WWE Producer Tried To Secure PPV Deal For Britney Spears
A WWE Producer once pitched an idea for Britney Spears to appear on television for the company.
There was a high-profile rivalry in late 2006 going into 2007 featuring WWE Champion John Cena and a short-lived celebrity named Kevin Federline.
During that mid-2000s period. Federline was well-known because he was dating and then married to megastar musician Britney Spears, who was one of the biggest celebrities in the world at the time. Spears and Federline would go on to have two sons together before getting divorced in 2007.
The rivalry between Cena and Federline led to a match on the New Year’s Day edition of Raw on January 1, 2007, which Federline actually won. That’s because Cena was feuding with Umaga at the time and Umaga helped Federline get the win. Cena did get payback eventually.
Bruce Prichard is WWE’s current Executive Director who also worked for the company during that period. While speaking on his Something To Wrestling podcast, Prichard talked about why the company put Cena against Federline and how veteran WWE Producer Michael Hayes thought Spears could be involved.
“John was the biggest star and was going to get the most play out of it. When you take a look at Kevin Federline, who was in so many headlines and involved in so much controversy outside of our business, the only guy to rub him up against was John Cena. It was a way for fans to get behind Cena because if there was one person who was easier to hate than Cena, it was Kevin Federline.”
“He didn’t know a whole lot about Kevin other than he was Britney’s husband at the time and very controversial. Who better? I don’t know that anybody else on the entire roster matched up. You go with the Michael Hayes philosophy of ‘Do you think Britney would come to see Kevin Federline with John Cena? We could get Britney and I can ask her if she can sing a song. That would be good for pay-per-view.”
Did Michael Hayes Pitch Britney Spears Appearing On WWE Television?
As the discussion continued, Prichard was asked if Hayes pitched Britney Spears singing on WWE television.
“Yeah. He just assumed she would travel with him and we could get Britney to do something. I wouldn’t be surprised, because I wasn’t in the office, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if that was a pitch as well. ‘We could get Federline and Britney may come and it’s in the door to use Britney.’
Britney was the hottest thing going at the time. Wouldn’t shock me if that was the pitch.”
The timeline really didn’t work out well for WWE in terms of getting Spears involved. That’s because Spears filed for divorce from Federline in November 2006 and the divorce was finalized by 2007. That means Spears wasn’t on good terms with Federline when he worked with WWE, so an appearance from Spears was unlikely.