Britney Spears’ wedding was faked — NOT!
The Drudge Report on Wednesday carried a banner headline proclaiming “Media Tricked Again: Brit Faked Wedding.” It cited “documents” uncovered by US Weekly that “show Britney Spears’ nuptials to be a ‘faux wedding.’” The report continued: “People mag wasted 7 figures for ‘exclusive photos’. . . done to throw everyone off the case.” The buzz is that they plan to have their “real” wedding next month.
That’s not the case, according to Spears and Federline. The upcoming issue of People magazine — which hits newsstands this Friday — does, indeed, carry exclusive photos and details about the wedding. And it also has a brief article that addresses this controversy: “Are they legally wed?”
Turns out that Spears and Federline are not legally married because even though they have a marriage license, they haven’t yet filed it. They say they plan to file the license next week. As Federline explains it, after the couple hammered out their prenuptial agreement, the lawyers advised them to wait a week before filing the marriage license. But then they moved up the wedding date because they were tired of being stalked by photographers. “Basically, those reports that we didn’t legally wed are [bull],” Federline told People. “But it doesn’t bother me, those reports.”
Kathy Treggs, the Los Angeles County recorder’s office manager of public records, said the couple have 10 days from the date of the wedding to file the license. As far as she knows, Treggs said, the couple didn’t take out a license from a Los Angeles County office but could have pulled one from any county recorder’s office in the state or from any number of notary publics authorized to issue them.
“I know we’re not completely legal until we file the license, which we’ll do next week,” Spears told People. “But in a real sense, a spiritual sense, we’re married. We’re just following our lawyer’s advice.”
Regarding the reports that it was a fake marriage, she said, “I’m really upset that somebody some place decides to write a false headline about a special day that I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl. It’s too bad. I don’t understand the thinking behind it.
Us Magazine reported that it has obtained a draft of the prenuptial agreement that states if the couple divorce, Spears will pay Federline $300,000 a year for a period of time equal to half the length of their marriage. She will have no financial obligation to his two children by a previous relationship, and any gift valued at $10,000 or more will require a legal document stating who will own it if the couple split.
Federline, described in the document as “presently possessed of property of moderate value,” can make no claim to any of Spears’ companies but bears no responsibility if any of them lose money.
Spears is worth at least $32 million, according to the document.
In January, Spears married childhood friend Jason Alexander in a surprise wedding in Las Vegas. That marriage was annulled 55 hours later.
Spears and Federline held a small wedding at a Studio City home, keeping even the singer’s parents and siblings in the dark until hours before the ceremony.
Federline said his 2-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, who was to be the wedding’s flower girl, missed the event because he feared if he canceled her previously planned trip to Disneyland that day the reason would leak out.
Give geese a chance
Paul McCartney wants Arnold Schwarzenegger to give geese a chance.
The former Beatle has written the former action star, asking him to ban foie gras production in California.
A bill outlawing the force-feeding of geese to produce the delicacy is on Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk, and Sir Paul McCartney, a member of VIVA!, an animal-rights group pushing the bill, is hoping the governor will sign it.
“Your signature could be the one that ends the suffering of these poor animals,” McCartney wrote to the “Terminator” star in a letter dated Sept. 20. “I feel sure that your natural feelings of compassion will encourage you to sign this basic humane bill into law.”
Notes from all over
Amy Brenneman is judging President Bush — and finding him lacking. “I think the country is going to hell in a handbasket,” the “Judging Amy” told Prevention magazine during a photo shoot for its November issue, which hits stands Oct. 5. “And I'm terrified to think if this administration has another four years, the long-term effect they will have on the environment, on the economy, on health, on the international standing of our country." . . . Farrah Fawcett has been dating tennis icon Bjorn Borg, according to World Entertainment News Network. . . . Colin Farrell had a lot of bad hair days while filming “A Home at the End of the World.” The actor said he hated the hairpiece he was forced to wear in many scenes. “It was like they shaved a dog, poured glue on my head and put a blow dryer on it,” Farrell told the London Mirror. “I wanted to cut all my scenes until we got to the scene where it’s all cut off. You have no idea how bad that was. It’s like going to church when I was 10. It was horrible.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.