Britney Spears' Memoir: 5 Bombshell Revelations From 'The Woman in Me'

Britney Spears new memoir, The Woman in Me, was released on Tuesday, following much anticipation and days of explosive headlines as excerpts were teased by various news outlets.

The book sees the pop star, 41, set the record straight on a number of areas of her life that had been speculated on in the decades since she rose to fame. She has also shared experiences that were not previously known to the public.

Among the moments in her life that have been written about are her 55-hour marriage to childhood friend Jason Alexander, and her high-profile romance with singer Justin Timberlake, whom she met as a child when the preteens co-starred on Disney's The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1990s.

Spears and Timberlake began dating in 1999 when Spears was already a pop sensation and Timberlake was the lead vocalist in NSYNC, then one of the world's biggest boy bands.

Timberlake and Spears went their separate ways in 2002. He is now married to actress Jessica Biel, with whom he shares sons Silas, 8, and Phineas, 3.

Spears wed dancer Kevin Federline in 2004 and had sons Sean Preston, 18, and Jayden James, 17, with him before the couple divorced in 2007.

Singer Spears tied the knot with model and personal trainer Hesam "Sam" Asghari in 2022. They separated 14 months later. In her book, Spears discusses her relationship with Asghari, although it was written before their separation.

As fans prepare to thumb through the pages of The Woman in Me, Newsweek has looked at five of the bombshell revelations made in the book.

Abortion at 19

Ahead of the book's release, it was revealed Spears wrote in the memoir that she became pregnant in the early 2000s during her high-profile relationship with then-NSYNC singer Timberlake, 42.

Spears wrote in her memoir that, while she was happy about the pregnancy, Timberlake was not ready to be a father. In the excerpt, Spears described the abortion as "one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life."

"It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn't a tragedy," Spears said of the unplanned pregnancy. "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.

"But Justin definitely wasn't happy about the pregnancy," the "Toxic" hitmaker said. "He said we weren't ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young.

"I agreed not to have the baby. I don't know if that was the right decision," Spears wrote. "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."

In response to the abortion revelation, a source for Timberlake told Entertainment Tonight: "Justin has been focusing on his own family and trying not to concern himself with Britney's memoir.

"In recent years, Justin has tried to be supportive of Britney from a distance. They dated so long ago, but he still has respect for her. Justin and Jessica just want everyone to grow and evolve instead of continuing to bring up the past."

Infidelity on Both Sides

Following several years of rumors, Spears accused Timberlake of cheating on her during their relationship in the book—while also admitting to infidelity on her part.

The rumors concerning Spears' infidelity reached a fever pitch soon after her split from Timberlake when he released the video for his single "Cry Me a River." As Timberlake sang lyrics that alluded to having been cheated on, his video co-star, who portrayed the woman who had wronged him, sported a style not dissimilar to Spears'.

In her book, Spears came clean after two decades of rumors and speculation when she said that she cheated on Timberlake with choreographer Wade Robson during a night out.

However, Spears also alleged that there were "a couple of times" that she "knew" Timberlake had also been unfaithful to her during their reign as pop's golden couple.

"Especially because I was so infatuated and so in love, I let it go, even though the tabloids seemed determined to rub my face in it," she said of Timberlake's alleged infidelity, adding that she saw paparazzi photos of him with another singer when he was in London in 2000.

On another occasion, she wrote, Timberlake allegedly suggested to one of her dancers that he'd been intimate with another woman. "I don't want to say who he was talking about because she's actually very popular and is married with kids now," Spears wrote. "I don't want her to feel bad."

Amid rumors that Timberlake had been intimate with various other women, Spears came to the conclusion that "clearly, he'd slept around."

Spears then described what she said was her one indiscretion during their relationship, and it was with Australian-born Robson, who had choreographed some of her most iconic music videos, including "I'm a Slave 4 U."

"We were out one night and we went to a Spanish bar," she recalled. "We danced and danced. I made out with him that night."

"I was loyal to Justin for years, only had eyes for him with that one exception, which I admitted to him," Spears wrote, adding that she and Timberlake "moved past it and stayed together."

Dumped Via Text Message

Spears wrote in her book that, after three years together, Timberlake informed her that the relationship was over via text message.

According to Spears, it came about while Timberlake was working on his debut solo album, Justified, a period of time in which he allegedly "started being very standoffish" with the star.

"I think that was because he'd decided to use me as ammunition for his record, and so it made it awkward for him to be around me staring at him with all that affection and devotion," she speculated.

"Ultimately, he ended our relationship by text message while I was on the set for the video for the 'Overprotected' remix by Darkchild," she wrote. "After seeing the message as I sat in my trailer between takes, I had to go back out and dance."

Spears said that she was "devastated" when the relationship ended. "When I say devastated, I mean I could barely speak for months," she said. "Whenever anyone asked me about him, all I could do was cry."

After traveling to her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana, to recuperate from the heartbreak, Spears said that Timberlake visited her, bearing a "long letter he'd written and framed."

While Spears recounted how Timberlake had written that he "can't breathe without" her, she still didn't "come out of the trance" she was in.

"He did all that, he came there to see me, and I still couldn't talk—to him or to anybody," she wrote.

Chris Applebaum, who directed Spears' "Overprotected" music video recently told Page Six that Timberlake dumped the singer via a text message that read: "It's over!!!"

Sexually Active at 14

While Spears burst onto the music scene in the late 1990s as pop's most famous self-declared virgin, she has admitted that she actually first had sex when she was 14.

Spears had initially declared that she wanted to remain a virgin until marriage, playing into the wholesome image that had been cultivated for her.

That changed, Spears wrote, when Timberlake "told everyone that he and I had had a sexual relationship, which some people have pointed out depicted me as not only a cheating s*** but also a liar and hypocrite."

"Given that I had so many teenage fans, my managers and press people had long tried to portray me as an eternal virgin—never mind that Justin and I had been living together, and I'd been having sex since I was fourteen."

Spears said that she wasn't angry with Timberlake for having revealed they'd had a sexually active relationship. "To be honest with you, I liked that Justin said that," she wrote.

"Why did my managers work so hard to claim I was some kind of young-girl virgin even into my twenties? Whose business was it if I'd had sex or not?

"I'd appreciated it when Oprah [Winfrey] told me on her show that my sexuality was no one else's business, and that when it came to virginity, 'you don't need a world announcement if you change your mind.'"

While Spears didn't name the person whom she first had sex with, she described him in the book as someone who was 17 at the time and was a friend of her older brother, Bryan Spears.

Seeing Sons During Conservatorship

Spears was famously locked into a controversial 13-year conservatorship—during which her personal and financial decisions were taken out of her hands. The arrangement, which began in 2008 amid mental health concerns, was dissolved by a judge in November 2021.

While Spears struggled with the restrictions of the conservatorship, she wrote in her book that she went along with the rules in an effort to see her two sons, who were under the sole legal and physical custody of her ex-husband Federline.

"My freedom in exchange for naps with my children—it was a trade I was willing to make. There is nothing more important to me on this Earth—than my children. I'd lay down my life for them. So, I thought, why not my freedom?"

It was one of a number of moments where Spears lovingly wrote about her sons, a year after a series of headlines suggested tumult behind the scenes.

In August 2022, Federline publicly shared video footage of Spears arguing with their sons, hours after the pop star lashed out at the teenagers in a since-deleted Instagram post.

Federline, who recently relocated from California to Hawaii, also gave an interview to Daily Mail in which he said that their sons had chosen not to see their mother in a number of months.