Britney Spears has been silent when it comes to Kevin Federline — until now. In her new memoir, The Woman In Me , the singer details how her relationship with her ex-husband ended and explains how he stayed with her when he began focusing more on fame than family distance.
The two first met in early 2004, more than a year after she split from Justin Timberlake, and quickly became acquainted on her Onyx Hotel tour, where he was a dancer. They got engaged after dating for three months and had a surprise wedding in September 2004.
However, Spears revealed that they didn't actually legally get married until a few weeks later because their lawyers needed more time to finalize their prenuptial agreement.
Spears and Federline have two children together - 18-year-old son Sean Preston and 17-year-old son Jayden James. However, she filed for divorce in 2006, just two months after their youngest child was born. But as she explains in the book, their relationship began to sour long before that.
first red flag
After detailing how they first met, Spears revealed that when they started dating, she had "no idea" Federline's ex was eight months pregnant with their second child, or that he had even Having a child.
“I live in a bubble and don’t have a lot of good, close friends to talk to and get advice from,” she wrote.
“I didn’t know until we were together for a while and someone told me, ‘You know he had a newborn, right?’ I didn’t believe it, but when I asked, he told me it was true. He told me he meets them once a month."
He had a brush with fame
After marrying Spears, Federline had everything her fame had to offer and decided to make a name for herself by making rap albums and landing endorsement deals. But she said his newfound fame quickly went to his head.
"Kevin is obsessed with fame and power," Spears wrote. "Over and over again in my life I have seen fame and money destroy a person, and I saw it happen in slow motion with Kevin. In my experience, when most people (especially When men) get that kind of attention, it's all over them.
Eventually, Spears found herself home alone with her children, and her attempts to visit him in the studio were often rebuffed, even as she traveled to New York and Las Vegas to see him. "When I found him, he had his head shaved," she wrote.
"He's getting ready to shoot his album cover. He's been in the studio. He really thinks he's a rapper now. Bless his heart - because he does take this so seriously."
Super Bowl turning point
Eventually, Spears said their relationship got to the point where she no longer recognized the man she was married to. "Kevin does so much press, you'd think he'd just won a grand slam in the World Series," she wrote.
"I don't know who he is anymore."
The turning point seemed to come in 2007 when Federline created a Super Bowl ad for Nationwide, and even the fact that the ad was "making fun of himself" didn't stop him from continuing to do so. "After he received the invitation, I basically never saw him again," she wrote.
"It's like he's too nice to even talk to me. He tells other people that being a dad is everything to him - the best thing that's ever happened to him. You wouldn't know it. Because the sad truth is Yes, he leaves often."
