How Britney Spears survived life-threatening abortion
Singer Whitney Spears.
What you need to know:
- Her memoir, The Woman in Me, is symbolically written in solidarity with women's reproductive rights.
- Justin Timberlake categorically expressed his dissatisfaction towards using the safety of a hospital to conduct the abortion.
The Mickey Mouse Club was filmed in the ambience of Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and broadcast on the Disney channel. It was a talent-reinforcing boot-camp with an overcrowded itinerary that consisted of extensive dance rehearsals, singing lessons, acting classes, studio production and academic studies.
After her resounding individual brilliance on Broadway and New York’s famous School of the Performing Arts, 11-year-old Britney Spears was admitted to the club on November 11, 1993. She quickly became acquitted with a 12-year-old cast-mate called Justin Timberlake.
When her contractual participation concluded a year and a half later, Britney relocated to her hometown of Kentwood in Louisiana, eager to regain normalcy. After a near death experience during a car crash while driving her mom Lynn, she opted to return to show business.
Lynn had been in touch with a relentless entertainment lawyer she’d met on Britney's audition circuit, named Larry Rudolph, who contained a song titled Today that Toni Braxton had recorded for her second album. He sent it to Britney, she studied it and recorded it as her demo-tape in a studio in New Orleans. Larry played the demo-tape to enthusiastic British executive producer and founder of Jive Records Clive Calder. Clive invited Britney to New York City and after she sang Whitney Houston’s I have nothing, she was immediately signed to a recording contract at the age of 15.
A year into her contract, Jive connected Britney to iconic Swedish producer Max Martin. Max was a prominent representation of the nucleus of pop-culture, after his studio became the epicentre of success for 90s global teen pop hits by the Backstreet Boys and Earthquake Visions. Britney flew to Max's studio in Stockholm and recorded what would become her most famous single, Baby One More Time.
On October 23, 1998, at the age of 16, Britney's single Baby One More Time was released. It was preceded by her 11-track album under the same name on January 12, 1999, which rapidly sold over 10 million copies. Britney set an unprecedented standard when she debuted at number one on the Billboard top 200 charts, becoming the first ever woman to debut with a number one single and album at the same time.
She started touring with N-SYNC, an equally spectacular pop boys band of five that included Justin Timberlake. She had kept in touch with Justin throughout her busy schedule and by the time they started dating, she was profoundly smitten by him. They jointly bought an airy two-storey house in Orlando, which they cradled in during each hiatus from their collegiality in the limelight. Shortly after their relationship commenced, Britney started taking Prozac pills to cope with the mental discomfort of Justin's rumoured infidelity.
Pictures of him sleeping with British girl band's All Saints singer Nicole Appleton at the back of a car were subsequently published in British tabloid The Sun, during N-SYNC's tour of London. Britney retaliated by sleeping with her dancer Wade Robson and expressed that it was the only exception to the rule, in her otherwise unwavering loyalty to Justin. Her infatuation with Justin led her to the presumption that their relationship would last a lifetime. Therefore, when Britney discovered she was pregnant at 19, she was surprised, but didn't consider it tragic. Justin was of a different opinion and he affirmed that they were too young to be parents.
In Britney's pro-choice memoir, The Woman in Me, which is symbolically written in solidarity with women's reproductive rights, she eloquently articulates that their relationship was monumental to her, leading to her concession to Justin's demands for an abortion, with the surety that they would conclusively nurture a family in future.
Whitney Spears' memoir The Woman in Me.
Justin categorically expressed his dissatisfaction towards using the safety of a hospital to conduct the abortion, an option that was inconsiderate and egregiously risky. It was important to him that no one, including their families or the press, found out about the pregnancy or the abortion. On the appointed day, Britney took abortion pills, under the keen scrutiny of Justin and started having excruciating cramps.
She walked into the constricted confines of her bathroom and sat on the floor for hours, sobbing from the regression. The pain was so astronomical, she screamed and pleaded with Justin to rush her to hospital so that an anaesthesiologist could administer pain-relieving medication to subdue the throbbing.
All he did was walk into the bathroom with a guitar and strummed it. Britney lay on the floor for hours, with the detrimental conviction that she was about to die. When the pain eventually receded, the convulsions of depression and anxiety all interwoven with grief, invaded her conscience. It was the most agonising physical and psychological distress she had ever endured.
After the abortion, Justin began emitting indifferent signs of hostility towards her. His predetermined agenda of absconding the relationship dawned on Britney, she had been so affectionately in love with him, she was naively blinded from noticing a beckoning breakup.
Justin ultimately ended the relationship via a text message while Britney was on set, recording the video to her song Overprotected.
When Justin recorded his first solo album Justified, he ridiculed Britney in his first single Cry Me a River, worsening her mental state. She was clinically in shock and barely spoke for months, avoiding her family and friends.
She’d lock herself in her house and spend the whole day in bed staring at the ceiling. Justin eventually flew to Kentwood to visit her and brought her a framed handwritten letter that had an apologetic reconciliatory message.
The writer is a novelist, Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative and founder of Jeff’s Fitness Centre (@jeffbigbrother, [email protected]).
