8:59am UK, Tuesday January 06, 2004

Pop princess Britney Spears is single again - her whirlwind marriage over almost before it began.

The marriage certificate

The US singer filed for theannulment after her wedding to childhood sweetheart Jason Alexander in Las Vegas.

It was granted by a judge soon after the US courts opened on Monday.

Alexander, 22, said they hatched the "crazy" wedding idea "just for the hell of it".

He told Access Hollywood: "We were just looking at each other and said, 'Let's do something wild, crazy. Let's go get married, just for the hell of it."'

The star, dressed in torn jeans and a baseball cap, wed Alexander on the Las Vegas Strip at 5am on Saturday morning.


Within hours Spears, also 22, realised she had taken the "joke too far", a spokesman said.

The court papers claimed the pair did not know enough about one another to agree to marriage.

When they did learn about "each other's desires" later they realised they were incompatible.

Spears asked in the petition that both she and Alexander "be restored to the status of single, unmarried person".

A friend of the entertainer said she made arrangements to annul her marriage just hours after the ceremony.


There were apparently no hard feelings on either side - shortly after the documents were signed on Saturday afternoon, the couple had dinner.

"She had a great time while she was here (in Las Vegas)," the friend, who asked not to be identified, said.

The pair wed at the Little White Wedding Chapel on the Strip. A hotel bellman gave the bride away.

A source said she and Alexander were childhood friends who recently hooked up and had spent New Year's Eve together.

Britney's fourth album, In the Zone, stormed to the top of the US charts after its release in November.

She is due to go on tour on March 2, giving her first concert in San Diego.