Ex-Wife of Britney Spears’ Paparazzo Boyfriend Says She’s ‘Grateful’ Star Destroyed Their Marriage (Exclusive)

In late 2007, paparazzo Adnan Ghalib was taking photos of Britney Spears when the pop star suddenly jumped into his car to escape the throngs of photographers following her. That fateful moment kicked off a surreal relationship between Ghalib and Spears — one he presented to his wife, AzLynn Berry, as nothing more than a friendship, but which she soon found out was much more. Now, in an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Berry is speaking out for the first time about the affair and that tumultuous time in her life.

Berry says her relationship with Ghalib, whom she married in 2003 at the age of 23, had always been rocky, partly due to his wandering eye. “He didn’t have a history of being honest when it came to his relationship status,” she claims.

Still, Berry was determined to make things work. “I come from a very religious background [and] my family had no [history] of divorce,” she explains. “I [also had] a lot of people-pleasing behaviors and was consistently trying to prove my worth in order to be loved. It was kind of an impossible situation to build anything real from that place.” (Multiple efforts to reach Ghalib were unsuccessful.)

Berry says the paparazzo told her he was trying to help Spears, almost acting like a personal assistant. “Britney was aware of the incoming conservatorship,” says Berry. “He told me a lot of intimate details [about her] … even mental health stuff.”

But Berry wasn’t aware Ghalib and Spears were romantically involved until January 2008, about three months into their affair, when a photo was published of them kissing in a Santa Barbara, Calif., parking lot. Berry was shocked. “I’m pretty sure I called him, yelling and screaming. I probably texted him 50 times and waited for him to come back,” Berry tells Us, calling the experience “extremely traumatic.”

In her memoir, The Woman in Me, Spears claimed she didn’t know Ghalib was married during their affair. Berry says Spears’ father, Jamie — who went on to file a restraining order against Ghalib after he and Spears split — “was trying to inform Britney of my existence. [But] if you have a choice between listening to someone who has kind of ripped away your identity and the hot guy with a thick accent that’s willing to treat you like a human being, you’re going to get what you want out of it.”