Britney Spears‘ attorney Mathew Rosengart is speaking out in her defense after her ex-husband Kevin Federline posted videos that appear to show her arguing with their sons.
Federline, who revealed in an exclusive DailyMail.com interview that his sons Sean, 16, and Jayden, 15, have chosen not to see their mother in recent months, revived his dormant Instagram account on Wednesday to post videos showing Spears, 40, disciplining her sons.
‘Britney Spears is a brilliantly talented, extremely hardworking icon, who is rightfully beloved and respected by millions around the world,’ Rosengart told MailOnline on Thursday.
‘The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about Mr. Federline, who for reasons that are inexplicable, decided to give a gratuitous interview that has hurt the mother of his children.’
DailyMail.com reached out to a representative for Federline for comment.
To her defense: Britney Spears’ attorney Mathew Rosengart (pictured February 2) is speaking out in her defense to Page Six on Thursday after ex-husband Kevin Federline posted videos showing her arguing with their sons
Rosengart defended Spears, saying that despite the combative tone of the videos, she had ‘faithfully supported’ Sean and Jayden and ‘loves them dearly.’
‘Whether he realizes it or not, Mr. Federline has not only violated the privacy and dignity of the mother of his children, he has undermined his own children, whose privacy he should protect,’ the former federal prosecutor continued.
‘Putting aside his ITV interview, Mr. Federline’s ill-advised decision to post an old video of his 11 and 12-year-old children was cruel, bottom of the barrel stuff.’
Rosengart claimed Federline may have created legal exposure for himself, as California is a two-party consent state, meaning that both a person making a video or audio recording and the person being recorded must consent to the recording for it to be legal.
Rosengart told MailOnline on Thursday: ‘Britney Spears is a brilliantly talented, extremely hardworking icon, who is rightfully beloved and respected by millions around the world. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about Mr. Federline, who for reasons that are inexplicable, decided to give a gratuitous interview that has hurt the mother of his children’ (Britney and Kevin seen in 2004)
Speaking out: ‘Whether he realizes it or not, Mr. Federline has not only violated the privacy and dignity of the mother of his children, he has undermined his own children, whose privacy he should protect,’ the lawyer continued
Legal trouble? The attorney claimed that Federline may have created legal exposure for himself, as Britney allegedly didn’t know she was being filmed; Rosengart seen in September 2021
He added that Spears wasn’t aware that she was being recorded in the clips posted by her ex-husband.
‘It was abhorrent. In addition to demeaning himself and violating societal norms, he has now also created various legal issues for himself including, but not limited to, implicating cyber-harassment and cyber-bullying statutes, among other things,’ Rosengart claimed.
Federline subsequently deleted his videos on Thursday morning, again leaving his Instagram page completely bare.
Mathew said it was his honor to help Britney ‘suspend her father as conservator, to help her gain her freedom and dignity, and to help protect her from the type of bullying she endured in the past,’ and added, ‘We will not tolerate bullying in any area.’
Behind closed doors: ‘In the meantime, as Britney herself poignantly said, whatever is occurring between her and her boys should remain private,’ Rosengart concluded; seen in 2006 in Hollywood
Rosengart also admitted that he was in touch with Instagram to make sure that Federline ‘adheres to its rules.’
‘We are exploring all appropriate relief against him,’ he said.
‘In the meantime, as Britney herself poignantly said, whatever is occurring between her and her boys should remain private. We urge Mr. Federline to act with a measure of grace and decency and to cease from publicly discussing private matters, which benefits no one.’
Rosengart also said the decision to post the footage was ‘cruel’ and violated their privacy, according to TMZ.
Spears was previously devastated by Federline talking about the family rift, and she posted a series of angry messages on Instagram, including one accusing Federline of exposing the teenagers to marijuana.
It comes after Federline re-activated a long-dormant Instagram account to retaliate by posting the clips of their sons, which were filmed four years ago, on Wednesday night.
‘I can not sit back and let my sons be accused in this way after what they’ve been through,’ the father of six wrote.
Behind the scenes: The first clip shared by Federline appears to be filmed in a bedroom, with Spears berating her sons — then aged 11 and 12 — for lacking respect
Former couple: Federline and Spears are pictured in 2006, at an after party for the Grammys. The pair were married from 2004 through 2007
‘As much as it hurts us, we decided as a family to post these videos the boys took when they were 11 & 12.
‘This isn’t even the worst of it. The lies have to stop.
‘I hope our kids grow up to be better than this. #NeverFearTruth’
The first clip seems to be filmed by one of the boys inside their bedroom, as Spears walks in and berates them for failing to respect her.
