Britney Spears has revealed why she concealed the truth about losing her virginity for thirty years. The 43-year-old music superstar has admitted to keeping a significant secret for three decades.
Spears has become more open about her personal life since her father’s legal guardianship ended in 2021 after lasting 13 years. The mother of two also resolved additional legal disputes with her father, Jamie Spears, for an undisclosed amount last year.
Her recent autobiography, The Woman in Me, published in 2023, is gaining attention as readers discover previously unknown details about the pop sensation’s life. The performer rose to stardom at a young age under Disney’s guidance, and she wrote that when her career began, her publicists wanted to present her to the public in a particular manner.
This involved restrictions on discussing her romantic relationships – she was discouraged from revealing details like the age when she first had intimate relations. She explained: “The reality was, if you’re young and unmarried in Hollywood, even rumors about your intimate life can damage your reputation. So my team constructed this entire story about me.”
This occurred despite her well-known romance with Justin Timberlake, whom she met on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club in 1992 before they began dating publicly in 1999. The pair, both 18, even shared a home – yet Spears was still pressured to maintain the deception.
“Considering my large teenage fanbase, my management and publicity teams had long attempted to present me as perpetually innocent – despite the fact that Justin Timberlake and I were cohabiting, and I’d been sexually active since age fourteen,” she wrote in The Woman in Me. Even after their relationship ended in 2002, Spears continued the falsehood, stating in 2003 that her first intimate experience occurred ‘two years into my relationship with Justin.’
“Why did my management work so diligently to portray me as some sort of innocent young woman well into my twenties? Why was my private life anyone’s concern?” the ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ performer questioned. In her memoir, Spears finally disclosed the truth, explaining that she actually lost her virginity at 14 to her brother’s childhood friend, remembering that she was a freshman while he was a senior.
The revelation appears in her bestselling autobiography, which reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list during its debut week and is reportedly inspiring a Britney Spears film, to be helmed by Wicked director Jon M. Chu. The book chronicles the star’s struggles with psychological health, her father’s legal control, and other personal matters including industry mistreatment and her choice to terminate a pregnancy.
When her conservatorship concluded in 2021, Spears said she wouldn’t wish that suffering on anyone and found it extremely difficult to process what she had endured over the years.