'Elle' Throws Back To Britney Spears' 2000 Cover

I love when magazines participate in Throw Back Thursday, posting covers of issues past to their Instagram and Twitter feeds, celebrating their publication’s dramatic changes from then to now, ultimately making me feel old. This morning Elle' s #tbt featured Britney Spears’s October 2000 cover, the now-Editor in Chief Robbie Myers’s debut cover. My, how time flies.

An unbelievable fifteen years later and the pop star has been featured across Elle pages an additional three times under Myers. We’ve got breakout-Britney in 2000, releasing her second album "Oops... I Did It Again!" and mother-to-be Spears in October 2005, pregnant with her first son with then husband Kevin Federline. Fast forward a few years later as Spears poses on the glossy's January 2010 dual cover, all smiles as she sits and laughs with her precious boys, and last but not least, Britney on top of her game in 2012.

I'm pretty much a Spears super-fan. When she first came around in the late 90s, dancing around a high school hallway in that short uniformed skirt and pigtails, best believe my Barbies were very familiar with the routine. In second grade, my best girlfriend and I lip synced to "Sometimes" in front of a crowd at Six Flags. She was the pop-star of the moment, and basically has continued to be the pop-star of every moment she releases a new single.

When she went a tad crazy, I sympathized with her. When she made an incredible comeback, producing hits like it was as natural as breathing, I applauded her success.

It was refreshing to see the her face on my news feed this morning. I grew up with Britney Spears, and I think it really says something to Elle's professionalism that its writers were there along the way to highlight her biggest accomplishments and forgive her faults.

While I sit jamming to her greatest hits (yes, I still have this album, thank you very much), I bring you Britney Spears through the years as documented by Elle cover photos. Let the 2000 pop-era nostalgia commence.

1. October 2005

Prominently pregnant, Spears has quite the motherly glow for Elle's October 2005 issue.

2. January 2010

Who really knows why America's sweetheart went a little off the rails for awhile (pressures of fame, perhaps), but clearly Spears got back on her feet, only to become the hot mama we know her to be.

3. October 2012

Love her, hate her, say what you want about her, when Britney Spears makes a comeback, she does it with a bang.

You're welcome.

Images: Elle Magazine