Britney Spears and her husband, Sam Asghari, separated nearly three weeks ago, and he is seeking child support and attorneys’ fees in the divorce, court documents show.
Asghari, 29, filed her petition to dissolve her 14-month marriage to the 41-year-old pop superstar in Los Angeles County court on Wednesday night.
Like the vast majority of California divorce filers, he argues irreconcilable differences as the reason for the separation.
The document indicates the couple’s separation date as July 28, although it was not made public until last Wednesday. He says that he will try to get financial support from her, though it prevents her from getting anything from him. And he wants her to pay for the lawyers who will represent Asghari in her divorce.
The filing notes that the value of Spears and Asghari’s assets, and those they jointly own, has yet to be determined. Spears and Asghari did not have children together.
“No negative intent has ever been directed towards her and never will be. Sam has always supported her and always will support her,” Asghari’s manager Brandon Cohen said Thursday afternoon.
Emails were sent to Spears’ representatives without a response.
The singer has not talked about their separation on social networks. An Instagram post following her divorce filing includes a photo of her riding a horse on a beach and the caption: “I’ll buy a horse soon!”
Spears married Asghari at her home in Thousand Oaks, California, on June 9, 2022, to guests including Selena Gomez, Drew Barrymore, Paris Hilton and Madonna, in a wedding seen as a milestone in her newly recovered life after the dissolution, six months earlier, of the legal guardianship that controlled his life for more than 13 years.
Spears met and began dating Asghari, a model and actor, when he starred in the video for her song “Slumber Party” in 2016.
He mentioned a desire to marry Asghari as one of the reasons he wanted to end the restrictive guardianship, which he said prevented him from doing so. The two announced their engagement in September 2021, when it became clear that Spears would be released from conservatorship, which ended in November.
In May 2022, Spears said that she and Asghari lost a baby early in their pregnancy, about a month before they got married. News of the couple’s fights had increased in recent months.
Their marriage is the first for Asghari, 29, and the third for the 41-year-old singer. She was married for less than three days in 2004 to her childhood friend Jason Alexander, who tried to crash her wedding to Asghari and was later convicted of misdemeanor trespass and assault.
Also in 2004, she married dancer Kevin Federline. Their three-year marriage would come at a time of intense media scrutiny and growing mental health problems for Spears. Federline is the father of Spears’ two teenage children and has custody of the children.
Spears was placed under the supervision of her father in 2008. Initially doing well with the arrangement, she continued to release records, make videos and perform live, including a major concert residency in Las Vegas. But as she appeared less in public, fans of hers began to demand that she end up using the hashtag.
Since the conservatorship ended, Spears has released music, including a collaboration with Elton John in 2022, but she hasn’t performed live in years or announced plans to do so.
Her memoir, “The Woman in Me,” will be published in October.
