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Kevin Federline’s new memoir recalls the night in 2008 when ex-wife Britney Spears was placed under a psychiatric hold after locking herself in the bathroom with their sonFederline called the pair’s custody battle “crushing”Spears has publicly slammed Federline’s book

Kevin Federline is reflecting on the difficult night that his ex-wife Britney Spears was placed under a psychiatric hold after locking herself in the bathroom with their toddler son.

Federline, 47, recalled the January 2008 incident in his new memoir You Thought You Knew, writing that sons Sean Preston, now 20, and Jayden James, now 19, had spent the afternoon with Spears, 43, and were in the process of going back to his house when things went “sideways.”

The former dancer wrote that he sent his security guard Lonnie to pick up the boys, per his custody agreement with Spears, but after handing over Preston, the pop star locked herself in the bathroom with Jayden, who at the time was just over a year old.

The police were called, but the hours ticked by as cops, ambulances and reporters flooded the area.

“When they finally got her out of that bathroom, it was dark outside. They brought her out on a gurney, strapped down, wearing a damn straitjacket. The image of her being wheeled out like that, completely out of it, haunted me,” he writes.

Britney Spears with her sons Preston and Jayden at Disneyland.

Britney Spears/Instagram

Federline wrote that he remembered Spears being “incoherent” as she held Jayden, and that the cops had to eventually pry him from her arms.

In light of the psychiatric hold, Federline’s lawyer filed for emergency sole custody, and Federline recalls facing off against the singer in court as a “uniquely gut-wrenching experience, especially when you’re fighting against someone you once loved so deeply, someone you thought you’d spend the rest of your life with — it’s crushing.”

Federline wrote that while locked in the custody battle, he did not want to tear Spears down, but felt he had to, as he was “fighting for my children.” He was eventually awarded sole custody of the boys.

Spears, meanwhile, recounted the night in her own memoir, 2023’s The Woman in Me. In her book, Spears said she was handing her sons over to Federline’s security guard when she became “terrified” that she would never see them again amid the custody battle.

“I ran into the bathroom with Jayden and locked the door — I just couldn’t let him go. I didn’t want anyone taking my baby,” she wrote, noting that she believed the security guard would wait for her.

Instead, a SWAT team arrived and burst the door open, though Spears wrote that her only guilt was “feeling desperate to keep my own children for a few more hours.”

Of the custody battle with Federline, Spears wrote that he “took my world away from me. He knocked the breath out of me. And my family did not hold me.”

Britney Spears and Kevin Federline at a party in Los Angeles in February 2005.

Matthew Simmons/Getty 

The “Gimme More” singer spoke out against Federline’s forthcoming memoir in a statement shared to social media, writing that the “constant gaslighting” coming from him “is extremely hurtful and exhausting.”

Spears wrote that she’d “always pleaded and screamed to have a life” with her sons, while noting that relationships with teenage boys can be “complex.”

“I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life,” she wrote. “Sadly, they have always witnessed the lack of respect shown by [their] own father for me. They need to take responsibility for themselves.”

She said she had only seen one of her sons for 45 minutes over the last five years, and the other just four times over the same time period.

“Trust me, those white lies in that book, they are going straight to the bank and I am the only one who genuinely gets hurt here,” she wrote. “I will always love them and if you really know me, you won’t pay attention to the tabloids of my mental health and drinking. I am actually a pretty intelligent woman who has been trying to live a sacred and private life the past 5 years. I speak on this because I have had enough and any real woman would do the same.”

You Thought You Knew is out Oct. 21.