Britney Spears

Sam Asghari files for divorce from Britney Spears, seeks spousal support

The divorce petition lists the couple's separation date as July 28, though reports of the split did not emerge until Wednesday

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Britney Spears ' husband, Sam Asghari, has filed for divorce from the superstar after a little more than a year of marriage.

Asghari is seeking financial support from the pop superstar and attorneys' fees, according to his divorce petition filed in Los Angeles County court. He cites irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split.

The filing also reveals the couple's separation date, which Asghari lists as July 28. However, reports of their split did not emerge until Wednesday. A source previously told NBC News that Asghari had moved out of the home the couple shared and was living on his own.

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.

The pop superstar 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 and have another child among the reasons she wanted an end to the constraining conservatorship, which she said was preventing her from doing both. The two announced their engagement in September 2021, just two months before Spears was freed from the conservatorship.

In May 2022, Spears said she and Asghari lost a baby early in her pregnancy.

But in recent months, reports circulated of the couple's struggles. Both denied the claims as tabloid fodder.

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.

Sam Asghari is speaking out in an exclusive statement to "Access Hollywood’s" Mario Lopez, saying that an “intervention did not occur” and that Britney Spears is “in full control of her life.”

After Spears was hospitalized and put on a psychiatric hold for refusing to turn over her boys at the end of a visit in 2008, she was placed in the conservatorship run by her father. 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.

The Associated Press/NBC
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