Sam Asghari has filed for divorce from Britney Spears after just over a year of marriage, according to Entertainment Tonight.
The magazine’s late Wednesday item comes hours after TMZ reported Asghari, 29, had moved out of the couple’s Calabasas home. The breakup came in the wake of a “nuclear” fight they’d had earlier this month, the tabloid reported, noting Asghari cited “irreconcilable differences” in divorce papers.
During the argument, Asghari confronted Spears about recent rumors she’d cheated on him, unnamed sources said. TMZ noted that the rumors have not been verified.
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“She’s adamant she didn’t cheat,” an insider told ET. “The two haven’t got along for a while and it finally came to an end after a major blowup.”
The pair have reportedly been on the outs for months. Though Asghari has loudly pushed back against his wife’s critics over the last 14 months, insiders leaked to gossip rags that his private frustrations with her antics were reaching a boiling point.
Another insider told ET that Spears and Asghari “have had issues on and off as a couple since before they were married.”
“Their issues tend to get worse when they are away from each other and spending time apart,” the person said. “Britney has the tendency to feel like she isn’t being prioritized by Sam at times. Their arguments have led them to become unhappy at times in their relationship. They are also on different pages when it comes to their future as a couple, which has been a point of contention.”
It is unclear how a divorce battle between the 41-year-old Princess of Pop and her estranged husband might play out in court. Around the time of the couple’s wedding last June, it was reported that Spears had negotiated an “ironclad” pre-nuptial agreement protecting her assets in the event of a divorce.
But Asghari is gearing up to dispute the terms of the agreement, sources told Page Six on Wednesday. A source told the outlet that he was “threatening to go public with extraordinarily embarrassing information about Britney unless he gets paid” beyond the terms of the pre-nup.
“So that’s what Sam is focused on,” the source added.
Another person with knowledge of the situation insisted to Page Six that Spears would be “protected” from the alleged extortion attempt. “It’s blackmail and it’ll never happen,” the insider said.
Spears has reportedly hired divorce lawyer to the stars, Laura Wasser, and will continue to retain Mathew Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor who helped untangle Spears from her conservatorship.
Neither party confirmed requests for comment from various outlets.
The pop star, in the meantime, has “not been doing well” as her marriage implodes, a source told ET.
“She is hurt because the situation brings up old feelings for her,” the person explained.
As recently as May, Ashgari took to Instagram to slam a documentary about Spears that suggested their marriage was in peril.
Read it at TMZ
