Pop star Britney Spears formalized her union with dancer Kevin Federline Thursday just as she parted ways with the manager who had been guiding her career since she was 13, her spokeswoman said.
“All the proper paperwork was dealt with today, filed, done. It’s all legal,” Spears’ publicist, Leslie Sloane, told Reuters when asked whether the singer’s marriage license had been filed.
Spears, 22, and Federline, 26, exchanged vows in a secret wedding ceremony in Los Angeles last month. But as People magazine published exclusive photos of the event days later, rival magazine US Weekly cast doubt on the legitimacy of the nuptials, reporting it had obtained documents showing the whole ceremony was fake.
Spears acknowledged then that the couple had yet to file a marriage license -- as California law requires within 90 days of the ceremony -- but insisted their wedding was real.
She told People they had been legally advised to wait for a grace period after completing their prenuptial agreement to file a wedding certificate.
Also Thursday, Spears’ longtime manager, Larry Rudolph, announced through his publicist that he and the singer had ”mutually agreed not to renew their nine-year management relationship.”
Rudolph is credited with discovering the Louisiana native when she was just 13 years old, helping guide her early career and building her into one of the most successful recording stars in recent years.
Spears has sold more than 60 million albums since she shot to fame with her 1999 debut, “... Baby One More Time.” With the subsequent releases of “Oops! ... I Did It Again” and ”Britney”, Spears became the first female performer in the history of Billboard magazine to have her first three albums open at No. 1 on the pop album chart.
In a statement, Rudolph said, “Britney and I simply realized what we have done all we can do together.”
Sloane said the split was amicable and added no decisions had been made about future management for Spears.
Rudolph said he would be teaming up with the family-owned Maloof Entertainment company, which owns and operates the Palms Resort & Casino Hotel in Las Vegas to produce TV projects.