The 10 most explosive revelations from Britney Spears’ new memoir The Woman in Me
- READ MORE: Britney sobs during audition for The Notebook
Britney Spears’ memoir The Woman In Me is packed with a series of bombshell revelations reflecting on a life in the spotlight full of ups and downs.
The book – released on Tuesday October 24 – charts her popstar career and the many trials and tribulations of her personal life.
The star, now 41, delves into her romantic relationships, failed marriages, mental health battles and THAT conservatorship.
In the early years of her rise to superstardom – starting in 1998 with the release of …Baby One More Time – Britney appeared to have it all, but as the memoir reveals there was much more going on under the surface.
With lots to unpack, here MailOnline takes a look at the 10 most explosive revelations from the book…
Memoir: Britney Spears’ autobiography The Woman In Me is packed with a series of bombshell revelations reflecting on a life in the spotlight full of ups and downs
1. Britney reveals abortion aged 19 after getting pregnant with boyfriend Justin Timberlake
In the book Britney reveals harrowing details about the secret abortion she underwent, aged 19, claiming she can still remember the ‘excruciating’ pain.
The pop superstar candidly recalls her decision to terminate a pregnancy in 2000 during her relationship with Justin Timberlake, 42.
Britney explains how she was left ‘crying and sobbing’ after choosing to undergo the procedure at home in a desperate bid to keep the abortion completely secret from the public and her own family.
‘It was important that no one find out about the pregnancy or the abortion, which meant doing everything at home,’ she wrote.
Recalling the procedure, Britney describes the physical pain as ‘excruciating’.
‘I kept crying and sobbing until it was all over,’ she states. ‘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.’
The singer made it clear that she was aware some might judge her for the decision, but insisted that it was a situation she had never expected to go through.
She explained that she did not go through with the pregnancy because N*Sync star Justin ‘wasn’t ready’ for the responsibilities of parenthood and thought, at 19, the pair were both too young.
The Toxic hitmaker who dated Justin from 1999-2002, details the moment she had to make the ‘agonizing’ decision after conceiving in late 2000.
She writes: ‘It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy. 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.
‘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.
‘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.’
In the book, Britney also reveals she was raised ‘not to get an abortion’ due to religious reasons and what she had learned from her family.
Britney would later welcome sons Sean Preston, 18, and Jayden, 17 with Kevin Federline while Justin shares sons Silas, eight and Phineas, two with wife Jessica Biel.
1. Britney reveals abortion aged 19 after getting pregnant with boyfriend Justin Timberlake (seen in 2002)
2. Britney reveals Justin Timberlake dumped her by TEXT in a two-word message
Britney revealed that she was devastated when Justin Timberlake broke up with her through text message.
The megastar – who finally admitted to cheating with choreographer Wade Robson – wrote about the end of her relationship with the singer and how the split affected her.
She penned memoir: ‘I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.’
The break-up message to Britney has been revealed by her former video director Chris Applebaum.
Chris, now, 53, who has also worked with Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato, detailed the moment that Justin broke up with the pop star, 41.
He revealed how he was working on the set of a music video with Britney when she received a two-word text message from Justin, which said: ‘It’s over’.
Chris told how Britney and her team were working on the video for Overprotected (Darkchild Remix), during a grueling 24-hour shoot day.
In April 2022, Chris posted a picture with Britney on set, as he reflected on the story behind the snap, which was Britney and Justin’s break-up.
He wrote: ‘This was taken on the 2nd shoot day for her Overprotected (Darkchild Remix) video, he wrote. It was a (planned) 24 hr shoot day and we had one crew clock out after 12 hrs & a new one clock in.
‘At some point during the 2nd shift Brit disappeared and I went to her trailer to fetch her…only to discover her BF Justin had just broken up with her via text message. (Let me recommend to any who reads this: don’t break up via text!)
‘We sat on the floor of her trailer for a minute, talked it out, and then rallied.’ He teased that it was ‘just one of the stories from the shoot…’.
Chris recently spoke to Page Six about the post, offering more details about the message and how Britney responded.
He told the publication that when he walked into her trailer, she showed her the phone, and said: ‘I can’t believe it. Look at it. This happened.’
According to Chris, the message simply read: ‘It’s over’.
Chris revealed how he changed Britney’s mind about stopping work for the day, explaining: ‘If you don’t have it in you, I totally understand…
‘But if you want to go out there and finish this last set-up in the rain, you can show him that he just made the biggest f***ing mistake of his life.’
She apparently responded: ‘You know that? That’s a good idea. I’m going to show him that he blew the best thing he ever had.’
