Britney Spears’ ex-husband Kevin Federline recalls ‘fearful’ sons finding her ‘watching them sleep with a knife in her hand’

Britney Spears’s ex-husband, Kevin Federline, has claimed the “Toxic” singer would watch their two sons sleep with a weapon in her hand.

Federline, 47, was Spears’s second husband from 2004 to 2007. The two were locked in a long-winded custody battle over their children Sean Preston, 20, and Jayden James, 19, which ended in 2008 after Spears suffered a mental breakdown and was placed on a 5150 psychiatric hold, leaving Federline to retain sole custody. In February of that year, Spears entered into a conservatorship with her father, Jamie Spears, who took complete control over her assets.

In an excerpt from Federline’s upcoming memoir, You Thought You Knew, obtained by The New York Times, he recalls his version of the fallout between him and the “Circus” singer, including her angry outbursts toward the end of their marriage, and the reason why his sons did not want to go back to their mother’s house.

“They would awaken sometimes at night to find her standing silently in the doorway, watching them sleep — ‘Oh, you’re awake?’ — with a knife in her hand,” Federline wrote of his sons in an excerpt obtained by the Times. “Then she’d turn around and pad off without explanation.”

The Independent has reached out to representatives for Spears for comment.

In the years since Spears and Federline’s divorce, it seemed the two were amicably co-parenting their sons when seen at their soccer and football games. Federline went on to marry Victoria Prince, with whom he shares daughters Jordan Kay, 14, and Peyton Marie, 11.

In 2018, things took a turn when Federline requested an increase of $20,000 a month in child support payments from Spears. After months of court discussions, Federline rejected Spears’s child support proposal and instead doubled his request to $40,000 a month.

A settlement was finally reached between the two parties in September 2018, with Spears increasing her child support payments to Federline from $20,000 to $35,000 a month.

Amid her father’s health crisis and ongoing emotional distress, Spears voluntarily checked into a mental health treatment facility in 2019. After hearing the news, Federline’s attorney Mark Kaplan told Entertainment Tonight: “Kevin commends Britney for recognizing that she needs to take a step back and that she is taking the reasonable steps to dealing with her situation in a responsible way. He wishes everyone well.”

That same year, Federline was granted 70 percent custodial rights, leaving Spears with 30 percent.

After years with her father in control of her finances and personal life, Spears was finally granted freedom from her conservatorship in November 2021. The singer made a powerful testimony at her conservatorship hearing that June, where she spoke out for the first time about her experience, calling for those involved to be “put in jail.”

Following the testimony, Federline expressed his support for the singer, saying he “only hopes the best for her because when the best for her is achieved, it’s the best for their kids.”

You Thought You Knew hits shelves on October 21.