Britney Spears and Sam Asghari appear at the Los Angeles premiere of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” on July 22, 2019. Asghari has filed for divorce from Spears, a person familiar with the filing said late Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. The person, who is close to Asghari but not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed the filing happened Wednesday, hours after several outlets including TMZ and People magazine reported the couple had separated. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
LOS ANGELES—Britney Spears and her husband Sam Asghari separated nearly three weeks ago, and he is seeking spousal support and attorneys’ fees in their divorce, according to his divorce filing.
Asghari, 29, filed his petition to dissolve his 14-month-old marriage to the 41-year-old pop superstar in Los Angeles County court late Wednesday, Aug. 16.
Like the vast majority of those who file for divorce in California, he cites irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split.
The document lists the couple’s separation date as July 28, though reports of the split did not emerge until Wednesday. It says he will try to get financial support from her while blocking her from getting any from him. And it seeks to have her pay for his divorce lawyers.
The filing says the value of Spears’ and Asghari’s assets, and those they own jointly, has yet to be determined. Spears and Asghari had no children together.
“No negative intention has ever been directed towards her and never will be. Sam has always and will always support her,” Asghari’s representative Brandon Cohen said Thursday afternoon.
Email sent to a Spears’ representatives were not returned.
She has not addressed the split on social media. An Instagram post since the divorce filing is a photo of herself on horseback on a beach, with a caption that begins, “Buying a horse soon!”
Spears married Asghari at her home in Thousand Oaks, California, on June 9, 2022, in front of guests including Selena Gomez, Drew Barrymore, Paris Hilton and Madonna, in a wedding seen as a milestone in her newly reclaimed life after the dissolution just six months earlier of the court conservatorship that controlled her life for more than 13 years.
Spears met and began dating Asghari, a model and actor, when he appeared in her video for the song “Slumber Party” in 2016.
She cited her desire to marry Asghari as among the reasons she wanted an end to the constraining conservatorship, which she said was preventing it. The two announced their engagement in September of 2021 as it became clear she would be freed from the conservatorship — which was ended that November.
Spears said she and Asghari lost a baby early in her pregnancy in May 2022, about a month before they married.
Reports of the couple’s struggles had increased in recent months.
Their marriage is the first for the 29-year-old Asghari and the third for the 41-year-old singer. She was married for less than three days in 2004 to childhood friend Jason Alexander, who attempted to crash her wedding to Asghari and was later convicted of misdemeanor trespassing and battery.
In 2004, she wed dancer Kevin Federline. Their three-year marriage would come at a time of intense media scrutiny and increasing mental health struggles for Spears. Federline is the father of her two teenage sons, and has custody of the boys.
She would be placed in the conservatorship run by her father in 2008. She did well under the arrangement at first, continuing to release records, make videos and perform live, including a major concert residency in Las Vegas. But as she appeared less in public, fans began to demand that the court #FreeBritney, in what would eventually become a major movement.
Since the conservatorship ended, Spears has put out music including a collaboration with Elton John in 2022, but has not performed live in years, nor announced plans to do so.
Her memoir, “The Woman in Me,” is scheduled to be released in October.
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