The boy says: ‘You come in here, when we’re trying to go to bed, and you say…’
Spears cuts him off, replying: ‘It’s my house.’
Raising her voice, she continues: ‘This is my house. If I want to come in here and give you lotion for your face, because it is coarse, and you tell me “no, it’s fine, it’s fine” – well, it’s not fine.
‘You better all start respecting me, are we clear?
‘You all need to start treating me like a woman with worth. I am a woman, ok? Be nice to me. Do you understand?’
The second clip is filmed inside a car, with Spears in the passenger seat and the two boys behind.
More: In the second clip, Spears, in the passenger seat of a car, tells her son Sean, 12, off for refusing to put his shoes on in an ice cream parlor
Upset: The singer says she is ‘shocked’ by his behavior, and confiscates his phone as punishment
Family: Spears with her sons Sean, 16, and Jayden, 15. The boys have now chosen to stay apart from their mother
Spears has confiscated 12-year-old Sean’s phone because he refused to wear shoes when they went to an ice cream parlor.
‘Have you lost your f****** mind?’ she yells at them.
One of the boys retorts: ‘Have you lost yours?’
He adds: ‘You don’t care.’
Spears says: ‘I do care, and I am shocked. I am shocked as f*** with you. And I don’t know what to do.
‘And I’m scared of you, because you’re weird, because you’re going through puberty.’
Sean grumpily tells her: ‘If you really cared you wouldn’t take my phone away.’
The latest ugly twist in the story came as Spears was accused of racism after she said that her teenage sons were growing up in a house with more marijuana than a slew of famous faces – all of them black.
Spears, in a lengthy retort on Instagram, attacked Federline’s parenting and claiming the boys were being raised in a household ‘has more weed than Ludacris, 50 Cent, Jay Z and Puff Daddy combined.’
It was quickly noted that all four people she cited as marijuana smokers were black, and several people pointed out that former dealer 50 Cent is now avowedly clean-living.
‘Britney was WRONG for this and it wouldn’t be the first time she’s made questionable comments about black artists. End of,’ said one.
‘So everyone is just ignoring how #BritneySpears assumed a bunch of black rappers are smoking weed and compared successful black millionaires to her sperm factory, no job having baby daddy?’ one person said.
‘Britney Spears named a bunch of black rappers to make a comparison about weed,’ another pointed out.
‘Why those particular people? And they’re all black,’ said one woman, writing on an online discussion board.
‘I don’t like that at all. It’s giving she assumes every black rapper smokes weed.
‘And when she thinks of weed she thinks of black people. Interesting.’
Another said: ‘Jay Z and 50 have famously said they don’t do drugs. The only reason she named them is because they’re black.’
One commented: ‘The racism jumped out,’ while another said: ‘This seems racially motivated…..’
Yet another sarcastically stated: ‘So she didn’t know any white people who smoke weed?’
‘She could have at least through Willie Nelson in the mix,’ one replied.
Not easy: Britney Spears admitted that parenting her teenage sons has not been easy in a long-winded post on her Instagram account, shared on Wednesday; Pictured 2016
The Louisiana-born singer said in her lengthy post that the situation with her sons ‘breaks my heart.’
She said the teenagers acted in a ‘hateful’ way to her during some of their visits and didn’t want to spend time together.
Spears added that her children’s indifference was frustrating, writing: ‘I want to shake their shoulders and say wake up I’m here too!!! The teenage age is weird, I don’t know what’s going on in their heads!!!’
She begun the four-page social media post discussing her new ‘adorable neighborhood’ and admitted that though her new home is beautiful, she misses her old house, adding, ‘It’s hard for me to let go of things I truly love… like my kids.’
She then condemned Federline for participating in the interview, saying: ‘The situation should have 100 percent been dealt with privately and definitely not online!!!’
She defended her household while taking issue with Federline’s wife Victoria Prince, 39, and her ‘goal’ which is ‘to keep the children away from all of the controversy and trauma’ in Spears’ home.
‘I have love in my home and I have blessings from the people I allow in and out of my home,’ said Spears.
‘I looked forward to seeing my kids every week… It was 2 days a week but I asked him to ask to stay for more days…. maybe 3… but then the next week they stayed for only one day.
‘Yeah, I know that teenagers are just hard to deal with with at that age… but COME ON, there’s being rude then there’s being HATEFUL… They would visit me, walk in the door, do straight to their room and lock the door!!!’ she wrote.
‘The MONITOR would tell me that he just likes to be in his room… I’m like why come visit if they don’t even visit me!!!’
She added: ‘It hurts and I want to scream!!!
‘I can’t process how I dedicated 20 years of my life to those kids… everything was about them!!! For them to knock the breath out of me.’
