What you need to know
Kevin Federline is looking back at the pivotal moment in his marriage to Britney Spears that forever shook their foundation.
In his memoir, “You Thought You Knew,” Federline, 47, writes about the day he and Spears, 43, got into an argument over smoking marijuana, and Spears, who was holding their young son, allegedly slapped him.
The former dancer, who was married to Spears from 2004 to 2007, wrote that he was working on music in the studio when a friend came to drop an ounce of marijuana, something he says is relatively common.
“It’s never been an issue before,” he wrote. “But that day, it felt like something had broken.”
Federline wrote that Spears became “furious” and fired her entire security team, which she said surprised her because Spears said she knew he smoked marijuana and that they sometimes smoked it together. However, things only escalated from there.
Federline wrote that when Federline went to the bedroom to calm down, Spears followed her, holding her son Sean Preston, now 20, and yelling at her. (They are also parents to son Jayden James, 19.)
Britney Spears/Instagram
“I wasn’t hiding anything. She knew who I was. She knew it and married me. But she was on the warpath and screaming out of her head,” he writes. “Then she slapped me in the face, still holding my son in her arms.”
Federline wrote that after the incident, she began to “distance” from the whole situation and felt like a stranger in her own home. He wrote that “something broke that day” and that he and Spears “were never the same after that.”
Spears did not mention the slapping incident in her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, but she did express an aversion to marijuana, saying she often smelled it in Federline’s studio.
“I couldn’t stand being around marijuana smoke,” she wrote. “Just smelling that smell made me nauseous.”
Kevin Mazur Archive 1/WireImage
Mr. Federline’s memoir is scheduled to be published on October 21st, but multiple excerpts were shared this week. In response, Spears spoke out against the book in two social media posts.
In her first post on Oct. 15, she accused Federline of “constantly gaslighting” her and defended her relationship with her sons, saying he was “almost begging” them to be part of her life.
“Believe me, the white lies in that book go straight to the bank. And the only person really hurt here is me,” she wrote.
The star added that she “will always love” her sons and said she has “enough” of negative stories about her.
In a second post, she accused Federline of publishing the memoir in order to “profit from my pain.”
“If you truly loved someone, you wouldn’t help them by humiliating them,” she wrote. “What scared me was how serious and angry he was. People don’t understand that, but it’s much worse than anyone could imagine.”
“Once again he and others are profiting off of her, but sadly this is after her child support relationship with Kevin was terminated. All she cares about is her children Sean Preston and Jayden James and their well-being in this sensational endeavor. She details her history in her memoir.”