WWE has a long history of featuring celebrities to boost its appeal, often aiming to attract even bigger names through these appearances. A notable example of this strategy was the involvement of Kevin Federline. WWE’s ultimate goal at the time was to leverage Federline’s appearance to bring in his then-wife, pop icon Britney Spears.

In 2006, Kevin Federline began making regular appearances on WWE television to feud with WWE Champion John Cena. Federline, attempting to launch a rap career, leveraged his notoriety from his marriage to Britney Spears to gain attention.

On the podcast Something To Wrestle, Bruce Prichard reflected on the feud and revealed that Michael Hayes had ambitions of bringing Britney Spears into the WWE fold to perform at a pay-per-view event.

”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.”

When Conrad Thompson asked Prichard if Hayes indeed pitched the idea of Britney singing on pay-per-view, Prichard confirmed that to be true.

“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.”

Kevin Federline’s feud with John Cena culminated in a surprising moment when K-Fed actually defeated the WWE Champion. However, that was the extent of Federline’s wrestling career; he didn’t return for any more matches and many agree that was for the best.

Do you feel Britney Spears should have appeared on WWE television? Let us know in the comments section below!