Justin Timberlake to Colin Farrell: Every big revelation from Britney Spears’ book so far

Britney Spears’ long-awaited book, The Woman In Me, is finally out in the UK, after it was accidentally put on sale early in Mexico days ago. Anyway, even if you haven’t got your hands on a copy yet, big revelations about Britney’s life are being dropped on the Twitter timeline every single hour. And it’s hard to keep track.

So in case you’ve been having trouble following all of the latest updates, here are all of the biggest stories from Britney’s memoir The Woman In Me, as they emerge online:

She used to ‘go out for cocktails’ with her mum when she was in year nine

Britney claims that she would drink daiquiris with her mum Lynne when she was in the eighth grade (year nine in the UK), meaning she’d have been around 13 or 14. “For fun, starting when I was in eighth grade, my mom and I would make the two-hour drive from Kentwood to Biloxi, Mississippi, and while we were there, we would drink daiquiris,” she wrote, in an excerpt obtained by People.

“We called our cocktails ‘toddies.’ I loved that I was able to drink with my mom every now and then. The way we drank was nothing like how my father did it. When he drank, he grew more depressed and shut down. We became happier, more alive and adventurous.”

Justin Timberlake cheated on Britney with ‘another celebrity’ during their relationship

As well as speaking out about her relationship with her parents, Britney also claims in her memoir that Justin Timberlake cheated on her with “another celebrity”. She doesn’t name the woman but there has long been speculation Justin had a relationship with Nicole Appleton – a singer from the girl band All Saints. Justin was famously seen with Nicole going back to his London hotel after a night out in 2000 but the rumour has never been substantiated and neither Justin nor Nicole have ever commented on the claims.

Britney ‘had an abortion’ after getting pregnant with Justin Timberlake’s baby

Britney reveals in her memoir she had an abortion in 2000 while she dating Justin: “It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy,” Britney wrote of her pregnancy in an excerpt obtained by People. “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.

“He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young,” she explained. “I’m sure people will hate me for this, but I agreed not to have the baby. I don’t know if that was the right decision. 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,” she said, adding it was “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.” Fans now think the ordeal inspired her song Everytime, as a baby is born during the music video.

She accuses Justin of speaking with a blaccent when trying to impress the rapper Ginuwine

Thanks to his penchant for cornrows throughout the ’90s, Justin Timberlake has often been accused of cultural appropriation. And Britney appears to allude her put on a “blaccent” when speaking to the rapper Ginuwine in her memoir. “One day J [Justin] and I were in New York going to parts of town I had never been to before,” she writes. “Walking our way was a guy with a huge, blinged-out medallion. He was flanked by two giant security guards. J got all excited and said, so loud, ‘Oh yeah, fo’ shiz, fo’ shiz! Ginuwine, what’s up homie?'”

Britney cheated on Justin Timberlake ‘with her choreographer Wade Robson’

According to The New York Times, who’ve managed to get a copy of Britney’s book before the release, she admits to cheating on Justin during their relationship with her Oops…I Did It Again and I’m A Slave 4 U choreographer, Wade Robson. When she and Justin broke up in 2022, people wondered what the reason was and – after he released Cry Me A River – assumed it was because he was cheated on.

“We were out one night and we went to a Spanish bar. We danced and danced. I made out with him that night,” ” Britney writes of the infidelity. However, she claims apart from that “one exception”, she never cheated on Justin and told him about the kiss with Wade, which they were able to move on from and continue their relationship.

She was actually really scared of the python she performed with at the VMAs

One of Britney’s most iconic performances of all time was undoubtedly when she performed with a snake while singing I’m a Slave 4 U at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. But in her memoir, she reveals she was actually pretty terrified during the song.

“All I knew was to look down, because I felt if I looked up and caught its eye, it would kill me,” she writes. “In my head I was saying, ‘Just perform, just use your legs and perform.’ But what nobody knows is that as I was singing, the snake brought its head right around to my face, right up to me, and started hissing.”

Britney almost got the female lead in The Notebook with Ryan Gosling

Britney’s book also contains details of what could have been if she’d made different choices in her acting career. She reveals she was almost case to play Rachel McAdams’ role of Allie in The Notebook, alongside Ryan Gosling, but was busy with other projects.

