Kevin Federline and Britney Spears. (Chad Buchanan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Kevin Federline is facing fierce criticism for taking part in a tell-all interview about his past relationship with Britney Spears which fans are calling “disgusting”.
On Sunday (4 September), an interview with Federline, a 44-year-old backup dancer and DJ, on 60 Minutes Australia will air.
“Pop princess Britney Spears is facing another family feud,” tweeted 60 Minutes Australia on Wednesday, sharing a clip of the apparently “explosive” interview.
In the short trailer, Federline claimed he was “mortified” when Spears was placed in a conservatorship, a complex legal arrangement that saw the keys to her personal and professional affairs given to her father, Jamie Spears, in 2008.
“I was mortified for her, I really was,” he said, adding: “I still feel bad.”
Yet he claimed he stood back as Spears sought to take back control over her life in the years after their marriage because he was too focused on raising their sons, Sean, 16, and Jayden, 15.
“The boys, the boys, the boys. I had to worry about them. I couldn’t get involved,” he said.
“It’s been a few months since they’ve actually seen her.”
Pop princess Britney Spears is facing another family feud. SUNDAY on #60Mins, the explosive exclusive interview with her ex-husband Kevin Federline. pic.twitter.com/KQ2Dod9cYj
— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) August 31, 2022
His remarks went about as well as you’d expect on Twitter, with Spears fans slamming Federline as the latest person from the “Toxic” hitmaker’s life exploiting her name and success for personal gain.
“This is trash, more people coming to trash Britney for money, he is a nobody,” one person tweeted.
Another added: “Giving Kevin Federline any platform is disgusting. He has barely worked a day in his life. Britney Spears has funded his entire existence, since the day she had kids with him.
“This show is contributing to parental alienation. Britney has suffered enough!”
“This is DISGUSTING! After all she went through. You should be ashamed of yourselves,” a third user said. “That’s not a ‘feud’ or gossip, it’s someone’s life.”
Spears and Federline dated for three months in 2004 before getting engaged in July that year and filing for divorce two years later. Federline was granted sole custody of Sean and Jayden at the beginning of Spears’ conservatorship in 2008, hashing out a settlement where the singer would receive two visits and one overnight each week.
Ever since, Spears has provided Federline $20,000 in child support, covering a host of other fees like school, insurance and clothing. He even tried to get this payment tripled in 2018 when he was earning less than $3,000 a month, or less than one per cent of Spears’ income, from working as a DJ.
This was at a time when Spears was still deep in the throes of her conservatorship, an experience she feels “killed” her at the time as she lacked any control over her life – from the colour she could paint her kitchen cabinets to the birth control pills she took.
On 5 August 2022, Federline told The Dail Mail in another interview that neither Sean or Jayden have wanted to see their mother since she posted nude photographs of herself on Instagram, something she says she does in a bid to reclaim her autonomy.
But for Spears, it isn’t quite the same story. In a since-deleted Instagram post, she wrote: “I wanted them to love me so much that I might have overdone it!!!”
When her sons told her they would start seeing her less, she felt that as much as this was a “harsh” decision, it was one she knew she had to accept. “They have their own thing going on,” she wrote.
“It saddens me to hear that my ex-husband has decided to discuss the relationship between me and my children,” Spears added in another Instagram Story at the time.
“As we all know, raising teenage boys is never easy for anyone. It concerns me the fact that the reason is based on my Instagram… it was LONG before Instagram. I gave them everything… Only one word: HURTFUL.”