Britney Spears‘ poor performance at Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards was reportedly caused by a fight with her hairdresser, Ken Paves.

A backstage sources have told People: “Britney had requested his two female assistants [to do her extensions] since she prefers women around her,” so was disappointed when Ken turned up.

A second source speaking to Us Weekly went on: “Ken was in the middle of doing her hair, and she just said, “You’re really annoying me! Get out!’”

The spat is said to have been caused by “creative differences” (”she wanted to go brown, but her people said ‘no way’”) but either way, according to Ken himself: “I made the professional decision not to do her hair for the VMAs.”

But another MTV source told the Sun that the hair issue was a symptom of the problems, not the cause: “The scene in the dressing room before the show was one of absolute blind panic.”

“She knew she hadn’t rehearsed enough and was going to mess up the whole show and possibly her career - then she saw her hairdo and it was the final straw. She went into a wild rage and started lashing out at everyone - including her stylist.”

Her staff then fetched a doctor to give Britney a prescription drug to calm her down but when she took to the stage, she panicked again. Us Weekly’s source explained: “She was also able to see video of herself throughout the auditorium.”

“She flipped out. She came running off the stage, yelling ‘Oh, my God, I looked like a fat pig! I looked like a fat pig!’ She was inconsolable.”

The source also revealed that any illusion of toning was just that - an illusion: “She had an ab-defining spray tan preshow to create the illusion of more tone.”