We can only assume that Britney Spears saw yesterday’s Hottest Bikini Bods of Summer 2012 poll and decided she needed to be in on the game. Unfortunately, she also just missed the cutoff for our Hottest Twitpics of August post. Whatever, Britney deserves to be in a category all her own, right? Especially with an adorable photo like this one.

“Having some fun in the sun… don’t want summer to be over!” she wrote. That sentiment, combined with the super-cute ’60s floral print bikini she’s wearing, makes her seem more like an innocent teenager (who doesn’t want to go back to school) than she has since, oh, 1999. Her body looks great, and those glasses give her a touch of the hipster/I’m-not-onstage-so-I-can-relax vibe.

This is the perfect antidote to all those nasty rumors about Simon Cowell ordering Brit to “clean up” her look for The X Factor and her banning pretty women from working on the show. Look, we’re not naive; we don’t think things are all perfectly smooth and easy behind the scenes with two first-time judges who have a history of emotional fragility and are rarely forced to share the spotlight. But we are seriously looking forward to watching what happens this season, and no rumors are going to crush that … at least not until the first episode airs on September 12.

[Photo: Twitter]

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