Britney Spears Slams ‘Constant Gaslighting’ From Ex Kevin Federline: ‘Extremely Hurtful and Exhausting’

After the release of a series of shocking passages from ex-husband Kevin Federline‘s upcoming memoir were published this week, Britney Spears responded on Wednesday night (Oct. 15) in a lengthy post in which she slammed the father of her two sons over his claims about her parenting.

“The constant gaslighting from ex-husband is extremely hurtful and exhausting,” Spears, 43, wrote. “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.”

In excerpts from You Thought You Knew that were published by the New York Times earlier this week, Federline, 47, claims that their son allegedly woke up one night to find Spears standing in the doorway holding a knife. Elsewhere, the former Spears back-up dancer claims that Spears drank wine while she was pregnant and did cocaine when she was breastfeeding.

While Spears did not directly confront those allegations in her post, she did hit out at Federline for what she claimed was the way he allegedly speaks about her to their children, sons Jayden, 19, and Preston, 20, while lamenting the lack of contact she’s had with the boys over the past decade-plus. “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.

As for the claims in the memoir, Spears referred to them as “those white lies in that book, they are going straight to the bank and I am the only one who genuinely gets hurt here. I will always love them and if you really know me, you won’t pay attention to the tabloids of my mental health and drinking.”

Spears and Federline were married in Sept. 2004 and singer filed for divorce two years later. Federline told The Hollywood Reporter this week that the couple’s sons were, “100 percent behind me telling my story,” describing their relationship with their mother as “fluid and they do talk. They’ve even gone and seen her and stuff.” In 2023, the boys moved to Hawaii with Federline, who was granted full custody of them during Spears 13-year conservatorship.

Though Spears lamented over the years that she rarely, if ever, got to see her sons, during Christmas 2024 she gleefully shared that she was able to spend time with Jayden after a long period apart. “Best Christmas of my life !!! I haven’t seen my boys in 2 years !!!” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “Tears of joy and literally in shock everyday koo koo crazy so in love and blessed !!! I’m speechless thank you Jesus !!!” Earlier this year Spears also posted some other pics of her with Jayden.

While Federline told THR that all he wants for Britney is “for her to be happy and healthy” and to be able to spend time with their children,” Spears’ team released a strongly worded statement slamming the book, which also alleges that Spears partied with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton while her sons cried. “With news from Kevin’s book breaking, once again he and others are profiting off her and sadly it comes after child support has ended with Kevin. All she cares about are her kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James and their well-being during this sensationalism. She detailed her journey in her memoir,” read the statement.

Speaking to US Weekly on Wednesday, Federline denied that the book is a cash grab. “Money’s not the root of this thing,” he said. “I feel like, if she has the right to tell her story, Why don’t I?” Spears released her own memoir, The Woman in Me, in 2023, in which she detailed her relationship with first love Justin Timberlake, as well as her marriage to Federline and the impact of her conservatorship.

Among the other allegations in Federline’s book is a claim that on the night before his wedding to Spears she called Timberlake and that he caught her “full-on making out” with a female backup dancer during a night out in Amsterdam in 2004 on her Onxy Hotel Tour just weeks after the couple began dating.

In the Times excerpts, Federline said he worries about his ex’s well-being and questions whether the 2021 termination of her conservatorship — put in place in 2008 to manage her personal and professional affairs following a series of concerning mental health episodes — was the right choice. “The truth is, this situation with Britney feels like it’s racing toward something irreversible,” Federline writes in the book.

“It’s become impossible to pretend everything’s OK,” he adds. “From where I sit, the clock is ticking, and we’re getting close to the 11th hour. Something bad is going to happen if things don’t change, and my biggest fear is that our sons will be left holding the pieces.”

Spears’ post ended with the singer — who has claimed that she has no interest in returning to performing or recording music — saying that she is living her life exactly as she wishes now. “I am actually a pretty intelligent woman who has been trying to live a sacred and private life the past 5 years,” she wrote. “I speak on this because I have had enough and any real woman would do the same.”