Britney Spears detailed that she became pregnant with Justin Timberlake’s baby while they dated and that she had an abortion because Timberlake thought they were too young to be parents.
In an excerpt of her upcoming memoir “The Woman in Me” published in People, Spears recounted the event.
“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,” Spears wrote in her book, which will be published Oct. 24. “And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.”
Spears and Timberlake dated for three years starting in 1999 when Spears was 17 and Timberlake was 18. Timberlake is now married to actress Jessica Biel, with whom he has two sons. Timberlake’s rep did not respond to a request for comment from 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. This would just be much earlier than I’d anticipated,” Spears writes of the pregnancy in the book. “But 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.”
Speakers also called the event “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.”
“The Woman in Me” will also detail Spears’ decades-long music career, her turbulent coming of age in the entertainment industry, her personal relationships and her 13-year conservatorship, which ended in November 2021.
Other excerpts released Tuesday morning discuss Spears’ relief at losing “The Notebook” role to Rachel McAdams, her time in the Mickey Mouse Club, her controlling father Jamie and the time she shaved her head.
“It is finally time for me to raise my voice and speak out, and my fans deserve to hear it directly from me,” she writes. “No more conspiracy, no more lies — just me owning my past, present and future.”
