Business

Britney Spears Says She Had An Abortion While Dating Justin Timberlake

October 19, 2023

Topline

Britney Spears has revealed she had an abortion almost 20 years ago after she became pregnant with Justin Timberlake’s baby, and “never would have done it” if “it had been left up to me alone,” according to an excerpt of her upcoming memoir published by People.

Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles in 2002.

Getty Images

Key Facts

In a piece of the upcoming book The Woman in Me published by People, Spears said she became pregnant with Timberlake’s baby when they dated from the late 1990s to early 2000s, but said “Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy.”

She said she didn’t consider the surprising news a “tragedy” and had always expected she and Timberlake would have a family some day, but claims he said “we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young.”

Spears and Timberlake dated from 1999 until 2002—they were 17 and 18 when the relationship began, respectively.

Representatives for Timberlake, who now shares two children aged 8 and 3 with his wife Jessica Biel, did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment Tuesday.

Crucial Quote

“To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life,” Spears wrote of the abortion.

What To Watch For

Spears’ book, published by Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books, will be released on October 24. She is on the cover of People this week—her first magazine cover in five years—which has published an interview with the star and excerpts from the memoir.

Key Background

Spears and Timberlake co-starred together on Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club show as children and started dating in 1999, the same year she released the hit song “Baby One More Time,” which skyrocketed her to superstardom. Less than two years after their relationship ended in 2002, Spears was engaged to dancer Kevin Federline three months after they met. They starred together in a reality show called Britney and Kevin: Chaotic and welcomed their first child, Sean Preston, in 2005. Their second son, Jayden James, was born in 2006, the same year Spears filed for divorce.

Tangent

After a series of erratic behaviors played out publicly between 2006 and 2008, including when she shaved her head with electric clippers in front of paparazzi, Spears lost physical custody of her sons and was placed under a conservatorship led by her father. The conservatorship gave her father control of her finances and other aspects of her life, including her use of birth control, whether she could get married and whether she could vote. Such arrangements are often reserved for those in a coma or with severe mental illness, but while under the agreement Spears completed a four-year, $140 million Las Vegas residency, judged The X Factor and launched fashion and fragrance products, leading the public to question if the arrangement was still needed. A campaign known as #FreeBritney gained momentum several years ago and the conservatorship was terminated in 2021 after 13 years. She married Sam Asghari, an Iranian-American fitness trainer, model and actor, the following year and reportedly filed for divorce earlier this year. In her interview with People out this week, Spears said she is “finally free to tell my story.”

Surprising Fact

Excerpts of the book published Tuesday also touch on the conservatorship, which Spears said made her feel like she was “losing pieces of what made me feel like myself.” She said the arrangement “stripped me of my womanhood” and said such a thing never would have been approved if she wasn’t a woman. “No one tried to take away their control over their bodies and money,” she wrote of male artists who’ve struggled in the public eye. “I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”

Big Number

70 million. That’s how many albums, singles and songs Spears has sold, making her one of the most successful recording artists of all time. She has won a Grammy award, six MTV Video Music Awards, seven Billboard Music Awards and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.