2. Britney reveals Justin Timberlake dumped her by TEXT in a two-word message
3. Britney FINALLY admits to cheating on Justin Timberlake with choreographer Wade Robson
Britney finally admits to cheating on Justin with the dancer Wade Robson following years of hearsay.
It was rumoured Britney and Justin split up in 2002 after three years of dating because she had a fling with Australian choreographer Wade.
Justin later released his famous single Cry Me A River which includes lyrics that allude to being cheated on.
Britney confirms in her memoir that she kissed Wade during a night out.
She wrote: ‘We were out one night and we went to a Spanish bar. We danced and danced. I made out with him that night.’
Britney also writes that she was loyal to Justin for years ‘with that one exception’.
The star revealed she told Justin about her kiss with Wade and they were able to move past it and stay together.
In 2001, Wade choreographed her iconic Oops… I Did It Again and I’m A Slave 4 U music videos as well as her Live from Las Vegas concert special.
Britney said of the choreographer on Good Morning America in 2000: ‘He’s just like a child prodigy, seriously… He’s a genius. He’s amazing.’
Wade largely stayed out of the limelight in the aftermath but resurfaced in the 2019 Leaving Neverland documentary in which he detailed the alleged abuse he suffered as a child by Michael Jackson.
3. Britney FINALLY admits to cheating on Justin Timberlake with choreographer Wade Robson (seen in 2007)
4. Britney BLASTS Christina Aguilera’s 2003 Rolling Stone cover with her ex Justin
Britney blast pop rival Christina ‘Xtina’ Aguilera for deciding to team up with her ex-boyfriend Justin for The Justified & Stripped Tour in 2003 – a year after the couple’s bitter split.
The talented trio had originally met as children starring as Mouseketeers on The Disney Channel’s The Mickey Mouse Club from 1993-1994 where Britney and Christina shared a dressing room.
And despite Spears and Timberlake ending their three-year romance, Aguilera told Rolling Stone in 2003 she had ‘a feeling that there’s going to be some reconciliation. I know that they talk and everything, and it’s cool. I don’t think it’s over.’
‘They were together on the cover of Rolling Stone, him in a black tank top, looking at her with sexy eyes, her looking out at the camera, wearing a lace-up black shirt,’ the Grammy winner wrote in her memoir.
‘In that story, she said she thought Justin and I should get back together, which was just confusing, given how negative she’d been elsewhere.’
Britney continued: ‘Even if they weren’t trying to be cruel, it felt like they were just pouring salt in the wound. Why was it so easy for everyone to forget that I was a human being — vulnerable enough that these headlines could leave a bruise?’
Spears also admitted she was jealous of the 42-year-old R&B belter for having the freedom to party with some of their shared back-up dancers during her 13-year conservatorship, which restricted alcohol consumption.
‘[Christina] seemed pretty messed up,’ the Mississippi-born mother-of-two wrote.
‘It would have been nice to have drinks with them, to get rebellious, sassy, fun.’
But it wasn’t all negative as Britney praised Aguilera and Gwen Stefani – who both appeared on The Voice in 2016 – for coming off ‘really professional on TV’ and wrote: ‘When the camera is on them, they thrive.’
Curiously, Spears completely omitted the five-time Grammy winner from the chapter of her 288-page tell-all where she discussed her open-mouth kiss with Madonna at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards despite her also locking lips with the Queen of Pop.
At the time, Christina told Blender the semi-retired pop star ‘seemed nervous the whole time’ backstage like ‘a lost little girl, someone who needs guidance.’
After Britney heard Aguilera’s comments she scoffed to the same outlet in 2004: ‘When someone has been rude to you so many times, it’s like, ‘You know what, Christina, I’m really not about the fake anymore.”
So perhaps that’s why the Staten Island-born, half-Ecuadorian singer stammered as Jimmy Kimmel asked her last week if she wanted to be included in The Woman In Me: ‘I’d rather be it you than me.’
Christina added: ‘I’m hoping that, you know, everything is all good with her and everything’s beautiful. So, you know, I think the future should be celebrated.’
4. Britney blasts Christina Aguilera’s 2003 Rolling Stone cover (pictured) with her ex Justin
5. Britney reveals why she shaved her head during infamous 2007 meltdown
Britney revealed why she shaved her head during her infamous 2007 downward spiral which eventually led to her infamous conservatorship which lasted 13 years.
As she was in the midst of going through a painful divorce with Kevin Federline and was constantly in the public eye, the mother-of-two opened up on what led her to that moment.
She wrote: ‘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.
‘Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back.’
In 2007, Britney infamously shaved her head at a hair salon in Tarzana, a suburb of Los Angeles, one day after she left a rehab facility in Antigua. Britney later re-entered treatment.
