Kevin Federline Reveals Britney Spears Gave Justin Timberlake A Ring Before Their Wedding

Britney Spears’ marriage to Kevin Federline may have started with more drama than fans ever realized. In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, Kevin revealed that just hours before he and Britney said “I do,” the pop star called her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake and even gave him a ring.

“I was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ I thought she was talking to her mom on the phone or something, and maybe she was having doubts. And she told me she was on the phone with Justin,” Kevin, 47, said. 

He said he couldn’t believe what he was hearing at first. “I just kind of stepped back like, ‘Did I just hear you right? What the hell is going on’? And I immediately was, ‘Okay, we don’t have to do this.’ I didn’t care if we got married or not,” he explained. “And she told me no and really was like, ‘I just wanted to make sure that everything is done. I want to make sure that I say my final piece.’ I’m like, ‘Damn. On the night before our wedding, this is what you decide to do?’”

According to Kevin, he chose not to make a scene, trying instead to understand her decision. “I was super young. I was so madly in love at that moment,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be her, I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be Justin in those moments, because they were super young. You’re talking teenagers that had to go through this globally, and I know that they really cared about each other back then.”

Still, he admitted he believed Britney “was not over” Justin when they got married. According to him, he “took it with a grain of salt and told himself she was just “closing a chapter of her life.”

Britney and Justin dated from 1999 to 2002, and their breakup became one of pop culture’s biggest heartbreaks. In her 2023 memoir The Woman in Me, the singer revealed she became pregnant with Justin’s baby during their relationship but chose to have an abortion because “Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.”

The former NSYNC frontman publicly apologized to Britney in 2021, acknowledging how he had treated her after their split, including the release of his hit Cry Me a River, which painted her in a negative light. The two appeared to have since made peace, with Britney even supporting his song Selfish in a 2024 Instagram post.

Kevin and Britney went on to marry in September 2004, just two years after her breakup with Justin. Their marriage lasted three years, and they share two sons: 20-year-old Sean Preston and 19-year-old Jayden James.

Now, nearly two decades later, Kevin is revisiting those memories in his upcoming memoir You Thought You Knew, out Oct. 21. He insists the book is not about money, but about family. “I’m doing this now [because] I wanted to make sure that my children were old enough to understand what I’m doing…My children are ready for me to tell my story,” he told ET. 

But Britney’s team isn’t happy about it. In a statement shared ahead of the memoir’s release, a representative for the pop star said, “With news from Kevin’s book breaking, once again he and others are profiting off her and sadly it comes after child support has ended with Kevin. All she cares about are her kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James and their well-being during this sensationalism. She detailed her journey in her memoir.”