It speaks volumes of the human condition that Federline, a man who has basically been paid millions of dollars to spend his life having sex with Britney Spears, is still so unsatisfied with his lot that he must seek comfort elsewhere, in the calloused hands of Las Vegas escorts.
                         David Thorpe

It's taken me some time to gather the strength to write this. Like most of us, I took the divorce of Kevin Federline and Britney Spears pretty hard; I think it's fair to say that they were the celebrity couple that made everyone believe in love again. Britney and Kevin showed us that two souls can come together and make romance work, even in our crazy modern world. Their divorce left me in doubt about love itself. Just like so many other celebrity couples who filled us with hope — Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett, Liza Minnelli and David Gest — they dashed our dream that one day, we too could find that kind of happiness. After all, if Britney and Kevin couldn't make it work, what hope do the rest of us have?

Perhaps Britney rushed into marriage before she was ready. Her first marriage, to a childhood friend, was shortly after she turned 23. Those fifty-four hours of matrimony — lasting until her manager succeeded in getting a judge to sign the annulment — may have been brief, but they were a defining moment in which Britney cast off her girlhood and threw in her lot with such renowned celebrity marriage enthusiasts as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Liz Taylor, and Billy Bob Thornton. No doubt Britney looks back fondly on this brief period of wedded bliss — assuming that, at some point during those fifty-four hours, she was sober and conscious enough to remember anything about it at all.

A love for the ages

When she married Kevin not quite nine months later, everyone thought he was the one for her. He was a backup dancer who toured with her; when they met each other, Kevin's girlfriend Shar Jackson was pregnant with his second child, but, in a testament to his love for Britney, Kevin didn't let his family stand in the way of his pursuit of her. At first, Britney refused to sign a prenup, but was finally forced to do it by the same manager who ended her first marriage. Britney finally came to her senses and fired that manager a short time later for cynically standing in the way of her love one too many times.

And who could doubt the passion or the promise of their romance? From the first moment we lay eyes on them — Britney, the blonde goddess of pop music, and Kevin, an Adonis in manpris and a stained wifebeater undershirt — who could think of the prospect of their love ending? And so, over the next two years, Britney continued her career, while Kevin did whatever it is he does. They had two children, Sean and Jayden. She cultivated her acne, he bought himself expensive cars with her money, and neither one managed to find time to learn how to work a car seat for little Sean. Their short-lived reality show, Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, proved the extent of their love beyond a shadow of a doubt, as Britney candidly talked about what positions she liked to have sex with Kevin in, how often she liked to have sex with Kevin, and how many times she had had sex with Kevin so far that day. Only the most bitter and cynical person could doubt them.

All good things must come to an end

Sadly, the pressures of separate careers became too much for the couple. While Kevin was in Toronto promoting his debut album, Playing With Fire, Britney broke up with him and filed for divorce the next day, 7 November 2006. The moment of the breakup was captured for all eternity — she informed him via text message in footage shot by MuchMusic. At least Kevin can take comfort in his career, as his album is an undisputed success, with some critics ranking it as high as one and a half stars out of five, and sales topping 6,000 in its first week.

After the divorce, Kevin will have to make do with half the money from the sale of their $5 million home in Malibu, plus $300,000 out of Britney's pocket. They still have not agreed upon a custody arrangement for their children. Now we must all ask ourselves what went wrong. Maybe the constant reports during their marriage that Britney and Kevin were having major problems were right. Maybe Kevin really was gambling away a fortune and sleeping with hookers. Maybe all the love in the world won't hold together a marriage whose participants' intellects don't collectively make a half-wit. But maybe, just maybe, all of the gleeful celebration at any hint of trouble played a role. Maybe the paparazzi swarming to take pictures of every single instance of child neglect and every cigarette Britney smoked while she was pregnant and every time the couple went out in public indistinguishible from homeless bums were a part of it. Maybe every member of the public who mocked the epic romance that Kevin and Britney shared shoulders part of the blame. Stop and ask yourself: what part did you play in the end of this beautiful, beautiful union?

References

"America in Turmoil". The Burn Unit, David Thorpe, 22 November 2006. (http://www.weeklydig.com/music/articles/the_burn_unit5/)
"Britney Spears takes her baby for a ride", 7 February 2006. (http://hobo.typepad.com/fbcg/2006/02/britney_spears_.html)
IMDB: Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460628/)
MuchMusic clip showing Britney and Kevin's breakup (http://youtube.com/watch?v=qkq0w6ua_Sg)
AllHipHop review of Playing With Fire (http://www.allhiphop.com/reviews/?ID=1027}
Britney out on the town, looking fab (http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/go_fug_yourself/2005/05/postit_of_fug.html)