The bride wore ripped denims and a midriff-exposing crop-top. The one white she wore was the baseball cap on her head. The groom, equally scruffy, was in denim, too, and seemed bleary-eyed from days of partying.
When Britney Spears married her childhood sweetheart Jason Alexander in a 5.30am ceremony in Las Vegas in 2004, it grew to become a world joke as a result of the wedding lasted solely two days.
For it took simply 55 hours for the younger famous person’s high-powered authorized group to pressure an annulment to guard her picture on the peak of her fame following the exceptional success of her album Poisonous.
Jason was duly dumped – now a mere footnote within the turbulent ups-and-downs of the endless Britney melodrama.
However immediately, with the 39-year-old pop star’s life and funds underneath the draconian management of her father and the American courtroom system, her ex-husband believes what he calls the ‘destruction’ of their marriage ought to have been taken extra critically, because it was a portent of darker issues to come back.
Jason Alexander (proper) with Britney at their Las Vegas marriage ceremony in 2004, which might finish in an annulment simply two days later
Britney was married to Jason Alexander, who had been her childhood sweetheart, for simply 55 hours again in 2004 (Pictured: Spears performing her single ‘Make Me…’ from her most up-to-date album Glory on the MTV Music Video Awards in 2016)
He claims that the ‘controlling forces’ at present massed round Britney had their grip on her even again then.
4 years later the singer grew to become the topic of a strict ‘conservatorship’ order. Since 2008, her father Jamie has been given management of every part – from her £36 million fortune to probably the most intimate points of her life, together with the implantation of a contraception system to forestall her having any extra kids.
‘What they did to Britney and me ought to have rung warning bells,’ says Jason, 39.
‘The lads in black swooped in, alongside together with her mum and different relations, and so they made us signal paperwork underneath duress to finish our marriage. We didn’t wish to annul it. They lied to us. It was all the time about controlling Britney and controlling her cash.
‘She’s been dwelling a nightmare far worse than anybody can think about for a lot longer than individuals realise.’
For the previous 12 months, the showbiz world has watched the backlash with the Free Britney motion, a marketing campaign began by her followers to assist her break away from the conservatorship she likens to jail.
In dramatic courtroom testimony final month, the mother-of-two, who shot to world superstardom as a young person with hits similar to Child One Extra Time, described her life as being akin to that of a ‘intercourse slave’, drugged and compelled to carry out towards her will.
Alexander grew up with Britney in Kentwood, Louisiana, and stated that he was ‘duped’ into agreeing to an annulment and misguidedly thought that he and Britney nonetheless had a future
Jason with two LG Cellular Telephone fashions on the 2005 BET Awards afterparty in Hollywood – the 12 months after his notorious marriage to Britney
‘My dad and anybody concerned on this conservatorship, and my administration who performed an enormous function… they need to be in jail,’ she stated.
However Jason says the warning indicators have been there in 2004 as her wealth and fame have been burgeoning.
‘I used to be tricked by her mum, dad and legal professionals into signing the annulment,’ he claims. ‘I used to be instructed our marriage might harm Britney’s profession. I beloved her and was a naive child who had been raised to belief and respect my elders, identical to she had.
‘We have been instructed that if we nonetheless felt the identical method about one another in six months, then we might have an enormous, white marriage ceremony. They strung me alongside for 30 days, which was how lengthy it took to get the annulment finalised, so I couldn’t contest it, after which they modified Britney’s quantity so I couldn’t speak to her. There have all the time been darkish forces in her life.’
On the time, the PR group appearing for the then 22-year-old singer put out an announcement saying: ‘Britney and a buddy took a joke too far.’
The truth is, says Jason, their romance was real and developed from a friendship which started after they have been each aged 5.
Britney’s PR group appearing for the then 22-year-old singer put out an announcement saying: ‘Britney and a buddy took a joke too far’ after she wed Jason (pictured) at a chapel in Vegas
The Little White Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada, the place the couple bought married again in 2004
Jason, now a businessman, speaks within the tender drawl of Louisiana. He and Britney grew up in Kentwood, a small city with a inhabitants of simply 2,200, and met when he attended a kindergarten run by Britney’s mom Lynne.
‘We all the time had emotions for one another. Whilst a toddler you realize what love is – an obsession, a butterfly feeling,’ he says. ‘As we bought older, these emotions turned bodily.’
Jason, a 6ft 1in American soccer star as a younger man, doesn’t bear in mind a time when Britney wasn’t performing.
‘She was all the time singing and dancing. Once we have been small, my mum put me in modelling pageants and Britney would all the time be at these sorts of occasions, singing.’
Even after Britney left Kentwood to launch her profession, first as a member of the Disney TV present The All New Mickey Mouse Membership (alongside Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera) after which as a solo performer, she would return house for holidays.
Then, she and Jason would resume their romance. ‘It was periodic however constant. I used to be in love with Britney earlier than she was Britney Spears,’ says Jason. ‘Her household have been like my household. We’d spend holidays collectively. The sentiments have been all the time there between us.’
So when Britney accomplished her fourth album, In The Zone, and was making ready for a world tour, she invited Jason to rejoice New Yr’s Eve together with her in a spectacular suite at The Palms Resort, Las Vegas, the place she was checked in underneath the pseudonym Alotta Warmheart.
She dispatched her personal jet to gather him and so they spent three days consuming and making love.
