It’s a breakup, bitch.
Fitness trainer and professional husband Sam Ashgari has filed for divorce from pop star/barefoot bathroom queen/frenetic legend Britney Spears after 13 months of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences.
In his filing, Ashgari is seeking both spousal support and attorney’s fees and is reportedly threatening to release damaging information about his wife if the terms of the couple’s prenup are not renegotiated.
Woof.
The pair’s relationship has been a source of controversy, speculation, social media sensationalization and deep conspiracy theories from the jump.
The two first met in 2016 on the set of Spears’ music video for the song “Slumber Party.” In typical fire sign fashion, the singer made the first move, calling Ashgari (potentially with her troll father Jamie tapping the line) to ask him out on a date.
Ashgari proposed in 2021 and stood by Spears during her legal battle to free herself from the abusive confines of her conservatorship.
The pair wed in June 2022 in a backyard fairytale ceremony complete with horse drawn carriage, a metric f–k ton of pink roses and celebrity guests like Madonna, Paris Hilton, Donatella Versace, Selena Gomez and Drew Barrymore. The union was Ashgari’s first and Spears’ third.
The singer wed childhood pal turned stalker Jason Alexander in Vegas in 2004 and was married to backup dancer Kevin Federline from 2004-2007. She shares two children, sons Sean Preston and Jayden James with Federline though her relationship with her progeny has oscillated between strained, strange and estranged as of late.
Did Britney cheat/beat?
Earlier this year it was reported that Spears had been physically abusive to Ashgari, allegedly pummeling him with punches while he slept, leaving him with a black eye and bite marks. News of their split coincided with the surfacing of cheating rumors that claim Spears stepped out on her man with a member of her staff. Reports suggest Ashgari found “compromising video footage” of his wife and an unnamed man.
Not for nothing, news of this split comes during the breakups/ugly crying and botched plastic surgery season of Venus retrograde when we are all tasked with renegotiating what love, worth, wealth, wellness and commitment look like and consequently cutting ties with anything and anyone that doesn’t light us up or push us forward.
What went south in this love affair? Read on to learn more.
Britney and Sam; the stars behind their split
Spears was born unto us on December 2, 1981 at 1:30 a.m. in McComb, Mississippi, making our girl a freedom loving Sagittarius sun with a defiantly weird Aquarius moon. Spears has both Saturn, planet of restriction, and Pluto planet of death and seismic change in her first house of the self.
These are not gentle influences and their presence in her hyper visible first house suggest that all of her struggles against authority and the processing of her deep trauma will play out, as they have thus far, in a very public way. Ashgari was born March 4, 1994 in Tehran, Iran, making him a tender, escapist Pisces sun with a free wheeling Sagittarius moon.
Spears and Ashgari’s respective sun signs, representing the core self, form a difficult square aspect with one another. Squares often result in intense chemistry and long term difficulty. We can think of this aspect as frictious and/or fractious; squares can create heat and fire, thereby becomings catalysts for transcendent sex and positive change or they can be grating, grinding, petty and ceaselessly exhausting points of contention.
It seems like with this lot what began as the former sadly devolved into the latter.
Square off
The pitfalls of the square dance continue as Ashgari’s Venus in Pisces squares Spears’ Neptune in Sag.
Venus is the planet of love, attraction and attachment and Neptune is the planet of dreams and deceit. This square suggests a highly illusory pairing where true motivations are hard to decipher and trust is hard to come by.
There’s high hopes and deep disappointments as both parties want to be what the other needs, literally a dream lover, but both tend to overpromise and under deliver when it comes to their capacity for commitment.This aspect bears the mark of idealism failing to follow through into fruition. Bummer.
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Fire and water
If we roll with Spears’s listed birth time, our girl is a Libra rising meaning in synastry terms, Ashgari’s sun in Pisces falls in her sixth house of service.
In this way, we can view their relationship and his role as one of duty, providing support for Spears during the dark days of her conservatorship and also perhaps, developing into an anxious attachment dynamic that has run its course.
The beautiful thing about Pisces, and pronounced Pisces placements, is that their emo waters are a safe pool of nonjudgement. They truly want people to be their most authentic, unapologetic selves and they want to welcome that weird without fear.
In kind, Pisceans are aces at building pillow forts, safety nets, bubble baths sensory deprivation chambers and other such soft places to land/hide. The underbelly of that energy is a mile wide codependent streak and an utter lack of personal boundaries.
Pisces are mutable water and can easily mesh, shape shift and allow themselves to be completely absorbed into the life of their beloved. Love as undertow if you will.
We’re talking about the zodiac’s resident escape artist and disappearing into another person is their preferred means of avoiding the snares, reality and responsibilities of their own messy lives.
Pisces energy can be very much ‘martyr for love,’ a modality embodied by probable Pisces Jesus H. Christ. Apropos of this, there’s no denying that for all her manic magic, Brit and her baggage are something of a cross to bear. For evidence see the before and after pictures of Ashgari.
Our Pisces prince looks like he’s served a tour of duty not taken a vow of matrimony. That being said, Pisceans often leverage caretaking as a kind of control and their empathy is not entirely altruistic.
Sometimes, being the shoulder to cry on, rock of stability and ride or die arm candy comes with a price for services rendered and that price in this case looks a whole lot like blackmail and a renegotiated prenup. Mon dieu.
Social media responses
Save for a single wedding portrait of him and his bride, Ashgari’s Instagram account is virtually and curiously Spears free. Ashgari did post a statement to his stories, confirming the end of his marriage to Spears;
“We will hold onto the love and respect we have for each other and I wish her the best always. S–t happens. Asking for privacy seems rediculous (sic) so I will just ask for everyone including media to be kind and thoughtful.”
Meanwhile, Spears took to Instagram to post not about her imminent divorce but about her love of polka dots and plans to purchase a pony named Roar or maybe Sophie. This is real deal unhinged optimist Sag energy here folks, back in the saddle, onward and upward and rhapsodizing about accessorizing her new life with a pink cowboy hat. Bless up and buck up baby.
From pain cometh pop music and it is our wish that if Spears must suffer she is able to transmute it into the medicine of music and into her forthcoming memoir “The Woman in Me.” May she come out of her third marriage “Stronger,” than yesterday and buoyed by the sunny side up, optimism of her Sagittarius sun sign, tomorrow always looks brighter to an archer than looking back.
All the best to you Britney, may the future be kind and may you consider following the fantasy of your fans and link up and bed down with BDE swinging, laugh riot Pete Davidson next, #spearpeteforever.
Astrology 101: Your guide to the star
- The 12 zodiac signs
- What are the astrology houses
- Here’s what each planet represents
- Sun, moon and rising signs: Get to know your Big 3
Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports back on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture and personal experience. She is also an accomplished writer who has profiled a variety of artists and performers, as well as extensively chronicled her experiences while traveling. Among the many intriguing topics she has tackled are cemetery etiquette, her love for dive bars, Cuban Airbnbs, a “girls guide” to strip clubs and the “weirdest” foods available abroad.