NEED TO KNOW
- Sam Asghari is responding after his ex-wife Britney Spears said their previous marriage “felt like a fake distraction”
- The former couple met in 2016 and wed in June 2022 before separating 14 months later
- “I was in love with her, will always have love for her, and wish her the best always,” Asghari tells PEOPLE per his rep from BAC Talent
Sam Asghari is speaking out after Britney Spears had strong words about their previous marriage.
“Our marriage was very real to me,” Asghari tells PEOPLE, per his rep from BAC Talent. “It may have been short, but we were together for seven years. I was in love with her, will always have love for her, and wish her the best always.”
His statement comes after the “Toxic” singer, 43, reflected on their marriage in an Instagram post on Monday, Aug. 25, calling their time together “the hardest years of my life.”
She also claimed that during their marriage, she was “cut off from calling or texting” her two sons, Jayden James and Sean Preston, whom she shares with her ex-husband Kevin Federline.
“I remember in shock my secret to survival was denial and a lot of tears its weird me and Sam were married but it almost felt like a fake distraction to help me deal with it …” the singer wrote.
In a June 2025 interview with Page Six Radio co-hosts Danny Murphy and Ian Mohr, Asghari shared that there were some pitfalls to being in a highly publicized relationship with the pop star.
“I can’t sit here and lie and say, ‘It wasn’t good for me,’ ” the model, 31, said, adding, “When you’re in such a public relationship … it sort of gave me that platform for who I am.”
“I mean, we met on the acting set. We met as co-workers,” he added of being introduced to Spears while portraying her love interest in her 2016 music video for “Slumber Party.”
Asghari recalled people referring to him as “cheesy” when he would try to find work, saying the negative assumptions about him made him “absolutely” have “to work harder to prove myself.”
However, the former personal trainer has also defended Spears against backlash.
Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic
Amid an alleged TMZ documentary surrounding her conservatorship in May 2023, Asghari called her inner circle “absolutely disgusting.”
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“The last thing I want to do is speak on my wife’s behalf, I will never do that. I respect her privacy, that’s why I don’t talk as much,” he said in a video shared to his Instagram Story at the time. “I found it absolutely disgusting for the people that were in her life at the time when she didn’t have a voice, they went and told her story like it was theirs. It was absolutely disgusting.”
He also claimed that Spears was “in prison, where her father tells her what to do, what water to drink, who to see, and use her as a money-making machine,” adding, “now you’re gonna put her under a microscope and tell her story? No. That’s also disgusting, so don’t do that.”
Asghari filed for divorce on Aug. 16, 2023, after 14 months of marriage. The former couple did not have any children together, but the actor was previously vocal about wanting to be a dad with Spears. Their divorce was finalized in May 2024.
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