Britney files for divorce after 2-year marriage

LOS ANGELES, Nov 8 (Reuters) Pop superstar Britney Spears filed for divorce from dancer Kevin Federline after two years of marriage and two months after the birth of their second child.

Blond sex kitten Spears, 24, cited irreconcilable differences on her divorce petition, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court yesterday and made public by celebrity Web site TMZ.com.

The date of the separation was given as Monday. Publicists for the singer referred queries to Spears' lawyer, who was not immediately available for comment.

Spears asked for sole custody of her two sons with Federline, one-year-old Sean Preston, and James Jayden, born on September 12.

She asked for Federline to be given visitation rights.

Spears filed the papers after a brief appearance on ''The Late Show with David Letterman'' on Monday night in which she showed off her svelte new post-pregnancy figure but gave no hint of her separation from Federline, 28.

Rumours that the marriage was rocky had been circulating for months. Spears denied she was estranged from her husband, however, saying he had helped her weather the ups and downs of her second pregnancy.

In July, The National Enquirer celebrity magazine apologised to Spears in its British edition for reporting that the pop star was ready to divorce Federline.

''We now accept that their marriage is not over and they are not getting divorced,'' the British National Enquirer added.

BEST-KNOWN CELEBRITIES Spears shot to fame in 1999 and has sold more than 60 million albums to become one of the best-known celebrities in the world.

Federline, a dancer and aspiring rap artist, has two other children by his former girlfriend, actress Shar Jackson.

The ''Baby One More Time,'' singer put her phenomenal recording career on hold since her surprise, secret marriage to Federline in September 2004 and the birth of their first child in September 2005.

But the couple, who live in Malibu, California, continued to make headlines wherever they went.

They chronicled their marriage in a raunchy 2005 TV reality show called ''Britney&Kevin: Chaotic.'' The show consisted largely of home videos, including Spears filming Federline naked in a shower and Spears interviewing Federline during a night-time bus ride while she was naked.

Despite complaining of harassment from paparazzi, the ''Toxic'' singer announced her second pregnancy on a late-night TV chat show and posed nude for Harper's Bazaar magazine when she was six months pregnant.

A Los Angeles judge dismissed a libel suit brought by Spears accusing Us Weekly magazine of fabricating a story about a sexually explicit video the pop star and her husband made together.

In a decision made public on Monday, the judge said Spears had ''put her modern sexuality squarely, and profitably, before the public eye'' in a way that would make it unlikely for the magazine article to be found defamatory.

Spears' marriage to Federline was her second after a 2004 spur of the moment wedding in Las Vegas to a former high school sweetheart that was quickly annulled.

Motherhood has also brought its problems. Child welfare authorities visited her twice last spring after she was photographed driving a car with her eldest son, Sean Preston, on her lap, and after he fell from a high chair and hit his head. No charges were brought.

REUTERS DH BST0443