Britney Spears has spoken out amid claims about her behavior around her sons made by her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, in his forthcoming memoir.
In an excerpt of his book, You Thought You Knew, shared with The New York Times earlier this week, Federline wrote that Spears would sometimes watch their then-teenage sons sleep with a knife in her hand.
In response, the “Toxic” singer’s representative decried Federline’s narrative as “sensationalism” in a statement to The Independent.
On Thursday, Spears shared a statement of her own on her official X account, calling out the “white lies” in Federline’s book.
“The constant gaslighting from ex-husband [sic] is extremely hurtful and exhausting,” she wrote, before also criticizing her sons Sean Preston, 20, and Jayden James, 19.
“I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys. Relationships with teenage boys is complex. I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life. Sadly, they have always witnessed the lack of respect shown by own father for me.
“They need to take responsibility for themselves. With one son only seeing me for 45 min in the past 5 years and the other with only 4 visits in the past 5 years. I have pride too. From now on I will let them know when I am available,” she wrote.
The Independent has contacted Federline’s representatives for comment.
The former couple were married from 2004 to 2007. Federline was granted primary custody of their children in 2008 after Spears was placed under a conservatorship following her public mental health breakdown.
In the years that followed, Spears worked to regain more time with her children and, in 2019, was granted 30 percent custodial rights while Federline retained 70 percent.
The singer went on in her statement to accuse Federline of profiteering from their former relationship with his memoir.
“Trust me, those white lies in that book, they are going straight to the bank and I am the only one who genuinely gets hurt here,” she wrote.
“I will always love them [her sons] and if you really know me, you won’t pay attention to the tabloids of my mental health and drinking. I am actually a pretty intelligent woman who has been trying to live a sacred and private life the past 5 years. I speak on this because I have had enough and any real woman would do the same.”
In Spears’s 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, which is being made into a film, she claimed that Federline refused to let her see her sons and “tried to convince everyone that I was completely out of control” as part of his bid for full custody.
“I’ve never, ever, once, been against Britney,” Federline told The New York Times. “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 — my kids do not know the woman that I married. And I’ve spent two decades trying to bridge that gap.”
Spears’s conservatorship was terminated in 2021 amid a fan-driven “Free Britney” movement after a judge found that it was “no longer required.”
However, in the years since, Spears has continued to display erratic behavior on social media.
“All those people who put so much effort into [the Free Britney movement],” Federline writes in his memoir, “should now put the same energy into the ‘Save Britney’ movement. Because this is no longer about freedom. It’s about survival.”
You Thought You Knew hits shelves on October 21.
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