When Vanessa Grigoriadis – a writer we like to think of someone who takes subjects that have been done to death, and then updates them so we can get at least one post out of it – was making inroads on her Britney Spears cover story for Rolling Stone, she ran into a whole gaggle of the UCLA Medical Center veteran's handlers.

Normally, handlers are responsible for keeping their clients' best interests at heart, creating a protective womb for their fragile subject. But lest we know anything about the Adnan Ghalibs and Sam Lutfis of the world … HAH.

Instead, Britney's so-called handlers were all willing, as David Shuster might say, to pimp her out. One, to the tune of $2 million.

Speaking to Howie Kurtz on CNN's Reliable Sources:

KURTZ: Vanessa, you tried to get an interview with Britney, and you wound up dealing with one of her intermediaries, a guy named Klaus (ph).

Tell us what happened.

VANESSA GRIGORIADIS, "ROLLING STONE": Well, through some sort of miscommunication, Klaus (ph) was under the impression that I was going to give him $2 million in order to have an interview and a photo shoot with Britney. And he's just one of the many people around her who is, you know, essentially somebody who realizes that there is somebody who's very valuable to be booked in any way, as a sponsorship, a media interview, a restaurant opening, whatever. Let's take this girl and do something with her.

KURTZ: Well, obviously you didn't cough up the cash, but I understand he asked for pre-approval of the article and something about who was going to take the pictures?

GRIGORIADIS: Sure, yes. No, the people that I was dealing with, I mean, essentially these people are just really naive, they don't understand the way that United States media works at this point, which is like there's no pre-approval over articles. We don't let your friends take pictures for the cover of "Rolling Stone: magazine.

It might be as easy a as that? I don't know. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

So kitchy, that Vanessa!

Sure, Rolling Stone might not pay for access, or allow intermediaries, like publicists or mono-named handlers, have a say over how an article gets treated, but let's not kid ourselves about policies over at corporate cousin Us Weekly.