While that one wacky news station swears that they report and you decide, PopEater really lives up to the mantra. Last week, we asked you to choose from our lot of six megastars who would earn the title ‘Celebrity of the Decade.’ We laid out our reasoning for why each celebrity was nominated, but in the end, you chose Britney Spears over Angelina Jolie as the most important celebrity of the 2000s. Britney’s rise to, fall from and subsequent rise to fame once again apparently won our readers over, as the resilient Spears took 36 percent of the vote.

Of the six celebs who were eligible for this honor, Britney Spears has had the most weathered and dramatic journey of all. In 2000, she was pop music’s new queen — a brilliantly marketed blend of cutesy teen goodness and sexy jailbait badness. In 2006, she was a freight train off the rails, quickly spiraling towards being a publicist’s worst nightmare and even worse, many weren’t sure she’d make it out of the decade alive. Now, with 2010 approaching and after all of the ups and downs, Britney’s back on top of the music world — proving that divorces, head shavings and psychiatric holds can’t keep greatness down.

Britney started off the decade by absolutely demolishing the record charts, selling more than 1.3 million copies of ‘Oops! I Did It Again’ in the album’s first week. Months later at the MTV Video Music Awards, she sizzled on screen in a nude-colored outfit. Britney was growing up … fast.

Three years later, Britney made similar waves when Madonna passed the pop torch onto her via her tongue during a French kiss at the 2003 VMAs. Why is this even mentioned? Because it’s easily one of the top 5 most memorable pop moments of the decade. However, that smooch came close to being the kiss of death for Britney.

In 2004, Brit married her high school boyfriend Jason Alexander for 55 hours … and then a year later, she tied the knot to Kevin Federline. Two children, a reality show and a whole bunch of drama later, we all know how that worked out. In 2006, the couple was kaput, and Spears barely able to tread the dangerous waters she was floating in.

2006-07 saw Spears at her lowest point. Her divorce sent her spiraling into a downfall, including the infamous shaved head incident, an umbrella attack on photographers, rehab visits and more. This was erratic at its most severe, and many thought Spears could never recover and come back to her pop greatness.

After a very rocky return to stage during 2007s VMAs with an awkward and ill-fitting rendition of her new tune ‘Gimme More,’ Spears continued to dig herself deeper into the pop ditch, thanks to a wild relationship with paparazzo Adnan Ghalib. She was in the headlines every day thanks to her behavior and sheer who-knows-what-will-happen-next allure.

Then, in 2008, after starting the year by being rushed to a hospital and being placed under a psychiatric hold, Spears slowly began turning things around. She ditched Adnan, reached a custody settlement with Federline, and topped the charts again with her “comeback” album ‘Circus.’ A year later in 2009, Spears was back on top of the charts again with ‘The Singles Collection,’ riding the strength of the album’s blatantly sexual ode-to-threesomes single ’3.’

What the future holds for Miss Spears is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure — the girl’s got some rebounding skills. It’s that type of highs-and-lows ability to overcome adversity that put Britney on this list — and your celebrity of the decade.

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