Britney Spears Wishes Estranged Sons Jayden and Preston Happy Birthday – Billboard

Britney Spears wished her sons a happy birthday on Wednesday (Sept. 14) in the midst of what the singer has said is a painful, prolonged estrangement from her boys. “Happy birthday Preston and Jayden!!! Love you both so much!!!,” Spears, 40, wrote in an Instagram post that featured a snap of the “Hold Me Closer” singer with her arm around Preston and another with both boys in which all three are wearing masks.

The boys’ birthdays are two days apart; Jayden James turned 16 on Monday and Sean Preston turned 17 on Wednesday. Spears said the snaps were taken last year and they come just a few days after the star lamented that the lengthy split with her songs has taken a toll on her. “Since they’ve been gone, I’ve honestly felt like a huge part of me has died,” Spears says during one of five brief audio clips she posted on Instagram on Saturday, which also covered topics including AA meetings, therapy with horses and the horrors of her 13-year conservatorship.

The boys’ father, Britney ex Kevin Federline, told the Daily Mail in early August that the former couple’s sons had been avoiding their mother in recent months, and that they were having a difficult time dealing with her nude images on social media following the end of her conservatorship. Jayden also recently spoke out in an ITV interview about his mom’s parenting, not attending her recent star-studded wedding to longtime beau Sam Asghari and Sean Preston’s request that “my mother not post his photos, and she did it anyway.”

“Like, literally, I have no purpose anymore,” Spears continued in one of the clips about her despair over not seeing the kids. “They were my joy, they were my everything. I looked forward to seeing them, that was what I lived for. And then all of a sudden, they were gone. I was like, ‘Did my heart just stop beating?’ Honestly, I don’t understand how it’s so easy for them just to cut me off like that. I don’t understand it.”

Spears and Federline were married from 2004-2007 and in a recent 60 Minutes Australia interview, the former dancer said that while the couple originally split custody of the boys 50/50, that arrangement changed several years ago after Sean Preston and Jayden “weren’t always happy living at their mum’s home,” with a court awarding Federline 70% custody in 2019, at which point the boys reportedly moved in with him full time.

Check out Britney’s post below.