‘We weren't ready.’ 16 famous women who have shared their abortion stories.

In Britney Spears' upcoming memoir, The Woman in Me, the singer has shared that she terminated a pregnancy while dating Justin Timberlake.

Spears, who was in a relationship with the boybander from 1998 until 2002, detailed what she described as the "most agonising thing I have ever experienced in my life" in a new excerpt.

"It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy. 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," she wrote. "But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young.

"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. To this day, it’s one of the most agonising things I have ever experienced in my life."

Here are 15 other celebrities who have been open about their experience with abortion. 

Abbie Chatfield.

Image: Getty.

In June 2022, following the overturning of the Roe V Wade laws in the United States, the TV personality shared her own heartache for the decision by posting her story on Instagram.

"As someone who has had an abortion, it made me sick," she wrote, before showing a picture of herself six weeks pregnant. "Thankfully, I had access to safe abortion literally the day after finding out that I was pregnant. I remember not sleeping the night before the procedure, worried that I had missed the cut-off date, and I would have to carry a child to term. I was 23 and had a decent job, but I did not want a child, and that was reason enough. It wasn’t an easy decision but it was the right decision.

"There are endless reasons to get an abortion, and some lawmakers in the US are even denying abortions to save the parent’s life, arguing that we are just vessels for potential life, not a form of life that already exists." 

Brooke Blurton.

Image: Getty.

Former Bachelorette Brooke Blurton opened up about her own experience on Instagram following Chatfield's vulnerable post. 

"Women can come together. We need [to]... After going through my own experience of an abortion only very little time ago. I am so lucky (if that’s the word to use) to have a choice," she said in her Instagram stories at the time.

Keke Palmer.

Image: Getty.

In 2019, the actor shared online her abortion story, telling supporters she'd chosen to terminate a pregnancy because, at the time, it was not good for her to raise a child.

"I was worried about my career responsibilities and afraid that I could not exist as both a career woman and mother," Palmer wrote in a tweet that has since been deleted.

She did, however, return to the platform now known as X (formerly Twitter) to write, "Twitter is sometimes too flat and too short to express intimate sentiments. Words without context, very annoying. I am disheartened about hearing the news in Alabama. I feel as if women's rights laws are going backwards. Individual choice is being taken. I’m truly so confused at the world [right now] and the policies that follow."

Chrissy Teigen.

Image: Getty.

In September 2022, Chrissy Teigen revealed that the miscarriage she said she'd had two years prior was actually an abortion.

"Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Jack – John and my third child – I had to make a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions," she said, per The Hollywood Reporter. "It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive and that I wouldn’t either without any medical intervention. 

"Let’s just call it what it was: It was an abortion. An abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance...

"I told the world we had a miscarriage, the world agreed we had a miscarriage, all the headlines said it was a miscarriage. And I became really frustrated that I didn’t, in the first place, say what it was, and I felt silly that it had taken me over a year to actually understand that we had had an abortion."

Stevie Knicks.

Image: Getty.

Legendary singer Stevie Knicks terminated a pregnancy back in 1979 when Fleetwood Mac was at the height of its fame.

She told The Guardian in 2020, "If I had not had that abortion, I’m pretty sure there would have been no Fleetwood Mac. There’s just no way that I could have had a child then, working as hard as we worked constantly."

Knicks continued, "And I knew that the music we were going to bring to the world was going to heal so many people’s hearts and make people so happy. And I thought: You know what? That’s really important. There’s not another band in the world that has two lead women singers, two lead women writers. That was my world’s mission."

Phoebe Bridgers.

Image: Getty.

The day after leaked documents indicated that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, Phoebe Bridgers shared her own experience on X.

"I had an abortion in October of [2021] while I was on tour. I went to Planned Parenthood where they gave me the abortion pill," she said. "It was easy. Everyone deserves that kind of access."

Maria Thattil.

Image: Getty.

Former Miss Universe Australia Maria Thattil had an abortion when she was just 21 years old, she wrote on Instagram. 

"I was 21 when I had my #abortion and there isn’t a single day that goes by where I am not grateful that I had [and] could safely access the procedure and healthcare for my circumstances," she said.

"I cannot imagine what I would’ve done had my right to healthcare been criminalised. I cannot imagine how my life would’ve turned out had I been forced to carry that pregnancy to term."

Ashley Judd.

Image: Getty.

At the 2019 Women in the World Summit, Ashley Judd made a very brave admission.

