New York: Aspiring rapper Kevin Federline, the estranged husband of Britney Spears, said he never meant to insult the fast-food industry with a Super Bowl advertisement in which he plays a fry cook dreaming of stardom.
The ad for insurance company Nationwide Financial Services debuted on the company's Web site on Monday and has already stirred up controversy ahead of the Sunday game, emerging as the season's most talked about spot. Last week, a leading restaurant association described the 30-second ad as demeaning to industry workers and asked for it to be dumped.
Federline, 28, known as K-Fed, said in an interview that the commercial is only meant to poke fun at himself—a fact that made him initially wary of taking on the project.
"The whole idea of poking fun at myself -- that's where I was iffy," Federline, whose resume includes stints as a fry cook and pizza deliveryman, said he was pleased with the result and hoped others would get the joke.
"We're really not trying to insult anybody," said Federline, who has taken ribbing himself in tabloids for his shaky music career and relationship with Spears, who filed for divorce last November.
His first album sold just 6,500 copies in its first week, and a number of dates on his US tour were cancelled due to lack of interest in the former back-up dancer's music.
The spot, developed by T:M, a unit of Interpublic Group, can be seen on www.nationwide.com. It will not be broadcast on TV until the February 4 Super Bowl, an event that is traditionally the biggest sporting spectacle of the year.
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