The racy music video Britney doesn’t want you to see

The replacement video debuted last week to an upset reaction from many fans, thousands of whom have signed a Change.org petition demanding Brit’s record company release the original clip.

The replacement video is a relatively basic affair, showing Britney and a group of female friends as they ‘audition’ a succession of shirtless hunks. It’s sexy, sure, but as footage from the original cancelled video slowly leaks online, it’s clear that it’s a lot tamer than Britney’s original video. Around one minute of the canned footage has surfaced so far, showing Britney wearing very little — and at one point, seemingly nude except for red body paint:

TMZ reports that the original video was scrapped because Britney’s team thought it was too sexy, while other reports claim it was because it lacked a storyline.

Mobile phone footage recorded on the set of the original video appeared to show the singer — sitting in a tractor and surrounded by grinding back-up dancers — clashing with LaChapelle, angrily calling him an “asshole”.

Britney throwing a temper tantrum & calling Dave LaChapelle an asshole. Id do the same looking at this cheap ass set https://t.co/oxUI5HnoAL

— hyuna is HERE (@alcohorace) June 4, 2016

The singer and director had previously successfully collaborated on the video for Spears’ 2004 number one single Everytime.

While Spears had been touting the original, LaChapelle-helmed video on social media as far back as nine weeks ago with the Instagram post below, neither she or the director have spoken about what exactly happened to leave a much-hyped video by a costly director languishing on the cutting room floor.

Britney's video shoot: 'Day 1'

 

Day one: ✔️

A photo posted by Britney Spears (@britneyspears) on Jun 2, 2016 at 10:24pm PDT