Britney Spears Says She Felt "Exploited" by That Infamous Diane Sawyer Interview

Britney Spears has been dropping bombshell revelations leading up to the release of her memoir The Woman In Me, from recounting her Y2K party days with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to confirming the cheating rumors between her and her choreographer Wade Robson. Spears is also sharing a number of truths about her tumultuous early 2000s relationship with Justin Timberlake.

According to The New York Times, Spears was "devastated" and considering leaving the industry after Timberlake broke up with her via text. She goes on to say that when he released his music video for "Cry Me a River," she felt it portrayed “a woman who looks like me cheats on him, and he wanders around sad in the rain." She writes that the media saw her as a “harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy.” Meanwhile, she was "comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.”

Following the breakup, Spears said she felt forced by her father, Jamie Spears, and management team to do the now-infamous Diane Sawyer interview, where the reporter pressed Spears on what she did to Timberlake to cause him “so much pain.” She adds that this segment was the "breaking point" for her. "I felt like I had been exploited,” she says, “set up in front of the whole world.”

In another part of the book, Spears reveals that she had an abortion during their relationship because Timberlake thought they were "too young" to have a baby, though if it was her decision alone, she "never would have done it." “But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy," she writes. "He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young."

Reps for Timberlake have not responded to InStyle's request for comment.

The Woman in Me comes out Oct. 24.