Earlier this week, excerpts from Britney Spears’s upcoming memoir (scheduled to hit bookshelves on Oct. 24) began to be published on People. One of which was the revelation that she had an abortion in late 2000, while dating Justin Timberlake.
According to Britney, she was surprised, but happy about her pregnancy at the time because she’d previously envisioned having a family with Justin one day. She said Justin was not as supportive of her pregnancy and told her they were too young to have a family. So she agreed to have an abortion.
Well, earlier today we got some more revelations via the New York Times, who was able to obtain an early advance copy of the memoir. And according to them, here are some of the takeaways about the things Britney opens up about (and warning, it’s an emotional read):
1.
After the huge success of her debut single, “…Baby One More Time,” Britney would go on to be the opening act for NSNYC — which would lead her to dating Justin Timberlake.
But, Britney noticed early on that there was a double standard in the questions Justin got asked vs. what the media would ask her, writing, “Everyone kept making strange comments about my breasts. Wanting to know whether or not I’d had plastic surgery.” The constant scrutiny would lead her to start taking the antidepressant Prozac to deal with it.
2.
According to Britney, Justin broke up with her over a text message. She was so “devastated” by the end of their relationship that she considered quitting show business.
3.
The music video for Justin’s “Cry Me a River” did have a deep effect on her. Because he had used a woman who looked like her and cheats on him in the video, she realized the narrative in the media had become: “[The] harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy.”
She went to add that after their breakup and the release of the music video that she was “comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.”
4.
Britney also alleges that Justin had cheated on her which led her to make out with choreographer Wade Robson at a Spanish bar. She says she had always been faithful to Justin prior to that.
5.
It was not Britney’s choice to do the infamous Diane Sawyer interview where she broke down and cried after being asked some f’d up questions. Her father, Jamie, and her management team made her do it. That interview, according to her, was her “breaking point,” and she felt “exploited” and “set up in front of the whole world.”
6.
Britney says she was “never as wild” as the press made her out to be — and that she was never into hard drugs or had a drinking problem. However, she admits that Adderall was her “drug of choice” because while it did make her feel high, it also made her “feel less depressed” for a few hours.
7.
There was a number of things that contributed to her shaving her head and then later attacking a paparazzo’s car with an umbrella. According to Britney, she was “out of my mind with grief” over the death of her aunt, while at the same time was in a custody battle over her two sons with Kevin Federline and dealing with postpartum depression.
8.
Though she had been through a rough patch, it felt wrong and unjustified to her to be put under a conservatorship. And while she was supposedly “too sick” to make her own personal decisions, she was “healthy enough to appear on sitcoms and morning shows, and to perform for thousands of people in a different part of the world every week.”
9.
Everything in Britney’s life was closely monitored (like having parental controls on her iPhone) — and she would be ignored if she resisted. She even mentions that a 2016 TV interview — where she did finally open up about the conservatorship — was cut from the final broadcast. It has been widely speculated that this was an interview with the UK’s The Jonathan Ross Show.
10.
At the end of 2018, Britney claims that her father made her undergo more mental health evaluations and then made her enter rehab. Threatening that if she didn’t do it, he would get the courts involved and make her look like an “idiot.”
11.
Britney says during her three-month stay at the rehab that she was held there against her will, couldn’t go outside, couldn’t take a shower without supervision, and couldn’t shut the door to her room. They also prescribed her lithium (which is usually used to treat bipolar disorder).
12.
It was during her stay at the rehab center that a nurse shared with her clips of fans who were part of the #FreeBritney movement and were publicly drawing attention to end her conservatorship. Britney wrote of that, “That was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life. I don’t think people knew how much the #FreeBritney movement meant to me, especially in the beginning.”
13.
All the documentaries that came out about her were hard on Britney. While she understands “everyone’s heart was in the right place,” it hurt Britney to see her old friends not reach out to her about their participation in it first.
14.
Though she is no longer under a conservatorship, she has PTSD from it — which she says causes her migraines. She added, “I don’t think my family understands the real damage that they did.”
15.
Lastly, Britney’s return to music is uncertain. According to her, music was her life, but “the conservatorship was deadly for that; it crushed my soul.” At the moment, she says her career is not her focus, but that, “It’s time for me not to be someone who other people want; it’s time to actually find myself.”
You can read all the takeaways over at the New York Times (which I highly suggest). The Woman in Me lands on bookshelves next week on Oct. 24.
