Britney Spears had an abortion after getting pregnant with Justin Timberlake, according to excerpts from her upcoming memoir.
The pop star’s new book, The Woman in Me, focuses in part on her 13-year conservatorship under her father James Spears.
According to extracts published in People magazine, Mr Timberlake was “not happy” about Ms Spears being pregnant.
“He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives,” Ms Spears said.
The pop star duo dated in their late teens between 1999 and 2002.
Mr Timberlake was “so sure that he didn’t want to be a father”, Ms Spears wrote in the memoir, which is set to be published on 24 October.
Ms Spears said she did not know if having the procedure was the right decision, and that she would not have had an abortion if the choice was “left up to me alone”.
But, she added: “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.”
The BBC has reached out to Mr Timberlake for comment.
Ms Spears has since gone on to have two children – Sean Preston, 18, and Jayden James, 17 – with her second husband, Kevin Federline.
The 41-year-old’s memoir is set to be released two years after the end of her conservatorship, which Ms Spears writes in the book “stripped her of her womanhood”.
The singer has previously called the arrangement abusive. It was set up by her father in 2008 after she experienced a public breakdown, during which she shaved her head.
The singer testified to a court in 2021 that she had been drugged, forced to perform against her will and prevented from having more children under the conservatorship.
The conservatorship had power over her finances and career decisions as well as major personal matters, such as her visits to her teenage sons and whether she could get remarried.
In her upcoming memoir, the singer offers more insights into the “soul-crushing” arrangement.
