Perez Hilton of celebrity gossip site PerezHilton.com welcomed the news.

"Yesterday we reached our highest number of readers ever, despite periods of time where the website was down for a bit because too many people were trying to view it," he said in a posting. "Thank you Britney!"

Defamer.com greeted the divorce with wry cynicism, describing it as "the tragic news the world has been patiently awaiting."

Visitors to the site's message boards could scarcely contain their glee. "There was cheering in my office when the news broke," one message read.

People magazine in its online edition meanwhile quoted an unidentified friend of Federline as saying the divorce papers "came as a total surprise."

"We're all in shock. We're hoping it might just be that she's feeling a lot of postpartum emotions and this is something that will blow over," he told the magazine.

People cited a source close to Federline as saying that Spears' patience finally wore thin after her husband jetted off to Las Vegas for the anniversary of a nightclub just three weeks after the birth of the couple's second son.

"This was her last straw," the magazine quoted the source as saying. "He said, 'I have to go to Vegas.' He didn't have to go to Vegas. He uses any excuse to party. She said, 'I've had enough.'"

Reports have said that Spears -- worth over 120 million dollars according to a 2004 Forbes survey -- was protected against a costly divorce settlement through an "iron-clad" pre-nuptial agreement.

However, sources told the TMZ.com website late Tuesday that Federline may now consider launching a custody battle in an attempt to seek a greater slice of his wife's fortune.

Spears shot to superstardom in late 1998, with her smash-hit debut album "Baby One More Time," which she followed with another chart-topping success the following year with "Oops! ... I Did It Again"

According to Time magazine, Spears has sold over 76 million records worldwide and her 31 million albums sold in the US make her the eighth best-selling female artist in US music history.

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