"As everyone knows, and I’m very open about it, I’m a three-time rape survivor. And one of the times I was raped, there was conception. And I’m very thankful I was able to access safe and legal abortion. Because the rapist – who is a Kentuckian, as am I – and I reside in Tennessee, [he] has paternity rights in Kentucky and Tennessee. I would’ve had to co-parent with my rapist," she explained.

"So having safe access to abortion was personally important to me, and as I said earlier, democracy starts with our skin. We’re not supposed to regulate what we choose to do with our insides."

Nicki Minaj.

Image: Getty.

Nicki Minaj is one of the most famous rappers in the world and told Rolling Stone in 2014 of the moment she swore she was "going to die" was when she learned she was pregnant.

"I was a teenager. It was the hardest thing I’d ever gone through," the performing artist explained, before adding she felt it was the right decision.

"It’d be contradictory if I said I wasn’t pro-choice. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have anything to offer a child."

Lauren Conrad.

Image: Getty.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Lauren Conrad reflected on her "lifesaving reproductive care" in a series of Instagram stories. 

"Six years ago, while trying to start our family, I had an ectopic pregnancy. Due to prompt medical care, doctors saved my fallopian tubes, allowing me to have two healthy pregnancies," she shared. 

"Yesterday I read about a woman with this same condition having her ectopic pregnancy rupture – and facing death –while waiting for treatment. Because her doctor was on the phone with his lawyer out of fear of losing his medical license (for using a D&C as a tool to help establish the diagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy). This is heartbreaking.

"... I hope someday we will be in a place where every woman has access to the healthcare she needs and the freedom to decide what happens in her own body."

Whoopi Goldberg.

Image: Getty.

In the book The Choices We Made: Twenty-Five Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion, Whoopi Goldberg was one of the many brave people to share her story.

"I found out I was pregnant when I was 14. I didn't get a period. I talked to nobody. I panicked," she said. Her pregnancy was during a time before Roe V. Wade, when safe and legal abortions were not accessible.

She took potentially deadly "concoctions" that other girls told her about in an attempt to terminate the pregnancy.

"I got violently ill," she wrote. "At that moment I was more afraid of having to explain to anybody what was wrong than of going to the park with a hanger, which is what I did."

Hannah Gadsby.

Image: Getty.

During an interview with Variety back in 2019, the comedian slammed the Alabama abortion ban, saying, "Had I been in that state, under these laws, under these politics at that time in my life, I would be dead. It's as simple as that.

"I was assaulted, raped, and very, very vulnerable. How was I going to raise a child? I would have ended up dead. How is that pro-life? You can't say women can't have abortions and then provide absolutely no infrastructure to help them."

Halsey.

Image: Getty.

In response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Halsey wrote an open letter for Vogue.

"Many people have asked me if, since carrying a child to term after years of struggling to do so, I have reconsidered my stance on abortion. The answer is firmly no. In fact, I have never felt more strongly about it," she penned.

The singer vividly recalled experiencing three miscarriages before the age of 24. "One of my miscarriages required 'aftercare', a gentle way of saying that I would need an abortion because my body could not terminate the pregnancy completely on its own, and I would risk going into sepsis without medical intervention," she wrote.

"During this procedure, I cried. I was afraid for myself, and I was helpless. I was desperate to end the pregnancy that was threatening my life...

"My abortion saved my life and gave way for my son to have his. Every person deserves the right to choose when, if, and how they have this dangerous and life-altering experience. I will hold my son in one arm, and fight with all my might with the other."

Jameela Jamil.

Image: Getty.

In 2019, The Good Place actor weighed in on the controversial "heartbeat bill" which intended to make it illegal for women to have an abortion after a heartbeat is detectable in the womb.

"I had an abortion when I was young, and it was the best decision I have ever made. Both for me, and for the baby I didn’t want, and wasn’t ready for, emotionally, psychologically and financially," Jamil wrote on X. 

"So many children will end up in foster homes. So many lives ruined. So very cruel."

Rose McGowan.

Image: Getty.

In response to a tweet that stated that at least one in four women has had or will have an abortion by age 45, the actor wrote, "I have had an abortion, and I support this message. I am not ashamed, nor should you be. That 60 per cent of those who choose to have abortions are already mothers says a lot – they understand more than anyone.

"I was on birth control, and it failed. I realised I could not bring a child into my world and simultaneously change the world. I do not regret my decision, and it was not made lightly. If you do not want an abortion, don’t get one. My body, my choice, my life."

Feature Image: Getty.