Britney Spears Had An Abortion While Dating Justin Timberlake

Britney Spears’ memoir hasn’t even hit bookshelves yet, but bombshells are still dropping—including the reveal that she had an abortion when she was dating Justin Timberlake.

The princess of pop and the boy bander dated from 1999 to 2002, and in an excerpt from The Woman in Me shared with People, Spears admits that at some point during their high-profile relationship, she fell pregnant.

“It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy,” she wrote. “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.”

However, Timberlake wasn’t on board with the idea, allegedly claiming that they were “way too young” and “weren’t ready to have a baby in [their] lives.” At most, he and Spears would have respectively been 21 and 20 at the time, so it’s no surprise Timberlake didn’t feel he was ready for fatherhood, but it sounds like it was a painful and conflicting time for the “Circus” singer.

“If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it,” she continued, seemingly referring to the abortion. “And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.”

In just the few excerpts that have been shared ahead of publication, Spears has been touching on a number of topics the public has long been interested in, but never heard more about, likely due to her lengthy conservatorship. One other such topic was the infamous shaving of her head, which she confirms was simply her way of taking some control back after being “eyeballed so much growing up.”

“I’d been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager,” she wrote. “Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back.”

The Woman in Me is out on October 24.