Britney Spears Reveals She Had an Abortion: Is Justin Timberlake the father of her child?

Britney Spears Reveals She Had an Abortion: Twenty years ago, Britney Spears covered a traumatic experience that she is now disclosing.

The pop icon, 41, discloses in her forthcoming memoir The Woman in Me that she became pregnant with Justin Timberlake’s child during their relationship but later had an abortion.

Britney Spears Reveals She Had an Abortion: Is Justin Timberlake the father of her child?

“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,” Spears writes of the pregnancy in the book. “But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young.”

A Timberlake representative did not respond to PEOPLE‘s request for comment at this time.

She writes in the book, “Had it been up to me alone, I never would have carried out that action.” However, Justin was adamant that he did not desire to become a parent.

Spears describes her abortion procedure in an article: “I still recall it as one of the most excruciating ordeals of my life.”

Following her divorce from Timberlake in 2002, Spears became a mother to two sons with her second spouse, Kevin Federline: Sean Preston, 18, and Jayden James, 17.

On October 24, Spears’ highly anticipated memoir will be published by Gallery Books, a publishing house affiliated with Simon & Schuster.

Almost two years have passed since Spears was released from the court-ordered conservatorship that had held her for the previous thirteen years. In November 2021, the conservatorship was adjourned subsequent to Spears’ impassioned public testimony in court in June 2021.

Promising to reveal “for the first time her incredible journey (and) strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history,” according to a press release from Gallery Books, the singer’s memoir “illuminates the enduring power of music and love — and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms.”