“Filming [my movie Crossroads] wasn’t easy for me,” she writes. “That [film] was pretty much the beginning and end of my acting career, and I was relieved…The Notebook casting came down to me and Rachel McAdams,” she claims. “And even though it would have been fun to reconnect with Ryan Gosling after our time on the Mickey Mouse Club, I’m glad I didn’t do it. If I had, instead of working on my album In the Zone, I’d have been acting like a 1940s heiress day and night.”

Britney had a fun relationship with Colin Farrell but wasn’t over Justin Timberlake at the time

Everyone has been fascinated by the relationship Britney had with movie star Colin Farrell for years but she’s never really spoken about it until now. And, in a passage of her book obtained by Time, she details how the fling actually happened.

According to the book, Britney was set up with Colin while he was filming the action film S.W.A.T in 2002 by a “club promoter friend”. She then visited Colin on set and they started what she described as a “two-week brawl” type fling.

“Brawl is the only word for it — we were all over each other, grappling so passionately it was like we were in a street fight,” she writes. “As I had before when I’d felt too attached to a man, I tried to convince myself in every way that it was not a big deal, that we were just having fun, that in this case, I was vulnerable because I wasn’t over Justin yet,” she admits, adding the relationship wasn’t serious but “for a brief moment in time” she “did think there could be something there.”

She shaved her head in 2007 as an act of rebellion against the people trying to control her

Famously, Britney shaved her head in front of 70 photographers after leaving rehab in 2007. Although the incident was widely reported as a “breakdown” at the time, and ultimately led to her court ordered conservatorship, Britney reveals in her memoir she was actually lashing out against being controlled and judged.

“I’d been eyeballed so much growing up. I’d been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager. Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back,” she writes in the excerpt obtained by People. “But under the conservatorship I was made to understand that those days were now over. I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take.”

She compared her sister Jamie Lynn’s lifestyle to Ariana Grande’s song 7 rings

Britney and her sister Jamie Lynn have had a complicated relationship in the public eye in recent years. But in Woman In me, Britney claims Jamie Lynn had basically everything she could have ever wanted growing up. “That’s how we all were with Jamie Lynn: ‘You see it, you like it, you want it, you got it.’ As far as I could tell, her world was the Ariana Grande song ‘7 Rings’ come to life,” she wrote.

At first, Britney went along with her conservatorship so she could see her children

Britney has two sons, Sean and Jayden, and she reveals in Women In Me that she initially went along with her conservatorship for them, having temporarily lost custody of them in 2008 following her divorce and public head-shaving. “I did it for my kids,” she writes. “Because I played by the rules, I was reunited with my boys…Even though I begged the court to appoint literally anyone else — and I mean, anyone off the street would have been better — my father was given the job.”

Her father repeatedly ‘fat-shamed’ her throughout her conservatorship

Britney also claims that her father fat-shamed her throughout her conservatorship, which she was under for 13 years. “I became a robot. But not just a robot—a sort of child-robot. I had been so infantilized that I was losing pieces of what made me feel like myself,” she wrote, as per Billboard.

“The conservatorship stripped me of my womanhood, made me into a child. I became more of an entity than a person onstage. I had always felt music in my bones and my blood; they stole that from me.” Britney was told she’d have to grow her hair long and “get back into shape,” according to her dad. “He repeatedly told me I looked fat and that I was going to have to do something about it,” she wrote. “If I thought getting criticised about my body in the press was bad, it hurt even more from my own father.”

Britney didn’t perform properly during her Las Vegas residency because she was traumatised

When Britney performed her Piece of Me show in Las Vegas, she was criticised heavily. “In the most demoralizing moments of my Las Vegas residency, I wore tight wigs, and I’d dance in a way where I wouldn’t move a hair on my head. Everyone who was making money off me wanted me to move my hair, and I knew it—and so I did everything but that,” she explains in her memoir.

“When I look back, I realize how much of myself I withheld onstage, how much by trying to punish the people who held me captive I punished everyone else, too including my loyal fans, including myself. But now I know why I’d been sleepwalking through so much of the past thirteen years. I was traumatized.”

Recommended stories by this writer:

• Why Britney Spears fans think Everytime is about her abortion with Justin Timberlake

• Ranked: The 20 greatest Britney Spears album track bangers you never knew you needed

• The definitive ranking of Britney Spears music videos, based on how iconic they are

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