Britney Spears Says She Had an Abortion With Justin Timberlake: ‘If It Had Been Left Up to Me Alone, I Never Would Have Done It’
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Britney Spears says she had an abortion during her relationship with Justin Timberlake.
Spears makes the revelation in her upcoming book, “The Woman In Me.” This week, Spears appears on the cover of People magazine, which published the first excerpts from the book.
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“Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young,” Spears writes of the pregnancy in her book, published by People.
“It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy. I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one day,” Spears writes, per People. “I don’t know if that was the right decision. If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.”
Representatives for Spears and Timberlake did not respond to Variety‘s request for comment.
Spears was 17 when she started dating Timberlake, who was 18, in 1999. They were together until 2002.
People’s cover is Spears’ first magazine cover in five years. The magazine conducted the interview with the pop star via email, along with publishing excerpts from the book. People’s editor-in-chief says that Spears asked to answer questions via email.
“I’m finally free to tell my story,” Spears tells the publication. “It is finally time for me to raise my voice and speak out, and my fans deserve to hear it directly from me. No more conspiracy, no more lies — just me owning my past, present and future.”
Spears broke out into global superstardom as a teenager with the release of her hit song “Baby One More Time” in 1999. One of the most successful artists of all time, Spears was put under a conservatorship in 2008, which would last 13 years until it was terminated in November 2021.
In the book, Spears writes about her rise on Disney’s “Mickey Mouse Club,” her iconic performance with a snake at the 2001 VMAs, her short-lived acting career and the pain she endured throughout her conservatorship.
“It was honestly a kid’s dream,” Spears writes in her book about working on “The Mickey Mouse Club.” She co-starred with Timberlake, and writes that at a sleepover during a game of Truth or Dare, “someone dared Justin to kiss me.”
Spears writes about landing a record deal with Jive Records at 15. “I worked for hours straight. My work ethic was strong,” she says. “I would stay in the studio as long as I could. If anyone wanted to leave, I’d say, ‘I wasn’t perfect.'”
Spears reflects on her conservatorship, which her father oversaw for the majority of the legal arrangement.
“Feeling like you’re never good enough is a soul-crushing state of being for a child. He’d drummed that message into me as a girl, and even after I’d accomplished so much, he was continuing to do that to me,” Spears writes of her father, Jamie Spears.
“I became a robot. But not just a robot — a sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself,” she writes.
“The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child. I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me,” Spears writes. “If they’d let me live my life, I know I would’ve followed my heart and come out of this the right way and worked it out.”
Spears, in her book, notes that many male artists have had trouble in the public eye, but they were not put under a conservatorship. “Think of how many male artists gambled all their money away; how many had substance abuse or mental health issues,” she writes. “No one tried to take away their control over their bodies and money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”
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