Britney together with her Greatest Pop Video and Michael Jackson Video Vanguard gongs on the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards
‘It was intense,’ Jason recollects. ‘It was 5am and we have been in mattress speaking and he or she requested me to go on tour together with her. I instructed her I couldn’t. I used to be at school on a soccer scholarship. Then she requested me to get married.
‘We felt like this was a method we may very well be collectively. Britney was already feeling trapped, with everybody earning profits out of her.
‘We figured that if we have been married, they must allow us to see one another.’
Jason says Britney had an armed bodyguard outdoors her suite however he intentionally went lacking within the early hours of January 3. The couple sneaked out and rented a lime-green limousine to go to The Little White Marriage ceremony Chapel on the Vegas Strip.
Instructed that they wanted a licence to marry, Britney and Jason requested the driving force to take them to an area courthouse which, Vegas being Vegas, was additionally open across the clock.
Jason recollects: ‘We lined up with different {couples}, regardless that it was 5 within the morning, and folks began recognising Britney and taking her image.
‘Then we went again to the chapel and the limo driver walked her down the aisle.
‘Britney didn’t have any money – even again then they didn’t give her entry to her cash. So I paid for the marriage, images and video.’
One other couple requested for a photograph – it’s the solely image of Britney’s marriage ceremony that exists. ‘The lads in fits confiscated the remaining,’ Jason says. ‘I used to be instructed that couple made $100,000 promoting that image. I all the time thought that was a pleasant marriage ceremony current to offer them.
Britney together with her dad Jamie Spears, who Jason says compelled him, together with others, to finish marriage with megastar (Pictured: photograph Britney posted to Instagram in June 2015, she wrote alongside the snap: ‘Blissful Father’s Day, daddy! I Love you!’)
Jason says he was tricked into signing the annulment by Britney’s mom Lynne (pictured) and administration
‘We have been on a excessive. We consummated the wedding within the limo on the way in which again to the lodge.’
However as soon as they shared the glad information, Jason says ‘the s*** hit the fan’. Inside hours, Britney’s mom – and people ‘males in black’– descended on the suite.
‘There have been legal professionals, publicity individuals and the administration individuals. They have been all in darkish fits and sun shades. They took Britney in a single room and put me in one other, like a police interrogation.
‘When she got here out, she was a special individual. It was like they’d hypnotised her or one thing.
‘Then they began placing all this paperwork in entrance of us to signal.
‘I trusted them. I used to be a naive child. I assumed I used to be doing one of the best factor for Britney. She and I had deliberate to go on honeymoon to Belize and he or she wished to go straight after the ceremony. Wanting again, I want I hadn’t been so dumb. I want we had gone.’
As soon as the paperwork was signed, the household went to a steakhouse.
Jason says: ‘We’d simply sat down when Britney’s brother, Bryan, came visiting with the affirmation quantity for a aircraft reservation for me written on a bar serviette.
‘I needed to go to the airport immediately. I didn’t even get to eat.
‘I’d arrived in Las Vegas on Britney’s personal jet – and I left in economic system class.’
Jason believes the marriage marked a seismic shift in the way in which Staff Britney seen their most treasured asset.
‘If she might insurgent and sneak off to get married, they didn’t have sufficient management. That’s after they began actually getting robust on her. She was put right into a gilded jail.’
Britney’s life quickly spiralled uncontrolled.
Eight months later, she married back-up dancer Kevin Federline. They’d two sons, later divorced and he or she started her public battles with medicine and breakdowns.
She shaved her head, attacked paparazzi with a golf membership and ended up being held in psychiatric care in a Los Angeles hospital after which her father utilized for – and was granted – the 2008 conservatorship order which stays in place to this present day.
Jason says: ‘If we had stayed married, I’d prefer to suppose issues would have turned out in another way. I wished to guard Britney. I beloved her.’
Britney recurrently posts dancing movies to her Instagram web page, which she makes use of to speak to her military of followers
Britney poses in a white shirt tied right into a crop prime in considered one of her current Instagram posts
His personal life was modified dramatically, too. Nursing a damaged coronary heart, he dropped out of school and deserted plans to change into an expert American soccer participant. ‘It was emotionally devastating. Her individuals made me out to be a joke. All over the place I went, I used to be the dude who’d been married to Britney Spears for 55 hours.’
He moved to Los Angeles, dabbled in appearing and blended martial arts, and based a medical marijuana enterprise. Later he moved again to Louisiana and labored in oil till the pandemic struck.
He has by no means been capable of escape Britney’s shadow, he says, and claims profitable enterprise alternatives have been crushed by the star’s authorized group through the years.
‘I used to be provided a e book deal however then bought a authorized letter saying that one of many papers I’d signed for them forbade me from writing the e book. Her legal professionals threatened me each time I wished to speak publicly.’ Jason says listening to Britney plead her case in courtroom final month was deeply transferring.
‘When she made that speech to the courtroom, I broke down,’ he provides. ‘Listening to her put her facet of issues, arguing to get her life again, it was uncooked and highly effective. She’s waited 13 years to say these phrases.’
Jason says he nonetheless loves Britney, who lives together with her boyfriend, private coach Sam Asghari.
‘She is aware of how I really feel. Once we speak, I inform her.
‘My solely remorse is that I couldn’t do extra to guard her.
‘I hope she will get her freedom quickly and might stay her life the way in which she desires to.
‘All I’ve ever wished is for Britney to be glad. I’ll by no means cease loving her.’
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