Finally free, the singer shares her powerful and shocking story
WORDS: ARIANA LONGSON. PHOTOS: GETTY, SHUTTERSTOCK, MEGA AGENCY
After being silenced for years, Britney Spears, 41, has spoken her truth in her new tell-all memoir, The Woman In Me. From her battle to end her 13-year conservatorship to her relationship with Justin Timberlake, rehab, fall-outs and the real reasons why she shaved her head, the singer bares all. Here, Woman takes a look at her biggest revelations.
Secret pregnancy
Britney reveals that in 2000, when she was just 19 years old, she underwent a secret at-home abortion after falling pregnant with then-boyfriend and fellow singer Justin Timberlake. She admits, ‘It was important that no one find out about the pregnancy or the abortion, which meant doing everything at home.’ Recalling the traumatic procedure, she details, ‘I kept crying and sobbing until it was all over. It took hours, and I don’t remember how it ended, but I do, 20 years later, remember the pain of it, and the fear.’
Britney explains that her termination was because *NSYNC star Justin thought they were ‘too young’ and ‘not ready to have a baby’. She writes, ‘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… Abortion was something I never could have imagined choosing for myself, but given the circumstances, that is what we did.’
The singer later reveals that Justin, now 42, ended their three-year relationship via text in 2002, simply messaging her saying ‘it’s over’ after infidelity on both ends.
Pushing back
In 2007 Britney famously shaved her head at a hair salon in Los Angeles, one day after she left a rehab facility in Antigua. The star, who at the time was in the midst of a painful divorce with second husband, dancer Kevin Federline, explains what led her to that moment. ‘I’d been 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 admits before confessing, ‘Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back.’
Britney added that she was ‘out of my mind with grief’ after losing custody of her sons Jayden and Sean, and that the hairstyle was a big ‘f**k you’ to the world.
Losing herself
A year later, and as a result of debuting her new look, Britney was put under a court-ordered conservatorship that granted her
