Their split in 2023, after just 14 months of marriage, came as a shock to their fans. Since then Sam Asghari and Britney Spears have rarely discussed the circumstances surrounding their relationship and subsequent break-up. Until now that is.
Speaking on Kate and Oliver Hudson’s podcast Sibling Revelry, Sam Asghari – who is currently starring on the US version of Celebrity Traitors - has opened up about his time with the singer.
He shared, ‘Divorce, separation, break-ups suck for anybody. Of course it’s going to suck but I had the mindset of “I will never be sad that it’s over, I’m always going to be grateful and happy that it ever even happened”.’
Sam also revealed, ‘I never looked at [our relationship] as a “big time thing”, there’s the spotlight and you have the public relationship and people start paying attention even if you’re Travis Kelce and you’re in the NFL and the best in the league, they still associate you with pop culture. Better yet to be associated with an icon, someone labelled the Princess of Pop. But that didn’t mess with my mind too much.
‘If you do everything with honour, respect and you think twice before you do anything, nothing could ever go wrong and nothing could ever be a bad thing. If it doesn’t work out, if things end and things happen that you didn’t want to happen, you just have to take a moment and appreciate that it ever even happened. You can’t sit there and dwell and be sad.
‘I’ve always looked at life as a blessing. I didn’t look at it as this big thing for my career because my career has always been different to my personal life, even though that might be a ridiculous thing to say. Things happened the way they happened because of my career – I was on an acting job, I was already acting and I met a coworker that happened to be the Princess of Pop and we sort of clicked.’
Sam, 30, and Britney, 43, began dating in 2017 after meeting on the set of Britney’s single Slumber Party and eventually the actor proposed in September 2021 and they tied the knot in June 2022. The pair’s divorce was eventually finalised in May 2024.
Sam shared the origins of his and Britney’s relationship on the podcast revealing, ‘One day I get a call from my agent saying, “Are you available? They want you for a music video – it’s an A List music video but we don’t know who”.’
‘I go into the music video and it’s just another job and then there’s seven years of relationship that comes from the music video. And a marriage and a lot of experiences – a lot of experiences which I like to call a crash course in Hollywood – which was great.’
He continued, ‘I never really listened to pop music until then. Of course I knew who she was but when I go into a job, I go in as a professional even if it’s a music video.
‘I was there, I was very relaxed. It was a music video, a two-day music video, it was fun, it was at a house in Beverley Hills and everything was going right and going great. We talked and we figured we were both single, let’s go have some sushi.’
And it was during their time together Britney’s 13-year conservatorship came to an end in 2021 – something that Sam admits was incredibly difficult to deal with day-to-day.
‘Everything was going really well until one day I started learning about what the conservatorship is,’ Sam explains. ‘I thought, “I’m in America, what do you mean someone doesn’t have basic human rights and that someone over the age of 18 needs permission from their parents.” It’s such a ridiculous thing in this country to have to deal with. And that was by far the weirdest thing to deal with. Which is strange to say in Hollywood because it’s usually media, fans, the money and everything else that’s going to be hard to deal with. But one of the hardest things to deal with in entertainment is [knowing] that your parents and the people around you and everything and everyone that comes into your life, they’re taking advantage. That will damage you because those are the people that are closest to you.
‘The people that you’ve let into your circle, you’re vulnerable to and they’re taking advantage. You owe something to them or something which is so ridiculous. That was the most difficult and weird spiral that I’ve experienced in my life ever.’
He continued, ‘First you have to be in a position to say anything, do anything. Because if you’re just a boyfriend and just there, people can force you out or get you out of the situation if they don’t like you around, so you have to be really careful with how you deal with this type of thing. I think the best thing that you can do is provide support in that moment and that’s what I did, I provided as much as I could – support and to be there and provide information and resources that might be helpful. I really tried to understand why the conservatorship even happened in the beginning.
‘It was a very difficult time. It blurred into our relationship for almost seven years, but it was so much that we’ve gone through as a couple and we’ve learned so much and it was a beautiful experience.’
Sam is now said to be dating real estate agent and model Brooke Irvine.
Daisy Hall is a News and Entertainment writer on Grazia