There’s only one toxic parent in Britney Spears family rift and it’s not the superstar singer
OOPS, she did it again – flashed a nipple, showed a smidge of hip flexor and infuriated the patriarchy.
After Britney Spears ground the gears of her dad (a man who happily sponged off his daughter for 13 years) now it’s the turn of her layabout ex-husband (a man who happily sponged off her fame for 16 years) to stick his beak in.
In a completely unnecessary interview, Kevin Federline has effectively accused Britney, who married model Sam Asghari in June, of being a terrible mother. He’s mum-shamed her.
“The boys (Sean Preston, 16, and Jayden James, 15) have decided they are not seeing her right now,” Kevin declared, pompously.
“It’s been a few months since they’ve seen her. They made the decision not to go to her wedding.”
Still not done, strip-club-loving Kevin, until now not known for his Mary Whitehouse-like moral outpourings, suggested the teenagers were deeply embarrassed by their mother’s nude Instagram photos.
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“I try to explain to them,” he added, sanctimoniously, “maybe that’s just another way she tries to express herself.”
Oh, please. Britney is 40 years old. She’s not dragging her knee-lengths around the nursing home. She’s still got it. Why shouldn’t she flaunt it?
This is a global superstar who has sold more than 100million records. She is worth north of £45million and owns two mansions. Kevin, who appear- ed in an Australian weight-loss show called Excess Baggage, is a former backing dancer.
He got together with Britney after cheating on his pregnant ex. His 2016 single, Hollywood, failed to chart. This is not a man who should be casting stones. By airing his very dirty linen in public, surely he’s only left his beloved boys open to more scrutiny, more ridicule?
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Parents split all the time, and not all the time are mums granted sole custody. Britney adores her boys and has left them — emotionally and materialistically — wanting for nothing.
She is only nine months out of a traumatising, life-destroying conservatorship, one which took away all basic rights to make decisions about her career, finances and personal life.
Give her time to adjust. The singer is clearly vulnerable. She has been taken for a ride her whole life, it’s little wonder she’s riddled with issues. As a result, Britney may not be the sanest of homo sapiens.
And, granted, her slightly wild-eyed, manic, semi-naked Instagram videos don’t scream “Volvo-driving cake-baking mum-on the school run”. But why should they? Look at Madonna. She’s now 63, and still getting her a* out on the ’Gram.
She also has children, lots of them. They’re not calling child services, and neither is her ex, Guy Ritchie.
J-Lo and Gwyneth Paltrow, 53 and 49 respectively, regularly get their kit off to promote a new skin cream.
Or, in Gwynnie’s case, maybe some vibrating, lavender-scented vagina balls. No one comes running for their kids.
Britney hails from Louisiana, and grew up on a trailer park.
Much of the criticism levelled against her is little more than red-neck classism.
There’s only one Toxic parent here — and it ain’t Britney.
‘The bellies get in the way’
OLA JORDAN is my kind of woman. Forget all this woke, Bo-Po (body positivity) nonsense – after piling on three stone over lockdown, she’s raging.
The ex-Strictly pro says she’s determined to return to her fighting weight, adding that if fellow dancer husband, James, tried hoisting her up now, he’d collapse.
Of their diminishing sex life, she adds, calmly: “We are so fat and don’t want to move after a bag of crisps and a Chinese.
“The bellies get in the way of us when it comes to sex.”
We’ve all been there, Ola.
Rishi likes rap, Liz loves cheese. Now vote
LIKE TV’s Gladiators minus the pugil sticks, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have spent the past fortnight frantically jabbing one another, trying to out-“person-of-the-people” each other.
So here’s a handy pros and cons box for anyone feeling a tad confused about who to vote for . . .
RISHI – Pros
- A man who can rap every word to Vanilla Ice’s Ice, Ice Baby (“Yo VIP, let’s kick it, Ice, ice baby, Deadly, when I play a dope melody, Anything less than the best is a felony”). This is a man with his finger on the cultural pulse.
- Uxorius. Of his loyal, billionaire wife, he says gallantly: “My wife definitely drinks.” Mrs Sunak, once she’s put the Blue Nun down, will doubtless be thrilled.