As a result, a year later she was put under a court-ordered conservatorship in 2008 which granted her father Jamie Spears and a lawyer total control over her financial and personal affairs.
Britney also revealed that due to the conservatorship she was prohibited from keeping the look as she wrote: ‘Under the conservatorship I was made to understand that those days were now over.
‘I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take.’
5. Britney reveals why she shaved her head during infamous 2007 meltdown
6. Britney reveals 13-year conservatorship made her feel like a ‘child robot’
Britney also spoke out about that 13-year conservatorship as she detailed how her father ‘controlled her body and her money’ and ‘hurt’ her with ‘fat’ jibes.
The singer hit out at 71-year-old dad Jamie in the explosive memoir as she opened up about the unrelenting control her family had over her which, looking back, makes her ‘feel sick.’
Britney heartbreakingly conceded: ‘Feeling like you’re never good enough is a soul-crushing state of being for a child.’
He’d drummed that message into me as a girl, and even after I’d accomplished so much, he was continuing to do that to me.
‘I became a robot. But not just a robot — a sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself.’
The star concluded: ‘Thirteen years went by with me feeling like a shadow of myself. I think back now on my father and his associates having control over my body and my money for that long and it makes me feel sick…
‘I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.’
Jamie took control of his oldest daughter’s life and finances in 2008 after some highly publicized mental health struggles.
It began as a temporary arrangement, but became permanent by the end of the year.
In the years that followed, Britney was deemed well enough to work in what the former estate conservator called a ‘hybrid business model’ in court papers, but not well enough to control her personal life.
The estate controlled who her friends were, where she could go and ‘logged her every purchase down to a drink from Starbucks,’ according to The New York Times.
Britney also told the court she had been forced to use birth control and take medication against her will.
During one court appearance, she told the judge, ‘Ma’am, my dad and anyone involved in this conservatorship, and my management, who played huge roles in punishing me when I said ‘No’ [to going on tour] — Ma’am, they should be in jail.’
6. Britney reveals 13-year conservatorship made her feel like a ‘child robot’ (seen with father Jamie)
7. Britney gave up her ‘freedom’ so she could see her sons during conservatorship
Britney also speaks about trading her ‘freedom’ during her controversial conservatorship in order to see her children.
In her book, the singer alleged that she went along with the terms of her now-terminated conservatorship – which ran from 2008-2021 – in order to spend time with her boys Sean, 18, and Jayden, 17.
The hitmaker also discussed her ultimately futile attempts to resist the conditions of her arrangement with her father Jamie who under the conservatorship had complete control of her assets and worth alongside attorney Andrew Wallet.
Ex-husband Kevin Federline was give sole legal and physical custody of their sons in 2008 after Spears was hospitalized after she locked herself in a bathroom with her sons and refused to turn them over to Federline.
‘My freedom in exchange for naps with my children — it was a trade I was willing to make,’ she wrote.
She added: ‘Starting a family was my dream come true. Being a mom was my dream come true.’
The Toxic singer also spoke about how she gave up on pushing back against the control of her father after she went through two involuntary psychological assessments.
‘After being held down on a gurney, I knew they could restrain my body any time they wanted to. And so I went along with it,’ she recalled.
Spears went on to express that she viewed the conservatorship as a particularly dark period in her life.
She wrote: ‘Thirteen years went by with me feeling like a shadow of myself. I think back now on my father and his associates having control over my body and my money for that long and it makes me feel sick.’
7. Britney gave up her ‘freedom’ so she could see her sons Jayden and Sean during her conservatorship (seen in 2013)
8. Britney ‘accuses ITV’s Jonathan Ross Show of silencing her’ during conservatorship
Britney reportedly accuses ITV of silencing her when she tried to speak publicly about her 13-year conservatorship back in 2016.
The book sees her take aim at her team and an unnamed TV channel as she accuses them of stopping her from speaking out during the troubling time.
She writes: ‘I even mentioned the Conservatorship on a talk show in 2016, but somehow that part of the interview didn’t make it to the air. Huh. How interesting.’
However, The Sun have claimed ITV are the channel in question, and Britney is referring an incident which occurred during her appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show in 2016.
The appearance is her last sit down interview to date, and Britney revealed she repeatedly mentioned the legal hold she was under, however the comments never made it to air.
Chatting with Jonathan, Britney told the host that her ninth album Glory was ‘her baby’ as when she was making her previous albums she couldn’t do what she wanted musically due to the conservatorship.
Instead of asking about the situation, the TV presenter moved swiftly on and didn’t dwell on the details of the conservatorship.
According to a member of the audience, Britney stated: ‘I have this Conservatorship for years and I felt like a lot of decisions were made for me so I wanted this to be my baby and I’ve been really strategic about it.’
