'Most agonizing experience': Britney Spears reveals she had an abortion to appease Justin Timberlake
Britney Spears wrote in an upcoming memoir that she had an abortion years ago after discovering she was pregnant with fellow singer Justin Timberlake’s baby, with the pop icon remembering it as one of the most “agonizing” things she’s ever experienced.
Spears, 41, dated Timberlake from 1999 to 2002, when the pair reunited in their late teens. In her memoir, The Woman in Me, scheduled to be released on Oct. 24, the singer claims that the pregnancy wasn’t a surprise, as she was in love with Timberlake at the time.
According to snippets of the book published Tuesday by People magazine, Spears wanted to start a family with Timberlake. While she described the pregnancy as a “surprise,” she also noted that it wasn’t a “tragedy” to her.
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“But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy,” Spears wrote. “He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young."
The singer wrote that Timberlake was sure he did not want to be a father, adding that if the decision had been hers alone, she would never have had an abortion and would've kept the baby.
“To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life,” Spears wrote.
The former teen pop star has two children with her second husband, Kevin Federline, according to People. Her two sons, Sean Preston and Jayden James, are in their teens.
Spears’ revelation that she had an abortion elicited sympathy from pro-life leaders like Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action.
In a Tuesday X post, Hawkins cited a study published in May by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, which found that 87% of participants faced some form of interpersonal pressure to abort.
The study surveyed 1,000 middle-aged American women, including more than 200 respondents who reported that they experienced an abortion. According to the results, nearly 70% of participants admitted they faced pressure to abort and that the abortion was inconsistent with their values.
“Again, men who pressure their girlfriends to end their children’s lives because they want to have consequence-free sex are not good men,” Hawkins wrote.
The advocacy group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, also expressed compassion for Spears in a Tuesday X post, acknowledging the difficulties of keeping such a story secret for at least 20 years.
“Our hearts go out to Britney Spears and every woman who has endured an unwanted abortion,” the group wrote. “She has carried this pain of losing her child for two decades, calling it one of the most agonizing experiences of her life.”
SBA Pro-Life America cited the same study Hawkins referenced, accusing the abortion industry of portraying abortion as a “quick fix” while glossing over the emotional and mental health issues that women might experience as a result.
“We hope Britney’s bravery to share her deeply personal wound will give other women the courage to voice their stories of abortion coercion,” the pro-life organization continued. “We should all agree that no woman should endure a painful abortion that she does not want.”
As The Christian Post previously reported in June 2021, Spears attracted media attention as she fought to end a 13-year conservatorship, an experience that she writes about in her upcoming memoir. The conservatorship began after the singer had a public breakdown in 2008 that led to multiple hospital visits and Spears shaving her head.
The singer’s father, James Spears, stepped in as her conservator, a position that granted him control of his daughter’s finances and personal affairs. Spears claimed in court that she had proven herself capable of having a legal hold over her own life, arguing for the conservatorship to end.
In addition to controlling how much she has to work and who she can ride in a car with, Spears claimed that her conservators forced her to have an IUD birth control implant to stop her from becoming pregnant again.
"The control he had over someone as powerful as me, he loved the control to hurt his own daughter, 100,000%,” Spears said about her father. “He loved it."
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
