Headlines and controversy are nothing new for Britney Spears. But now, after spending 13 years stuck and silenced by a conservatorship, the artist is finally telling her story in her newly-released memoir The Woman in Me, also available as an audiobook narrated by the Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans).
The book, which often reads like a heartwrenching drama movie, sheds light on some of the artist’s most iconic eras from the music video to Baby One More Time to which album she believes to be her best work. But she also talks about some of the most heartbreaking times in her life, including the break-up with Justin Timberlake, her very public divorce from husband Kevin Federline, and the time she spent having her life controlled by her father during the conservatorship.
These are the most heart-wrenching confessions Spears makes in The Woman in Me.
She Was Pregnant With Justin Timberlake’s Baby
Ever since the #FreeBritney movement made its way into the collective consciousness, Justin Timberlake has been subjected to a lot of scrutiny for his treatment of his ex. Yet nothing could have prepared us for the reveal that he talked Britney Spears into terminating a pregnancy.
According to Spears’s memoir, she had to have an at-home abortion because Justin was too scared of anyone else finding out about the pregnancy. She talks about it as the most painful thing she had to go through:
To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life. I kept crying and sobbing until it was all over. It took hours, and I don’t remember how it ended, but I do, twenty years later, remember the pain of it, and the fear.
Making matters worse, Timberlake broke up with her shortly after, via text no less. He then released the music video to Cry Me a River, which heavily implied Spears had cheated on him.
The Infamous Diane Sawyer Interview was a “Breaking Point”
After the breakup between Spears and Timberlake in 2002, she was interviewed by Diane Sawyer. During the interview, Sawyer repeatedly blamed Spears for the split until the young singer broke down in tears on television. Many took that as a sign of guilt, but for Spears, the interview was a devastating blow:
I shouldn’t have been forced to speak on national TV, forced to cry in front of this stranger, a woman who was relentlessly going after me with harsh question after harsh question. Instead, I felt like I had been exploited, set up in front of the whole world.
Her Father’s Continuous Insults
In the book, Spears opens up at length about the level of control her father had over her life during the conservatorship years. He would insult her appearance, make her work almost continuously, and even keep her on a strict diet for years. She writes:
If I thought getting criticized about my body in the press was bad, it hurt even more from my own father. He repeatedly told me I looked fat and that I was going to have to do something about it. So every day I would put on my sweats and I would go to the gym. I would do little bits of creative stuff here and there, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. As far as my passion for singing and dancing, it was almost a joke at that point.
The Conservatorship “Crushed” Her
In 2007, Spears had a very public mental health crisis which led to her being placed under a conservatorship, meaning she was stripped of all her rights and her father had complete control of her life. Many people argued that the legal restrictions saved her life, but Spears disagrees:
My music was my life, and the conservatorship was deadly for that; it crushed my soul … Pushing forward in my music career is not my focus at the moment. It’s time for me not to be someone who other people want; it’s time to actually find myself.
She Believed Her Family Was Trying to Kill Her
There are many points in the book where Spears explains she was scared for her life because of the way her father was treating her while having control over her life. Initially, she went along with the conservatorship because it allowed her access to her children.
But by the end of it, she was denied any semblance of autonomy until she started wondering if her family even wanted her alive anymore:
And here’s the sad, honest truth: After everything I had been through, I didn’t have a lot of fight left in me. I was tired, and I was scared, too. After being held down on a gurney, I knew they could restrain my body anytime they wanted to. They could’ve tried to kill me, I thought. I started to wonder if they did want to kill me.
