the uninitiated, she drove straight down Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway with the four-month-old in her lap. The bimbo sent authorities and child welfare agencies into a spin, but Britney lumped all blame on the paparazzi. Sooo 1996.
Clearly common sense has no currency in Tinseltown.
Just ask Mel Gibson. His idiotic mid-year antics earned him second place in New Zealand's celebrity roll of dishonour.
Twenty per cent of us think he was the worst-behaved celebrity for his anti-semitic rants after being caught drunk at the wheel.
Mel told a Jewish police officer that Jews were responsible for all the wars in the world.
Acting before thinking - not the greatest way to win friends and influence people (but he is Australian).
Heather Mills McCartney came in closely behind in third place for worst-behaved gossip page fodder, attracting 17 per cent of the seal of disapproval.
All year the British tabloids have reported nasty details of "Lady Mucca's" accusations against her estranged husband Paul McCartney, commonly referred to in good-guy terms as "Macca."
The divorce settlement legalities have taken side stage, as public allegations of violence and drunkeness are made against the aging Beatle.
Macca's daughter Stella has waged in, calling Heather a "bitch" and threatening to kill her.
Seems loads of cash just can't buy a clean divorce settlement.
Sir Paul attracted 4 per cent of the bad celeb pie for his own divorce mud-slinging. The fallout over Madonna's machinations to adopt an African boy only mustered a 6 per cent slice.
The rest of the nominations came from C-class hopefuls whose exploits hardly rated a mention (who is Lisa Lewis?)
