IT may be the ultimate humiliation. Britney Spears, the troubled pop superstar, has not only lost her hard-earned status as one of America’s most successful singers - she is no longer even the most popular celebrity in her own Louisiana home town.

A succession of mostly self-inflicted tabloid crises has taken a heavy toll on Spears’s popularity in rural Kentwood (population 2,000), whose inhabitants once dreamt of building a Britney-themed centre to rival Graceland, Elvis Presley’s home.

Not only have plans for the project collapsed, but a Britney exhibit at Kentwood’s modest municipal museum has been upstaged by the arrival of a new attraction. Taylor Horn, a 14-year-old singer-actress, is trying to become the second blonde bombshell from Kentwood to launch an international career.

Horn’s pictures have already replaced those of Spears in the display case by the museum’s front door. At the local Pizza Shack it is Horn’s autographed photos that decorate the walls, with Britney nowhere to be seen.

Horn’s emergence as a Britney-like clone with television appearances and a new CD has given her town a second chance at a tourist industry.

For a while there was a steady flow of fans coming to pay tribute to Spears’s country roots. One family even came from Mon-golia. But then the wheels came off Britney’s career. By the time she appeared in public without her underpants and shaved her head earlier this year, few in her home town were prepared to defend her.

In April the museum had three visitors. Last month there were six, but some of those may have come to see Horn.

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