Britney Spears in minor traffic mishap
Showbiz Desk

LOS ANGELES—Britney Spears was involved in a minor traffic accident on a Los Angeles freeway Saturday, authorities said.
California Highway Patrol Officer Patrick Kimball says the two-car collision occurred about 8:20 p.m. Saturday on the northbound 405 at the 101 freeway. Kimball says it was a minor accident and nobody was hurt.
Kimball says it’s unclear whether Spears was driving or which car she was in. The CHP took a report and no one was cited.
An after-hours e-mail sent to Spears’ publicist was not returned Saturday. Meanwhile, “How I Met Your Mother” star Neil Patrick Harris wants to set the record straight: “Britney did a great job on the show.” “In fact, we are all hoping that she returns rather soon to reprise her role,” he said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly’s web site about Spears’ cameo on the show. Harris was responding to a story featuring earlier comments he made to The Associated Press. Asked in that interview, “why does such a gem of a show need Britney to get any attention,” he responded, “I’m in the minority that our show does not need stunt casting in order to succeed.
“We’ve done a good three and three-quarter seasons with guest stars that we feel like are exactly perfect for the characters that (were) written ... by the crack writing staff,” Harris told a reporter visiting the set of the Monday night CBS sitcom. “I worry that if they start ‘Will and Gracing’ us too much, that the show will suffer. And we’re all really proud of the content of the show. I mean viewership is not our game. It’s the network and the studio’s game, you know. It’s the promotion department’s game. We wish we weren’t opposite an awkward reality dancing competition. But we have no say about that. I just am a real fan of our content. I think we have a great show going and I hope it’s not screwed up by the desire for 700,000 more viewers.” In his statement Friday, Harris said that “a writer took some quotes of mine and speculated an opinion about their intent.”