Kevin Federline: his turbulent marriage to Britney Spears thrust him to the front lines of America's growing obsession with the lives of celebrities, and transformed him from a struggling backup dancer into a paparazzi magnet and a late-night talk show punch line. But will K-Fed have the last laugh?

BILL VOURVOULIAS: As everyone knows, a lot has been written about you. But I don't think we've heard your story. We know that you grew up in Fresno, California, but that's about it. What was Fresno like growing up? What kind of family do you come from?

KEVIN FEDERLINE: I come from a very, very well-structured family. It's pretty crazy that it is that way, but I could give you a quick little breakdown: I was born and raised in Fresno, but my family moved to Carson City, Nevada, for a while. During the time we were there my parents split up--I was about 8 years old. It was tough for me, dealing with the divorce at that time, because I didn't understand what was going on. But I was old enough to know that Dad's not around. I stayed living with my mom. Couple years later, I wound up moving in with my dad when he moved back to Fresno.

BV: What did each of your parents do?

KF: Like, for an occupation?

BV: Yeah.

KF: My mom is a banker. Well, she's a retired banker now, thank God. My father is a mechanic. He was that guy, when he was in high school, fixing up the hot rod, you know?

BV: Did he teach you any of that?

KF: I know enough to be able to get around. I mean, I could change oil and I know the parts of engines and all that. It didn't really interest me as much as it did him. But if I took my car to a mechanic and I had a problem, and the mechanic was trying to charge me for some extra stuff, I could tell if they were bullshitting me.

BM: I wish I could do that.

KF: Hey, it's come in handy a couple of times.

BV: I bet it has.

KF: So I wound up moving back in with my dad when I was about 10 years old, and remained in Fresno from that point on until I moved to Los Angeles when I was about 21. But growing up was cool. It was pretty much everybody's normal life, you know?

BV: What was Fresno like as a city?

KF: It's funny, because you move to L.A. and everybody looks at Fresno like, "Oh, you grew up on a farm or something." But for me it wasn't really like that. It was a cool, diverse place. I learned lots of lessons there. Had a lot of ups and downs there, being in school and out of school and going through a bunch of different stuff, street-wise and business-wise.

BV: What would you say is the biggest thing your dad taught you growing up?

KF: I would say that the biggest thing about my parents and my family--my morn and my dad-most of all, out of everything I've learned, is that they taught me to be the parent that I am today. You know, I didn't get away with everything. I didn't get completely scolded for everything, either. Both of my parents are remarried, so I have a stepbrother and half brothers and a stepsister. My family went from me and my brother to a family of five brothers and one sister, and everybody is cool. Amazingly, I really love that it happened this way because all of us are friends.

BV: At what point when you were growing up did you start getting interested in dancing?

KF: I started when I was 13 years old. I had a friend who got me into it. I was already into hip-hop and stuff before then, but she used to go to the dance school. I went there with her one time and saw there was a group of guys that were dancing--you know, hip-hop dancing. All I had known before that was, like, street break-dancers and all that stuff. So I was already a little bit familiar with that, and behind-the-closet dancing--you know, in the mirror or whatever. So I started meeting up with this group of guys. They taught me a lot. I was with them for about a year and a half. But I wound up just quitting that whole scene because I got into some other stuff--you know, between middle school and high school, and being a teenager and not letting anybody tell you what you could do. I had that type of attitude. So I got into a whole bunch of other stuff that I probably won't talk about right now. [both laugh] I went through that period for about three or four years. When I was 17, I went back to one of the guys. His name was Dwayne. He had opened up his own dance studio. So I went there and there was this kid, Jimmy Federico, who was just starting to dance with these guys when I left. Me and him really connected. He was an Italian kid from the city and his parents were well enough off. He lived on the other side of town and all that stuff. When I left, Jimmy had two left feet. But I watched what Jimmy had done since I'd been away. I'm sitting there watching him and I'm like, "Wow! I can't believe how great this kid is." He inspired me to start dancing again. Jimmy is pretty much the whole reason why I came to L.A. Me and him wound up becoming best friends. We would dance all the time between doing charity events and opening up for concerts that were coming to Fresno. So Jimmy gets a call and winds up coming out to L.A., and gets an agent and starts getting jobs. He's telling me, like, "You need to do this. You need to do that." And I'm worried about paying the rent. I'm on my own by this time. I had a girlfriend you know, it was a very iffy situation for me. So basically Jimmy talked me into taking a walk off of a cliff, as I always say, to see if I'm going to walk on air or if I'm going to fall to the ground. [both laugh] He got me to move to L.A., and two weeks after I did, I had a gig as a dancer and I went on tour.