As the release of Britney Spears‘ upcoming tell-all memoir, The Woman in Me, gets closer, more details from the long-awaited book are getting revealed.
Earlier this week, People revealed a shocking excerpt of the book in which the pop superstar had an abortion after an unexpected pregnancy with then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake. In an extended excerpt published by The Associated Press, Spears went into further detail. “I’m sure people will hate me for this, but I agreed not to have the baby. Abortion was something I never could have imagined choosing for myself, but given the circumstances, that is what we did,” she writes. “It was important that no one find out about the pregnancy or the abortion, which meant doing everything at home.”
She adds of the pain from the medication abortion was “excruciating.” “I kept crying and sobbing until it was all over,” she writes. “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.”
In a copy of the memoir obtained by Billboard, after describing her abortion experience, Spears added that she still has love for her ex-boyfriend, who she began dating in 1999 until their split in 2002. “After that, I was messed up for a while, especially because I still love Justin so much,” she writes. “It was insane how much I loved him, and for me, it was unfortunate.”
In the earlier excerpt published by People, Spears said that the pregnancy was a “surprise,” even thought she always “expected” to start a family with Timberlake. “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,” she wrote, adding, “To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.”
The Woman in Me arrives Oct. 24.