8. Britney ‘accuses ITV’s Jonathan Ross Show of silencing her’ during conservatorship (seen on the show in 2016)
9. Britney is ‘working to feel more compassion than anger’ to sister Jamie Lynn after conservatorship
Britney says she is ‘working to feel more compassion’ towards sister Jamie Lynn after they feuded for years.
The pop icon also claims in her tell-all tome that Jamie-Lynn, 32, told her to ‘stop fighting’ her controversial conservatorship which ran from 2008-2021.
Spears writes: ‘She will always be my sister, and I love her and her beautiful family. I’m working to feel more compassion than anger toward her, and everyone who I feel has wronged me. It’s not that easy.’
The star said her younger sister ‘ruled the roost’ at their home in Kentwood, Louisiana, leaving Britney feeling like a ‘ghost child’ to her parents Jamie and Lynne.
She writes: ‘I can remember walking into the room and feeling like no one even saw me. Jamie Lynn only saw the TV. My mother, who at one time had been the person I was closest to in the world, was on another planet… I’d listen to her spew these hateful words, and I’d turn to my mother and say, ‘Are you going to let this little witch talk to you like that?’ I mean, she was bad.’
Spears, who has previously accused her sister of doing ‘nothing’ to help her during her conservatorship, also claims when she was placed in a mental health facility in 2018, she texted Jamie asking for her help.
She alleges Jamie responded: ‘Stop fighting it… There’s nothing you can do about it, so stop fighting it.’
Spears wrote: ‘This will sound crazy, but I’ll say it again because it’s the truth: I thought they were going to try to kill me. I didn’t understand how Jamie Lynn and our father had developed such a good relationship. She knew I was reaching out to her for help and that she was dogging me. I felt like she should have taken my side.’
DailyMail.com has contacted Jamie-Lynn’s representatives for comment.
The star also addresses her famous confrontation with Jamie’s Zoey 101 co-star Alexa Nikolas – acknowledging she has since learned Nikolas was ‘innocent’ and offering an apology.
In 2022, Nikolas revealed that the singer had yelled at her on the set of Zoey 101 after Jamie had accused her of bullying. Nikolas added that Britney had since ‘personally apologized’ for the incident
In another shocking excerpt, the pop superstar called Jamie Lynn a ‘total b**ch’ — even though she was describing her sister when she was just 11 years old.
Britney recalled being fed up with her sister’s allegedly terrible behavior when she returned home from her tour in 2002, a source shared with Us Weekly on Thursday.
9. Britney is ‘working to feel more compassion than anger’ to sister Jamie Lynn after conservatorship (seen in 2017)
10. Britney felt like the snake ‘would kill’ her during her iconic but MTV VMAs performance
Britney felt like the snake she performed with was going to ‘kill’ her during her iconic performance in 2001.
She recalled the massive python ‘flicking’ its tongue and ‘hissing’ at her as she performed onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards.
She said she tried her best to keep her head down as she sang I’m a Slave 4 U because she felt like ‘it would kill’ her if she ‘caught its eye’.
Just weeks earlier, Spears revealed she was ‘scared’ of snakes and less than enthused about performing with the ‘terrifying’ reptile even though it remains ‘one of [her] favorite performances’ to this day.
This comes shortly after she took to Instagram and debuted a new red snake tattoo placed on her lower back.
She said she was going to use the ‘snake as a prop’ as she sang 2001 hit single I’m a Slave 4 U on stage.
Everything went as planned, the Gimme More hitmaker recalled until the albino Burmese python named Banana started getting too close to her.
‘The plan was for me to sing I’m a Slave 4 U, and we decided I would use a snake as a prop,’ she wrote in an excerpt obtained by People.
During her performance, however, she said the snake started getting close to her face and hissing at her.
She said the reptile also started ‘flicking’ its tongue near her face and noted it was ‘terrifying’.
‘It’s become an iconic moment in VMAs history, but it was even more terrifying than it appeared,’ she explained.
‘All I knew was to look down, because I felt if I looked up and caught its eye, it would kill me,’ she wrote in her bombshell tell-all.
After getting through the performance unscathed, she now revealed what was going on in her mind at the time.
‘In my head I was saying, “Just perform, just use your legs and perform”,’ she recalled telling herself.
‘But what nobody knows is that as I was singing, the snake brought its head right around to my face, right up to me, and started hissing,’ she wrote.
‘I was thinking, “Are you f***ing serious right now? The f***ing godd*** snake’s tongue is flicking out at me. Right. Now.” Finally I got to the part where I handed it back, thank God,’ she explained.
10. Britney felt like the snake ‘would kill’ her during her iconic but MTV VMAs performance in 2001
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