Britney Spears has publicly responded to allegations made by her ex-husband Kevin Federline in his upcoming memoir You Thought You Knew, calling his claims “constant gaslighting” and saying she has “had enough.”

Federline’s book, expected later this month, revisits their marriage, custody battles, and the singer’s years under court conservatorship. In excerpts obtained by The New York Times, Federline claims that Spears once watched their sons sleep while holding a knife and describes her as emotionally unstable. He also writes, “Something bad is going to happen if things don’t change,” suggesting that Spears needs professional help that, in his view, she has not received since the end of her conservatorship in 2021.

Spears responded hours after the excerpts surfaced, posting a detailed statement on X. “I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys,” she wrote. “Relationships with teenage boys are complex. I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always begged for them to be a part of my life.”

The singer went on to say that her sons, Sean Preston, 20, and Jayden James, 19, have spent little time with her in recent years: “With one son only seeing me for forty-five minutes in the past five years and the other with only four visits in the past five years.” She added, “I have pride too. From now on I will let them know when I am available.”

Spears also accused Federline of profiting from distorted versions of their story. “Trust me, those white lies in that book are going straight to the bank, and I am the only one who genuinely gets hurt here.” She emphasized that she “will always love” her sons and urged the public not to take rumors about her mental health and alcohol use at face value. “I am actually a pretty intelligent woman who has been trying to live a sacred and private life the past five years,” she wrote. “I speak on this because I have had enough, and any real woman would do the same.”

Federline, 47, has not publicly responded to Spears’s post, though his memoir excerpt portrays himself as a worried parent and former partner watching a decline he describes as “racing toward something irreversible.” He argues that the activism surrounding the Free Britney movement, credited with ending Spears’s thirteen-year conservatorship has failed to protect her well-being. “All those people who put so much effort into that should now put the same energy into the Save Britney movement,” he writes. “Because this is no longer about freedom. It’s about survival.”

Spears and Federline married in 2004 and divorced three years later. During much of Spears’s conservatorship, Federline retained sole custody of their children, while Spears’s access was limited to supervised visits. In her 2023 memoir The Woman in Me, the singer reflected on that period, writing that she traded her own autonomy for moments with her sons: “My freedom in exchange for naps with my children. It was a trade I was willing to make.”

Since the conservatorship’s termination in 2021, Spears has sought to rebuild both her career and her personal life, often using social media to address narratives about her mental health and finances. Federline’s memoir reopens many of those subjects, reviving questions about how each parent’s version of events will shape public perception of their family.

People close to Spears describe her response as an attempt to reclaim her voice after years of others speaking for her. “She’s focused on protecting her peace,” a source familiar with her team said Thursday, adding that Spears does not plan to take legal action but “won’t stay silent when her character is misrepresented.”

As the publicity around You Thought You Knew builds, the exchange underscores how intertwined Spears’s private life remains with public fascination. Two decades after their separation, the former couple continues to fight not in court but in narrative, each asserting a different truth about the same history.