Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake were the couple the whole world was talking about when they dated from 1999 to 2002, and two decades later, the former Mickey Mouse Club costars are making headlines once again.
Spears’s memoir, The Woman in Me, doesn’t hit shelves until next week, on October 24, but the revelations from the book about Spears’s life are already coming fast and furious. In a newly revealed passage from the book, Spears writes that she became pregnant with Timberlake’s child while they were dating. She got an abortion at Timberlake’s urging, she writes, according to a brief quote published by People.
“It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy,” she wrote of the pregnancy. “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.”
“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.”
“If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it,” she wrote of the abortion. “And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.”
“To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life,” she wrote of the abortion.
Spears eventually had two children with ex-husband Kevin Federline, 18-year-old Sean Preston and 17-year-old Jayden James. Her sons currently live in Hawaii with Federline. Spears and Timberlake began dating when Spears was 17 years old, and Timberlake was 18.
Vanity Fair has reached out to representatives for Spears and Timberlake for comment, as well as The Woman in Me publisher Simon & Schuster.
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
DNC 2024: Live Updates From the Democratic National Convention
September Cover Star Jenna Ortega Is Settling Into Fame
Listen Now: VF’s DYNASTY Podcast Explores the Royals’ Most Challenging Year
Exclusive: How Saturday Night Captures SNL’s Wild Opening Night
Inside Prince Harry’s Final Showdown With the Murdoch Empire
The Twisted True Love Story of a Diamond Heiress and a Reality Star