While some marriages last a lifetime, others only survive for 55 hours. Britney Spears detailed the shortest marriage she’s ever been in in her explosive memoir The Woman in Me with ex-husband and childhood friend Jason Alexander. The singer dubbed ‘Princess of Pop’ has been married three times so far, all of them ended in divorce.
Spears got hitched to Alexander in 2004 after a wild, boozy New Year’s night in Las Vegas. The 42-year-old revealed in an excerpt from her book, “He and I got s—t faced,” according to TIME which obtained a copy of the memoir ahead of its release on October 24, 2023.
The Oops…I Did It Again singer explained, “I don’t even remember that night at all, but from what I’ve pieced together, he and I lounged around the hotel room and stayed up late watching movies … then had the brilliant idea of going to A Little White Chapel at three thirty in the morning.”
Spears clarified she was under the alcohol influence and “wasn’t in love” with Alexander at the time of their wedding. Recalling the night, she further elaborated that after partying for a few days with a group of friends including Paris Hilton , she and Alexander ended up spending the night together.
However, she admitted, “People have asked me if I loved him. To be clear: he and I were not in love. I was just honestly very drunk — and probably, in a more general sense at that time in my life, very bored.” While the marriage was all “fun and games” for Spears, she noted her family was rather too deeply affected by the news of her nuptials.
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“They made way too big a deal out of innocent fun,” the Toxic singer acknowledged. “Everybody has a different perspective on it, but I didn’t take it that seriously. I thought a goof-around Vegas wedding was something people might do as a joke,” adding, “Then my family came and acted like I’d started World War III. I cried the whole rest of the time I was in Las Vegas. ”
Her family’s disapproval of the abrupt end to her marriage made her realize they wanted “control” over her. “I realized: something about me being under their control and not having a stronger connection to someone else had become very, very, important to them,” Spears reflected.
After the book came out, Alexander contradicted Spears’ “not in love” claims and told TMZ they were, actually, in love and sober when they tied the knot at A Little White Chapel. He shared their wedding photo on his Instagram account and sarcastically wrote, “Yeah Britney and I just hate each other and we don’t remember anything and we weren’t sober here.”
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The childhood friends annulled their marriage shortly after 55 hours, making it the shortest celebrity wedding. However, when they were taking the wedding vows, chapel owner Charlotte Richards recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone, “They appeared to be extremely happy. They were laughing, but crying, too, during the ceremony. I thought it was a marriage that would last forever.”