Britney Spears Reveals She Had an Abortion at 19 Because Justin Timberlake Didn’t Want to Have Kids

The Y2K revival that’s restocked retail shelves with low-rise jeans and baby tees has also brought with it new details on the romance that dominated headlines in the early aughts. In her upcoming memoir, The Woman In Me, out October 24, Britney Spears reveals that in late 2000, while dating Justin Timberlake, she had an abortion.

“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 wrote in an excerpt published by People. “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,” In late 2000, when Spears had her abortion, she was 19 years old. Timberlake, who is about 11 months older than her, was probably 20 at the time.

Spears reportedly refers to the pregnancy as a “surprise” but not a “tragedy.” “To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life,” she writes.

Page Six published the following excerpt of Spears’ decision to have the abortion:

“I’m sure people will hate me for this, but I agreed not to have the baby. 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.”

An insider also told Page Six that Spears’ forthcoming book is “eating at [Timberlake]” and that he is “concerned.”

The denim-clad duo dated from 1999 to 2002. After their split, tabloids relentlessly pushed rumors that Spears had been unfaithful to the NSYNC singer. While Timberlake never explicitly publicly confirmed this, his November 2002 single Cry Me A River cast a Spears look-alike in the music video showing her cheating on Timberlake. Timberlake also would not clear Spears’ name when Barbara Walters specifically asked him if she had cheated on him. “We’re not perfect. I don’t judge anybody,” he responded. He also coyly answered “sure” while giggling when Walters asked if he and Spears were abstinent.

Spears had long maintained to the public that she was saving herself for marriage before Timberlake told morning radio show hosts Star and Buc Wild that he’d had sex with Spears (only a few months after the Walters interview). “Justin Timberlake is in the house, and I just want to ask you one question—did you fuck Britney Spears?” Troi “Star” Torain asked the 21-year-old. “OK, I did it!,” Timberlake answered.

In 2021, Timberlake did apologize for his treatment of Spears (as well as his treatment of Janet Jackson) following the release of the documentary Framing Britney Spears. He wrote on Instagram that he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.”

Knowing now that not only did Timberlake betray her privacy in that way, but did so on top of what seems like something that was a heart-wrenching decision for Spears, feels especially cruel. (It doesn’t seem like Spears is blaming Timberlake for the abortion, just that it was a complicated choice.) Spears’ memoir comes out next week and will also recount her life under her infamous 13-year-long conservatorship.

I feel like I type this once a month but poor fucking Britney.