Britney Spears Reveals She Had an Abortion With Justin Timberlake Because He ‘Didn’t Want to Be a Father’

In her new memoir, The Woman in Me, Britney Spears reveals that while dating Justin Timberlake, she became pregnant with his baby and had an abortion because Timberlake wasn’t ready to be a parent.

People ran an excerpt from the memoir, out on October 24, where she shared the personal moment from her young adulthood. Spears dated Timberlake from 1999 to 2002, starting when she was 17; Timberlake was a year older. She reveals earlier in the book, and in a separate excerpt People published, that Timberlake was her first kiss when they were kids on The Mickey Mouse Club.

Spears wrote that she found out she was pregnant in late 2000, per People and Page Six, calling it “a surprise” but not “a tragedy.”

“I loved Justin so much,” she wrote. “I always expected us to have a family together one day. This would just be much earlier than I’d anticipated. 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.”

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

Both Spears and Timberlake went on to have two sons with other people, Spears with her ex-husband Kevin Federline and Timberlake with his wife, Jessica Biel.

Ahead of the book’s release, multiple sources told Page Six that Timberlake was “concerned” about what Spears would share about their relationship in the book. “He’s very curious what she’ll reveal from their relationship,” one source said. “It’s eating at him.”

Senior News and Strategy Editor

Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.