Singer Britney Spears recalls feeling “devastated” after she said Justin Timberlake broke off their three-year romance through text message in her memoir, The Woman in Me.
In her deeply personal memoir The Woman in Me, released Oct. 24, the “Sometimes” singer Britney Spears recalled the end of her three-year relationship with ex Justin Timberlake, who she said broke up with her through a text in 2002.
“After seeing the message as I sat in my trailer in between takes,” she writes of being on the set of her “Overprotected” music video, “I had to go back out and dance.”
“For as much as Justin hurt me, there was a huge foundation of love and when he left me, I was devastated,” she adds, “When I say devastated, I mean I could barely speak for months.
Whenever anyone asked me about him, all I could I do is cry. I don’t know if I was clinically in shock, but it felt that way.”
The Grammy winner even thought about permanently leaving Hollywood in the rear-view mirror and moving back home to Louisiana, before opting for a more temporary break.
“I barely left the house,” she notes of her time in Kentwood, “I was that messed up. I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling.”
That’s when, as singer Britney Spears revealed, the “Like I Love You” singer paid her a visit.
“He brought me a long letter he’d written and framed,” she explains, “I still have it under my bed. And at the end it said—it makes me want to cry to think about it—‘I can’t breathe without you.’ Those are the last words in it.”
After reading his words, Britney recalled being in disbelief over their mutual heartbreak.
“It almost felt like I was suffocating,” she notes, “like I couldn’t breathe after all that happened. The thing is, though, even after I saw him and read the letter, I didn’t come out of the trance. He did all that, he came there to see me and I still couldn’t talk—to him or to anybody.”
Elsewhere in her memoir, singer Britney Spears who also opened up about the couple deciding to have an abortion before their breakup reflected on stepping back into the public eye post-breakup. And one moment in time that stood out to her was when Justin dropped the video for his 2003 single for “Cry Me a River.”
As the “Toxic” singer writes, the video features “a woman who looks like me cheats on him and he wanders around sad in the rain.”
However, Britney says she was still grappling with their aftermath of their split, noting while she was feeling “comatose in Louisiana” he was “happily running around Hollywood.”
Shortly before the book’s release, Britney shared that the purpose of her memoir “was not to offend anyone by any means.”
“I have moved on and it’s a beautiful clean slate from here!!!” her Oct. 20 Instagram post read. “Either way this is the last of it and s–t happens!!!”
As she explained, “This is actually a book I didn’t know needed to be written…although some might be offended, it has given me closure on all things for a better future.”