While Britney Spears’ memoir revealed shocking stories about her relationships and breakups with exes, including Justin Timberlake, her relationship with paparazzi photographer Adnan Ghalib isn’t one that’s in the spotlight often these days. However, now, Ghalib’s ex-wife AzLynn Berry is opening up about the pop star dating her ex-husband while they were still together, and how it saved her.
For some context, in 2007, Adnan Ghalib and Britney Spears were photographed together by paparazzi, and that is how the public found out about their relationship. However, Ghalib was married to AzLynn Berry at the time, and he told her he was just friends with the pop star. Now, the ex-wife of Spears’ former partner is opening up about what went down and how it changed her life.
What AzLynn Berry Said About Britney Spears’ Relationship With Adnan Ghalib
AzLynn Berry and Adnan Ghalib got married in 2003, and as she opened up to Us Weekly about this relationship, she said her former partner had “a history” of not being honest about who he was seeing. Despite this, she explained that she wanted to make this marriage work because she came from a religious background, her “family had no [history] of divorce,” and she had “people-pleasing behaviors.” While their relationship wasn’t the best, she was working hard to keep their marriage alive, and she was shocked when she found out about his affair with Spears, she said:
I’m pretty sure I called him, yelling and screaming. I probably texted him 50 times and waited for him to come back.
While the experience was “extremely traumatic” for her, she was also grateful for it in the long run, saying:
I’m so fucking grateful that, for whatever reason, this unbelievable person walked into my husband’s life and removed him from mine.
She went on to explain that she thought Ghalib was manipulative toward both her and Spears:
He was very charismatic. I was never going to leave Adnan. [Britney’s] presence was the catalyst that was strong enough to end the marriage, and I’m actually very, very grateful. I know for a fact that I would’ve killed myself if I stayed in a toxic relationship.
Berry filed for divorce in 2008, and the two talked occasionally through 2010. Two years ago, she completely cut ties with her ex-husband.
What Britney Spears Said About Her Relationship With Adnan Ghalib In Her Memoir
In Britney Spears’ bestselling memoir, The Woman In Me, she never directly names Ghalib, but she talks about her relationship in 2007 with a photographer, which he was. According to Business Insider, the pop star wrote that she was “infatuated” with him, explaining:
He'd been a paparazzo, and I understood that people thought he was up to no good, but all I could see at the time was that he was chivalrous and helped me out when the others got too aggressive.
She also claimed in the book that she didn’t know Ghalib was married to Berry until after they broke up, writing:
I had no clue that I was essentially his mistress. I only found that out after we'd broken up.
Berry filed for divorce from Ghalib in January 2008, and in 2009 Spears’ father got a restraining order against him. Two months later, he was hit with another restraining order from the pop star's dad, and he was not allowed to have any contact with her.
Overall, it seems like AzLynn Berry has no bad blood with Britney Spears, and she’s thankful that she got out of a relationship she wasn’t happy in.
This report comes amid a noteworthy year both personally and professionally for Spears. Along with the release of her “brutally honest” memoir, her movie Crossroads also just landed on Netflix, which is the first time it’s streamed anywhere. Personally, she and her ex-husband Sam Asghari got divorced, and there’s been a lot of reporting about Spears’ relationships with her family members.
As we learn more about Britney Spears’ relationships and her professional developments, we’ll be sure to keep you posted. When it comes to this situation with AzLynn Berry, it sounds like she’s living her best life, and while what she went through with the pop star and her ex-husband was “traumatic,” she came out the other side better and grateful for it.