- He loves John Lewis furniture – so no taxpayer-funded 10 Downing Street makeover necessary.
- A Peloton fan (apparently former X Factor backing dancer Leanne is his fave). So we’ll all be spared the Boris and Jeremy Hunt-esque sweaty, heaving, panting-on-a-run pap pics.
- Bright: Read PPE at Oxford.
Cons
- Doesn’t drink (he did do “some shots” before getting married, but “didn’t like the taste”). Rishi is not a man after my own heart.
- a Sylvanian Families-sized 5ft 6in, poor Rishi will probably have to sit on the knee of Biden, Trudeau and Co in G7 pics. Not stately.
- He’s richer than Croesus. And has probably never marauded down Aisle 14 of Lidl.
LIZ – Pros
- Liz, bless ’er, is the only MP to share her name with a surgical appliance.
- Loves cheese. Her favourites are Stinking Bishop, Binham Blue and Wells Alpine. Once described the paltry amount of cheese imported by the UK as a “disgrace”. Which you can’t argue with.
- Not to be outdone by her Young Pretender, Liz, too, loves a karaoke classic – and Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody is her banger of choice.
- Bright: read PPE at Oxford.
Cons
- Arguably not the most tech savvy. Once, when trying to do a quick Twitter stalk of herself, she Tweeted: “Elizabeth Truss”. Before promptly deleting.
- Has a slightly Year 9/Father Christmas grasp of economics. (Cutting inflation, slashing taxes, delivering unicorns – sort of like Santa on speed.)
Me in a meme
I WAS delighted/horrified this week to make it as meme in the aftermath of the Wagatha Christie court case.
A clip of Becky Vardy, whom I interviewed last week, casually saying she’d like to take Coleen to “Caffe Nero” quickly went viral.
Sounding entirely Kenneth Williams, circa Carry On Cruising, 1962 – I replied: “Ohhh . . . that would be nice.”
Final score: Pun-Nil
POOR Gary Lineker has been hoisted by his own petard.
The Match Of The Day star – who loves nothing more than a pun – was pressurised (read: bullied) into deleting a perfectly harmless Tweet praising the Lionesses’s stunning victory and Chloe Kelly.
Match-winner Chloe whipped off her shirt when she scored her goal against Germany and celebrated in her sports bra.
After joking: “Kelly is England’s hero, bra none,” Gary was accused of “casual and puerile sexism”, with one commentator, who clearly last laughed in 1997, huffing: “Women did what you couldn’t and you reduce their victory to a bra joke! Your misogyny and jealousy betrays you!!”
Jealousy? This is a man who won the Golden Boot at the 1986 World Cup, and is today one of the country’s most successful broadcasters.
Gary, who, admittedly, is no stranger to woke, makes similar gags about the men’s game week in, week out.
Anyone who finds the time and inclination to rally against such a tame joke really doesn’t have any real-world problems. Or a life.
It can’t be one rule for men, and kid gloves for us.
Prem’s idea so grubby
PAMPERED footballers often get a hard time.
They earn ridiculous sums and, rightly, should face greater scrutiny than, say, a dentist.
But news that Premier League stars are to receive mandatory sexual consent training in the wake of a number of allegations made against players, is worrying.
The implication is that all players are sexual predators in waiting.
Of course, players – often with more money than sense – need to know right from wrong.
But how must it feel for devoted, squeaky clean husbands and fathers – men like Harry Kane – to undergo such grubby, demeaning “training”?
Harry, please drop it
OH, Harry. Has Wagatha Christie taught you nothing?
The permanently cross Prince has filed a second lawsuit against the government, Metropolitan police and Scotland Yard over the decision not to allow him to pay for police protection when he visits from sunny California.
Of course, cross Harry is already suing the Home Office over its 2020 decision to remove his taxpayer-funded protection.
Public sympathy for this pampered, entitled, utterly self-unaware, multi-millionaire ex-Etonian is already wafer-thin.
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As the rest of us battle soaring inflation and an unprecedented cost-of- living crisis, the last thing we want to see – perhaps besides Harry and Meghan preaching about the environment over Zoom from their reclining, zebra-leather private-jet seats – are more lawyers making more money.
Give it a rest, lad.