Mysterious: Britney added three more mysterious posts to her feed on Wednesday
A game of chess: Another post featured an online chess board with an interesting message in the caption
Strange: She followed it up with yet another post of herself covering her face with a towel, writing, ‘I’d rather go blind!!! What’s worth a shot??? Just saying’
‘We would always do prayer time, not really prayer time, that sounds silly but it’s called ‘devotion’… where you read two or three pages in a prayer book and talk about it,’ she went on.
‘I always TRIED and TRIED and maybe that’s why they stopped coming here!!! I wanted them to love so much that I might have overdone it!!!’
‘This summer, they told me ‘we may come here less’ and I was like that’s fine. I called they dad and I told him that it seems the boys are wanting to stop coming here as much, which I get because they have their own thing going on but I feel like they are being pretty harsh!!!’
Chaos: It comes after Federline has broken a near decade-long silence in a wide-ranging, moving TV interview in which he talks openly about his ongoing battle to keep the chaos that surrounds his former wife as far removed from his sons as possible
‘It’s tough’: Kevin indicated that their sons are embarrassed by the former Mouseketeer’s frequent posts of herself nearly nude
‘His words were ‘I would never let them make that decision on their own… I would never do that to you’!!! Well after that, I haven’t seen them since!!!’
Spears then lashed out at Federline’s attorney, saying: ‘He wants to bring up my past with that bald-headed peckerhead face Kaplan and circle back to that hard time in my life!!! That was almost 20 years ago… their game doesn’t work anymore!!!’
She concluded her message by writing: ‘You can’t fix me !!! No therapy or sense of worship can fix my heart !!! I will forever have trauma and I know this, I’ve accepted it.’
She concluded: ‘Either way, I have a beautiful pool, a supportive husband, and 5 dogs.’
‘100% I feel like he saved her back then’: Kevin also defended Britney’s estranged father Jamie (pictured in 2008) who controlled every aspect of her life during a 13-year conservatorship, which ended on November 12
On Wednesday, she appeared to continue venting her frustration.
One post featured a painting of a woman by an artist known as @carriedraw, an illustrator from Hong Kong.
The caption read: ‘I need to OPEN my EYES ??? Then you’ll explain things to me ??? Can you explain to MY A**??? Psss portrait of a lady!!!!’
Another post featured an online chess board, with the caption: ‘I’ve been so so so so safe mamma!!! Finding out the truth … IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME FOR ME!!! Is it kinda cool out here??? The famous game of chess goes like THIS … CHECK MATE!!! ‘F*** YOU, YOU CAN’T DO THAT’ I JUST DID!!!”
She followed it up with yet another post of herself covering her face with a towel, writing: ‘I’d rather go blind!!! What’s worth a shot??? Just saying’
‘One word – hurtful’: On Saturday night, Spears said it ‘saddened’ her to hear Kevin speaking so publicly about private family matters
Short-lived: Kevin’s two-year marriage to Britney ended in July 2007, and just six months later she was put on 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold (pictured in 2006)
Federline, in a series of interviews, said their sons are embarrassed by Spears’ frequent posts of herself partially clothed.
‘I try to explain to them, ‘Look, maybe that’s just another way she tries to express herself,” said Federline – who’s said to receive $20,000 a month in child support.
‘But that doesn’t take away from the fact of what it does to them. It’s tough. I can’t imagine how it feels to be a teenager having to go to high school.’
In 2019, Federline was granted 70 percent custody of their sons while Spears was downgraded to 30 percent, according to TMZ.
Federline also defended Spears’ estranged father Jamie – a former building contractor who controlled every aspect of her life during a 13-year conservatorship, which ended on November 12.
Defending his wife: Earlier on Saturday, Britney’s new husband Sam Asghari responded harshly to Kevin’s claims about his sons’ relationship with their mother; Pictured 2019
Photos: He wrote a series of rebuttals to Kevin in his Instagram Stories, in which he returned to Kevin’s claims that his sons were disturbed by censored nude photos that Britney posted to social media
‘100% I feel like he saved her back then,’ Federline said.
‘I saw a man that really cared, and wanting everything to be okay…I would absolutely welcome Jamie Spears back in the boys’ lives.’
Federline’s two-year marriage to Spears ended in July 2007, and six months later she was placed under an involuntary psychiatric hold.
Earlier on Saturday, Spears’ new husband Sam Asghari responded harshly to Federline’s claims about his sons’ relationship with their mother.
The 28-year-old actor shared a lengthy message to his Instagram Story in an effort to express his feelings about the statements made by his wife’s former husband.
Asghari tied the knot with Spears in a wedding ceremony this past June.