US singer and pop music icon Britney Spears has accused her ex-husband Kevin Federline of “gaslighting” after he published a memoir raising concerns about her wellbeing and questioning whether the termination of her conservatorship was appropriate.
“The constant gaslighting from ex-husband is extremely hurtful and exhausting,” Spears wrote in a post on X responding to reports about Federline’s book.
“I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys,” she said in her post.
‘I have had enough,’ says Britney Spears
She claimed that she had only seen one of her sons for 45 minutes over the past five years, and the other for four visits during that period. “I speak on this because I have had enough and any real woman would do the same,” she wrote.
Acording to a report by the New York Times, Federline’s You Thought You Knew memoir, explores his life from growing up in Fresno, California, to his marriage and subsequent divorce from Spears.
The book, which is due for release on October 21, Federline includes his account of their custody battle and raises questions about the pop star’s behaviour.
Federline and Spears finalised their divorce in 2007 after three years of marriage. Their custody battle concluded in 2008. The former couple share two sons, Sean Preston, now 20, and Jayden James, 19.
Kevin Federline raises concerns about Britney Spears in new memoir
In the book, Federline recounts an incident where the boys, as teenagers, declared they did not want to return to their mother’s house.
“They would awaken sometimes at night to find her standing silently in the doorway, watching them sleep โ ‘Oh, you’re awake?’ โ with a knife in her hand,” he wrote, according to the report, adding “then she’d turn around and pad off without explanation.”
Meanwhile in her own memoir, Spears disputes that she had substance abuse issues and characterises her custody battle with Federline as traumatising. She writes that Federline had not let her see her sons for weeks on end and “tried to convince everyone that I was completely out of control” during his bid for custody.
Federline said he had not discussed the contents of his memoir with Spears.
“I’ve never, ever, once, been against Britney,” Federline said in the interview. “I’ve only tried to help my sons have an incredible relationship with their mother. And it’s hard because when I really reflect on everything that’s happened โ my kids do not know the woman that I married. And I’ve spent two decades trying to bridge that gap.”
Spears was placed in a conservatorship that oversaw her finances and affairs in 2008 after her mental health struggles became public. The book discusses the evening when Spears was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre and placed under a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold following a three-hour standoff involving their children.
A Los Angeles judge terminated the conservatorship in 2021 after finding that it was “no longer required.”
Federline calls for “Save Britney” movement as Spears accuses him of gaslighting
Federline writes in his book that the “Free Britney movement” may have “started from a good place”, but he suggests it vilified people around Spears so intensely that professionals who could help his ex-wife may now be too afraid to step in.
“All those people who put so much effort into that,” he writes, “should now put the same energy into the ‘Save Britney’ movement. Because this is no longer about freedom. It’s about survival.”
In recent months Spears has drawn attention with posts on social media that include a video of her dancing in a mansion that appeared to have dog excrement on the floor and with a bandaged knee, writing on Instagram that “it snaps out now and then, not sure if it’s broken.”
