Sam Asghari Calls Britney Spears the “Princess of Pop” in Rare Career Tribute

Three years after filing for divorce, Sam Asghari is still finding new ways to publicly credit his ex-wife’s place in music history. During a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s Page Six Radio, the model and actor referred to Britney Spears as the “Princess of Pop,” putting her in the same breath as Michael Jackson and Madonna while reflecting on just how much her career shaped his own understanding of pop music.

What Asghari Actually Said

Speaking with hosts Danny Murphy and Evan Real, Asghari admitted something that might surprise longtime fans of the couple: he wasn’t especially familiar with Spears’ music when they first met on the set of her “Slumber Party” video back in 2016. That changed once he grasped the scale of what she’d built. He explained that once he understood why songs like hers had become cultural touchstones — the same way Jackson and Madonna’s had — the significance of the “Princess of Pop” title clicked into place for him, according to Yahoo Style Canada.

He didn’t stop there. Asghari went further, arguing that Spears essentially wrote the playbook for a certain kind of pop stardom, one that later artists have tried to imitate without ever quite pulling it off. Whether or not that claim holds up to debate, it’s a notably generous read from someone who split from her not that long ago.

A Relationship That’s Had Its Share of Headlines

For context, Asghari and Spears’ relationship has been anything but quiet. They met in 2016, went public on Instagram in 2017, got engaged in September 2021 — shortly after Spears’ 13-year conservatorship ended — and married in June 2022 in a wedding attended by names like Selena Gomez, Paris Hilton, and Madonna. Just over a year later, in August 2023, Asghari filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. The split was finalized in 2024.

Given how public and, at times, contentious their split coverage became, Asghari’s continued willingness to praise Spears’ artistry stands out. As Page Six noted in its coverage of the interview, Asghari was careful to draw a line between his personal history with Spears and his admiration for her work, framing the two as entirely separate things.

Part of a Longer Pattern

This isn’t the first time Asghari has gone out of his way to speak well of Spears since their divorce. He’s previously said he was “freaking proud” of her after reading her 2023 memoir, “The Woman in Me,” and has cited an old Persian proverb — essentially, that you don’t speak badly of someone you’ve shared a meal with — as his personal code for how he talks about their marriage. He’s also said he hopes any future biopic based on her memoir does justice to what he calls a genuinely strong legacy.

According to The Blast, the “Princess of Pop” comments fit squarely into that same pattern — public praise for her career, kept carefully separate from commentary on their marriage or its ending, which he’s generally declined to discuss in detail.

Why the Comparison to Jackson and Madonna Matters

The “King of Pop,” “Queen of Pop,” and “Princess of Pop” nicknames aren’t just casual titles — they’ve long functioned as shorthand within the industry for artists considered to have permanently reshaped mainstream music. Spears earned the “Princess of Pop” label early in her career, largely off the back of “…Baby One More Time” and the string of hits that followed, and the nickname has stuck for over two decades. Asghari’s comments essentially reaffirm that framing, arguing that her influence hasn’t faded just because the tabloid cycle around her personal life has moved on to other things.

The Bigger Picture

Coverage of the interview, including from AOL, has largely framed Asghari’s comments as another example of the surprisingly amicable tone he’s maintained since the divorce — a tone that stands in contrast to how messy some celebrity splits play out in public. Whether that’s genuine goodwill, a conscious effort to stay out of any renewed tabloid drama, or some mix of both is hard to say from the outside. What does seem consistent is the pattern itself: years after their marriage ended, Asghari keeps returning to the same message, that whatever happened between them personally, Spears’ standing as the Princess of Pop isn’t something he’s interested in disputing.